by J. N. Chaney
“We will,” I said. “We’ll figure out a way. We always figure out a way. We’ve been sabotaged by Disciples, attacked by some weird alien symbiotic virus, and shot at by aliens, and we’re still here. We’re going to make it, Rick, if for no other reason than we’re too stubborn to die.”
Ricky smiled at that then rested his head against the rear of the crawler. His eyes tilted upward to the canopy of tree branches overhead.
“Have you thought about what happens if we can’t make it off this rock?” Ricky asked. “I mean, if we survive all of this and we still can’t get back to Earth?”
“Honestly, I’m just trying to take it one day at a time,” I said. “We got the long-range scanners up and running. We’ll figure out the communication piece next while we deal with Legion.”
“But what’s the end game here?” Ricky tuned his gaze from the clear sky back to me. “I mean, what if we do all of this and we can’t call for help or get off this planet? What if we’re stuck forever?”
“Then I guess we’re stuck forever, and as bad as that sounds, we’ll have to make do. What other option will we have?” I asked him. “But right now, our focus has to be on the next step and the next step after that.”
“I—”
Whatever Ricky was going to say next was cut off by Stacy’s voice. “Gang, we’re getting close. The visibility ahead of us is decreasing.”
Both Ricky and I turned our attention forward. Sure enough, Stacy had made great time. We were still a few hours ahead of the setting suns. With any luck, we could get into the site’s safety before nightfall.
The massive question mark was would we be able to make it past the mist? A hundred meters in front of us, a light rolling fog wafted through the forest. The strangest thing about the fog was it almost knew how far to go into the forest without advancing further.
The fog remained content to stay in a long line that continued on as far as the eye could see on both the right and left side. Eventually, the wall of mist was lost to sight.
“This road will lead us to the installation,” Tong said, nodding. “By your measurements, it is three kilometers into the mist.”
“Remind me again why you chose to build your installation in a mist with monsters?” I asked.
“When we built this installation, there was no sign of the mist or creatures that lived inside of it,” Tong answered. “Both the mist and the creatures must have overtaken this area while my people slept.”
“Any idea of what kind of animal we’re dealing with here?” Arun continued the line of questioning. All of our eyes were still on the rolling mist wall in front of us. “Did this creature exist while you were here?”
“It’s hard to say.” Tong tapped a large finger against his small chin. “The report Doctor Allbright gave of the creatures in the mist isn’t much to go on.”
“She never saw one face to face,” Stacy said in a low tone, recalling the report. “She couldn’t tell how large they were, only that they moved quickly and had what looked like tentacles.”
“The only species I know of that are equipped with tentacles as well as the ability to move on land is an animal called the sawg, but that creature is content to remain in the ocean and is not an eater of meat,” Tong answered. “Bear in mind things could have changed. I have been asleep with my people for many, many years.”
“Great, so what are we waiting for?” I asked. “Let’s get this over with. We put Ricky inside with the driver and the three of us are on guard out here. We shoot anything that moves.”
“I’m in the back this time around,” Stacy said, putting the crawler in park and exiting the vehicle. “Someone else can drive. I’m the best here with a blaster.”
Everyone turned to look at me.
“What?” I asked with a scowl on my face. “Why is everyone looking at me?”
“Tong can’t drive,” Arun said, motioning to the alien. “Stacy and I are both better shots than you. No offense, but you can’t hit much to save your life.”
“Just because you say ‘no offense’ in front of something doesn’t mean you can just say whatever you want,” I muttered. “No way. I need to be back here where it’s most dangerous.”
“Arun’s right.” Stacy shrugged. “Hand to hand, I’d bet my money on you over anyone on this planet, and who knows, maybe even Earth, but right now, the idea is to shoot them before it gets to that point.”
I looked over at Ricky for help. He shrugged.
Even Mutt avoided eye contact.
“Fine,” I said, not even trying to mask my frustration. “Let’s get this done.”
17
I sat behind the wheel of the crawler, remembering what had happened the last time I drove. Ricky sat to my right and Tong was in the passenger side seat. Stacy and Arun had tied themselves to the rear of the crawler with thick straps. Stacy chose the rifle and Arun had her blaster. The third firearm was in the cab with me. If things got bad, I planned on rolling down my window and laying into whatever was out there, bad aim or not.
We even secured Mutt to the back bed with a strap around his neck so he didn’t try and jump out. The leash gave him free rein to roam around the crawler bed but not enough to make a run for it if he smelled something interesting.
“Here we go,” I said, staring down the wall of rolling mist in front of me. I slowly edged the crawler forward. All the lights the vehicle had at its disposal were on high, illuminating our path.
Not for the first time, the mist struck me as something unnatural. By that, I didn’t even mean alien. It almost seemed made by someone or something. The way the mist stopped at a solid line as if a wall were keeping it in place gave me the creeps.
One look at how Ricky was faring beside me was enough to steel my resolve. His breathing was shallow, and his skin had taken on a pasty sheen.
“Stay on this path,” Tong reminded me. “Only three kilometers by your measurement and we’ll be there.”
“Take it slow,” Stacy said from her spot behind the cab of the crawler. “Take it slow and we’ll make it.”
