by Joshua James
“My husband, Matt, took our son Thomas to work that day. I saw the explosion from our house, burned out both of my retinas, blinded me. Hence these guys.” She pointed at her eyes.
“Shit,” Ben said.
“Shit,” agreed Morgan.
Ben pursed his lips. “Look, I get where you guys are coming from. I mean, look at me. I lost an arm, a leg, and a mom.”
“And maybe a dad,” offered Ace. Morgan elbowed him. “Ow, just saying.”
“I want revenge. You want revenge. I get it. But I guess my question is,” Ben said, shrugging, “what do you want from me?”
“Help us get a neural implant from the Oblivion,” Ace said. “If you still think afterward that you want to go to the UEF with it, you’ll have that much more evidence.”
Morgan shrugged. “It’s just one mission. I know how you military boys like to think about things in missions.”
“So that part is true? You two are cops, not military? You just worked with the Marines?”
“Everything we told you is true,” she said. “We just … left a couple of things out.”
“Such as?” Ben prompted.
“Not yet,” Ace said.
“What’s the state secret, Ace?” Morgan snapped.
“I said not yet,” he said darkly.
“And I said don’t tell me what the hell to do,” she said. She stood slowly to face him. She had her hand on her pistol.
It suddenly seemed quite possible that Ben could get killed in a shootout between two people who’d kidnapped him.
The comedy of life never ended.
“Listen, assholes,” Ben said, getting to his feet between the two of them. He was unarmed, and held out his palms toward each of them. “Just take it easy.”
Ace spat on the ground, but he moved his hand away from his blaster. Morgan let her hand casually drop from the handle of her pocket pistol.
Ben breathed easier, then rubbed the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. “I can’t believe I got kidnapped by a couple of trigger-happy weirdoes.”
“She started it,” Ace said.
“Very mature,” Morgan said.
“So somebody tell me exactly why you wanted me,” Ben said.
“Because you’d believe us,” Ace said.
“And?” Ben asked. He knew there was more.
“And you’re rich,” Morgan said. “And connected.”
Ben reeled like he’d been punched. It seemed so simple and obvious that he realized it was true. “You’re cut off.”
Morgan nodded. “All assets frozen. All contacts wiped, all—”
“Full wipe,” Ace said. “We’re completely screwed on this rock.”
“I’m not rich—” Ben began.
“You’re rich enough, and you still have access to your funds. We got jack shit.”
“I thought you had off-planet contacts,” Ben said to Morgan.
“Yeah,” she said. “‘Off’ being the key word. On this planet, we got nothing.”
Ben shook his head. “My connections went away when I was discharged.”
Morgan shook her head. “You still have search credentials,” she said, “until the end of your discharge month. I looked it up.”
“You looked it up?”
“We just need you to help pay for fuel for the ship and get us access for a query. It’ll just be one query. In and out. We know the Oblivion cell that was directly linked with the off-world plans. The ones involving the Atlas.” She paused. “We just need to get a neural implant off one of the cult members there. It’ll have all the data we need.”
“And then we need to jump away from this rock and never come back,” Ace said.
There was a pregnant pause as Ace finished speaking. Morgan nodded, but said nothing more.
Ben struggled to come to terms with what they were saying. This was all true now. It made sense. He understood why they needed him. And more than anything, it meant that they really did know something about what the Oblivion cult was doing. About the aliens they seemed to be working with.
“They’ll know the instant we run the search,” he said at last.
Ace and Morgan exchanged a glance. Ace smiled. “Oh, we know that. It’s a smash and grab job.”
“And then off-planet?”
“What, you got something holding you here anymore?”
Ace asked it with snark, but the words were like a kick in the teeth for Ben. He was right. What was holding him here anymore?
“Okay,” he said at last. “I’m in.”
Nineteen
Lee
“Are you sure you want to do this, sir? I mean, we can go in ourselves.” Rollins stood outside the closed, airtight door to the engine room.
Standing across from him, but close to Rollins, was Saito. Next to him were Sousa and one of the Marines. All four of them outside that door were armed. Rollins, Sousa, and Saito had their pistols. The lone Marine carried an assault rifle.
“I gave Chevenko the bridge. I need to know what happened down here, and we need to fix it. Otherwise those dreadnoughts will turn us into space scrap,” responded Saito.
“None of us are engineers, sir,” Sousa pointed out.
“We’ll figure it out. Now open the door, Commander.”
“Sir, yes sir.” In one hand, Rollins had his pistol. In the other, he had a crowbar-like tool, meant to open sealed bulkhead doors on the Atlas. After holstering his pistol, he went to work on the door.
Even though he was a strong young man, Rollins had a little trouble getting the doors to engineering open. It took some grunting, burning muscles, and hurting hands, but eventually he managed to pry them apart.
The lone UEF Marine insisted on going in first. It was his job to protect Saito. He’d be damned if that wasn’t what he was going to do.
Emergency lighting lit the engine room red. Immediately upon opening the door, the stench of fire, blood, and death hit the group of four. Sousa started to cough.
“Let’s start with engines one thorough four. I want any survivors accounted for before they get out of here. Understood?” Saito wanted to make sure that anyone in engineering that still lived didn’t run off. In his gut, he knew the engines had been sabotaged before the AIC attacks had begun, and he needed to know who that saboteur was and question them. His nightmare scenario was that there were more on his ship.
“Understood,” said the Marine. He turned left, towards the narrow corridor that led to engines one, two, three, four, and five.
The further the group went down the corridor to the engine room, the hotter it got. Smoke obscured their vision. None of them knew exactly where the fire was coming from.
Millions of thoughts ran through Saito’s mind. All of them centered around what his next course of action was.
“What the hell happened here?” asked Sousa.
The corridors of engineering were claustrophobic. Countless wires and pipes lined the walls. Parts of the structure stuck out, threatening to knock into shins and heads, making paying attention important.
“There was an explosion down here, from the inside,” said Rollins.
Saito tried to keep things calm. “We don’t know that.”
“We do know…may I speak frankly, sir?” asked Rollins.
Saito ducked, just barely banging into a circuit box. “Please do.”
Rollins said what most of them were thinking. “We know that the damage we took from the attack wasn’t enough to cripple this ship.”
“What do you mean?” asked the Marine as he stepped over a dead engineer. He didn’t quite clear the splayed-out arm, and his ankle twisted. He nearly fell over, and there was a sick squishing sound as he found his footing by smashing down the arm.
“Will you be careful, Bucky?” Sousa snapped, immediately giving Saito a name to go with the rank.
“Sorry,” Bucky said.
Sousa rolled his eyes. “Go on, Rollins.”
“Like I was saying, even without shielding, the armor
around the engineering section is thicker than the rest of the ship’s armor for obvious reasons. Now, the shockwave from the stage-four missile explosion was enough to knock out the remaining engines, yes, but we lost several before that. That’s why we weren’t able to outrun those bastards,” explained Rollins.
“It had to be sabotage,” added Sousa.
“So you’re saying it was blown up from the inside?” asked Bucky, who didn’t seem to be blessed with the quickest mind.
“Looks that way,” Saito said. “But this is all still speculation at this point.”
The group passed a couple more dead engineers. It looked as if they’d died in the explosions, burned to a crisp. Gruesome as it was, Saito’s group did their best to pay them no mind and keep moving.
“Does that mean we…is there a traitor on board?” Bucky asked.
“Absolutely,” answered Sousa, muffled by his free hand over his mouth to ward off the terrible odor of the engineering level.
The reality of the Atlas’ situation was grim. For all the advanced technology and weaponry aboard the dreadnought, it was helpless. With no engines or shielding, all they could do was float aimlessly and hope that the AIC dreadnoughts didn’t finish them off.
Saito knew that the Atlas’ crew was running out of time. Sooner or later the remains of the AIC fleet would find them, board them, and finish off the job. Having lost the vast majority of the on-board Marines in the initial attack in the docking bay, trying to fight them off inside the ship was a losing proposition. Their only hope was to restore power to the engines and run.
Suddenly, Saito felt someone grab his ankle.
Twenty
Lee
Fighting off his natural instinct to jerk away, Saito managed to simply stop and look down. All he saw was a dirty hand and forearm jutting out from under some piping and wiring against one wall.
“Sir! Step back, sir!” snapped Bucky. His assault rifle was trained on the arm grabbing the captain’s ankle. Apparently the talk of traitors in their midst had spooked him.
“Are you really pointing a weapon at a survivor?” He stared daggers at the Marine.
“Uh, no sir?” Bucky seemed confused, but lowered his rifle.
Saito reached down and took the charred hand in his. Slowly, a member of the engineering crew inched their way out from their hiding spot. Her brown uniform was in almost as bad a shape as the woman herself.
The woman’s face and uniform were covered in blood and soot. It wasn’t clear if it was her blood or someone else’s. Her eyes were wide and rapidly searched around, as if she was looking for something. She was clearly in shock.
“What’s your name?” Saito said.
The woman didn’t answer. The pop of a broken wire made her jump, and then cower.
“Do you know who I am?” Saito tried again.
“You don’t understand,” answered the woman.
“What don’t we understand?” asked Rollins.
The woman started crying. At first it was just a little bit, but within seconds she fully broke down and started sobbing. Through her tears and sniffles, she mumbled what sounded like nonsense. But Saito didn’t think it was nonsense.
“Slow down,” urged Saito, trying to start over again. “What happened here? What’s your name?”
“They changed. Oh God, they changed. And the sound… I can still hear it.” The woman grabbed onto Saito’s sleeve. With a crazed look in her eye she yelled, “The sound!”
“How did they change?” Saito asked, trying to keep his voice low and comforting.
“They were like you and me, and then I saw it, something terrible. They killed them. They killed them all!”
“She’s crazy,” Sousa said.
“No, she’s scared,” Saito answered.
“With all due respect, sir, I agree with Lieutenant Sousa. Please, get away from her, something isn’t right,” Rollins said. “We’ll call in medics.”
“She’s traumatized,” Saito said. “We’re not leaving her here until medics can get here. She’s coming with us.”
The woman scurried back, hitting the wire- and pipe-covered wall. Then she slid down to her rear on the grated floor. She manically shook her head and kept muttering to herself. “No, no, no! I’m not…we need to leave. It’s still here!”
As if on cue, the group heard a loud screeching noise echo throughout the engineering deck. It didn’t sound mechanical. It sounded as if it came from an animal of some sort.
“What the hell was that?” Sousa said.
“Are we sure that all power to the engines is shut down?” asked Rollins.
“We need to leave! Or it’ll kill us too.” The woman’s hysterics didn’t stop, but once Bucky had her standing up, she kept following along with them, refusing to be left alone.
Ahead of the group was a fork in the corridors. One way was to the first engine room, which housed engines one through five. The other engine room housed the remainder.
Bucky led the group to the first engine room. Neither he nor the rest of the group was ready for what awaited them there.
Atlas’ engines weren’t new innovations; just improvements on similar engines found on the Navy’s dreadnoughts. Like those found on older ships, they were very large, about the height of a two-story building and the width of a ranch home each. Engines one, two, and three looked as if they’d been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Large gaping holes with smoke bellowing out of them—all in the same place, smack dab in the middle—made it clear that they were manually blown up. Accidents tended not to create perfect patterns.
But it wasn’t the state of the engines that shocked Saito. It was the state of the engineering crew.
They were wiped out. They weren’t just killed, but it looked as if something had torn them apart. Pieces, human body pieces, were everywhere. Blood splattered every surface.
“Jesus Christ! What in the hell happened here?” Rollins asked.
Sousa vomited on the grated floor. Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes, he was staring down at the pooled blood and guts below from the savaged crew. “Oh God,” he said before he threw up again.
Saito knelt down and picked up a pair of charred dog tags. He couldn’t even read the name.
Rollins made his way through the carnage and gore to the engines. “I’ve seen this before, sir, in my time with the army,” he said, pointing at the hole in the nearest engine assembly. “These were from shape charges. We used them to breach doors and bulkheads.”
No one needed to explain what that meant. Even Bucky figured that one out. Saito felt anger, sadness, and, most acutely, profound failure. He examined the deformed bodies of his dead crew all around him. The one nearest his feet had extensive burns. “Some of these were from the explosions. You can tell by their burns and injuries.” He pointed to one of the numerous bodies near him. “See here, this trauma, it’s consistent with the percussive damage of a grenade or plastic explosives.”
“What about the rest of them?” asked Sousa as he wiped the vomit from his lips. “Looks like, I dunno…”
It’s frenzied, wild, like an animal attack or something.
Saito took a closer look at some of the other dead. Nothing was clean. There weren’t clean cuts or slashes. Everything looked haphazard, not clinical.
“I’m not sure who or what did this, but it doesn’t look or feel human,” stated Saito as he stood back up.
“Then what—?” Sousa was cut off by another loud screech.
Everyone was quiet for several seconds.
Sousa grabbed the woman from engineering. “No more bullshit, what is that?”
“This is no time to panic, Captain,” said Saito. Even if the woman wanted to make more sense, it was clear she was in too much shock to do so.
“No time to panic, sir? There’s something in here with us. And I’ll bet that that something is what tore these poor people to pieces.” Sousa was close to breaking.
“We need to check the other engines,
” Saito said, hoping a clear mission parameter would cool Sousa down. “Let’s go to the second engine room.”
Saito had just turned when something caught his eye.
One of the corpses got up to one knee off the grated floor. His movement was unnatural, like a child standing up on two legs for the first time. As he tried to steady himself, he made an odd static noise, similar to a television or when you try to plug in broken headphones.
“Another survivor,” Rollins said. “Maybe we can ask—”
“Get away! Get away from it! Run!” yelled the terrified woman as she tried to follow her own advice.
“Commander, maybe you shouldn’t,” said Bucky.
“Yeah, man, something is definitely wrong here,” pointed out Sousa as he and the others watched the survivor twitch violently and move his limbs around in an amazed way, as if he had never used them before.
“He’s probably just in shock.” Rollins held out his left hand in an attempt to soothe and help the survivor. “It’s okay. We’re here to help. We can get you outta here to the med bay.”
The risen man opened his eyes, revealing shining metal orbs. Instead of just his mouth opening, the man’s neck split open and let out a loud screech, similar to the ones the group had heard before. Without any warning, what looked to be a blade made of bone and metal jutted out of one of his arms and cleaved off Rollins’ outstretched hand.
Twenty-One
Lee
Rollins screamed and spun away, holding the stump of his arm. It had been cleanly severed just above the wrist.
“Holy…!” yelled Bucky seconds before firing on the risen corpse. His bullets hit their mark, but simply passed through the risen corpse’s skin, flesh, and bone. It didn’t appear fazed at all. Instead, it screeched again and charged him.