I eased the vehicle forward until it crested the wall of mist so thick, it might as well have been soup. Even with the aid of the lights on the crawler, I could only see two, maybe three meters in front of me. That was where visibility was lost and I was on my own.
I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to make my palms hurt. I leaned forward in my seat, craning my neck, and squinted, trying to figure out what might be out there. To be honest, I wasn’t even really sure I wanted to know.
“My people have a story about a creature that lives in one’s imagination,” Tong said slowly. “It is a creature of nightmare that grabs on to those impure of heart and rips them from limb to limb.”
“Not the time for stories,” Stacy said over the comms. “Tong, we really have to teach you something called timing.”
Tong remained quiet, staring out the window in wonder.
I kept the crawler moving slowly as to not lose the path in front of us. One of the worst things that could happen would be if I went off path and we were lost in this mist swamp for good.
Slowly, the landscape began to change. The trees became sparser, their spindly trunks further and further apart. The hard dirt softened under the crawler’s giant wheels, and the road soon threatened to be lost to us as we continued on.
“The way the road is turning into muck, we’re going to be out of a clear path soon,” I said over our comms.
“Keep this same heading,” Tong said, pointing with a thick finger out the front of the windshield. “The road to the installation was straight with no deviation.”
I glanced down at the control panel on the dash of the crawler. One of the things the vehicle came equipped with was a compass. I locked on to that now and let that guide me as we continued.
“It’s colder here,” Arun commented as if she were thinking to herself out loud. “The mist muffles your voice too.”
We went on like this for minute
s that stretched into what felt like hours. Inside the cab, it was dead silent. Save for our breathing, no sounds penetrated the thick walls of the surrounding mist.
Mutt whined once and Stacy gave him a few pets, reassuring him it was going to be okay.
Just when I thought we might make it to Tong’s installation without seeing one of those creatures, motion to my left made me take my foot off the acceleration. I wasn’t sure what I had seen in the mist, but like Doctor Allbright had said, it looked big. It appeared again, this time gliding through the fog no more than a few meters to my left. The ground shuddered under what must have been its considerable weight.
“Guys,” I said as quietly as I could.
“I saw it,” Arun whispered back. “To the left. I can’t tell if it was one or more than one.”
We sat there for a moment considering our options.
Slowly, I eased my foot off the brake, and we continued on. The armor I wore was bulky in the crawler seat, but I’d be grateful for the extra protection if I needed to get out.
“Two kilometers in,” I said, keeping track of how far we’d traveled. “We’re almost there. We should—”
The entire crawler suddenly buckled hard, jerking to a stop. I turned my head from side to side, scanning for movement, but saw nothing. Then Mutt went ballistic as Stacy and Arun opened up with their weapons, firing into the gloom.
“Go! Go! Go!” Stacy screamed over the comms.
“Behind us!” Tong yelled.
I looked into the rearview mirror and saw something that would haunt my memories forever. Two reddish-pink tentacles appeared out of the mist and gripped the rear gate of the crawler.
Stacy and Arun were firing at the tentacle holding us in place. To their credit, they were hitting their marks.
I slammed my foot onto the gas pedal. At the same time, enough blaster rounds struck the tentacles to make the creature think twice about its hold. The beast let out a deep bellow steeped in pain before finally releasing us.
As soon as the rear tires hit the ground, we were off. Mud sprayed on either side of the vehicle as we rocketed deeper into the mist swamp. More and more sounds penetrated the thick fog. The deep wailing followed us as we sped forward.
The strangest thing about the wailing was that it didn’t sound angry or annoyed at being wounded. It genuinely felt sad, like the cry of a lonely creature wailing.
“I couldn’t see what it was, did you?” Arun asked.
“Just those two arms that grabbed onto the back of the crawler,” Stacy shouted back in excitement. “It has to be huge, larger than the crawler or that rhinoceros alien that attacked the colony yesterday.”
I wanted to ask more questions. My mind was still reeling from what I had just seen. At the moment, it was all I could do to fight and keep the steering wheels straight. Going fast in the deep muck made the crawler sway from side to side. Heavy vibration traveled up my arms and into my chest as I fought the wheel.
“Dean, watch out!” Tong screamed.
I saw it at the same time his warning came. A thick tree stump was sticking out from the marsh, creating a roadblock. At first glanced it seemed like any fallen tree, but upon closer inspection, it looked more deliberate. Someone had set in place specifically for us.
I jerked the wheel violently to the left, tipping the crawler to one side, causing the right front and rear wheels to come out of the muck for a second. Before we could lose anyone, I slammed the wheel back to the right, refusing to let my foot off the gas. That thing was still behind us, it’s wailing was still too close for comfort, and there was no way I was slowing down.
A quick look in the rearview mirror told me we were safe for the time being. Both Arun and Stacy held on to the back of the cab with one hand as we rocketed forward. Their other hands were on the grips of their weapons. Like my own, their heads were on swivel, searching for any sign of the monster.
I finally had the chance to look down at the compass to right our path. We were only a few degrees off from our original heading.
“Good driving,” Arun told me.
“We can add that to the list of your talents,” Stacy said sarcastically. “You know, opposite the one where we note how bad you are at shooting.”
“Thanks for that,” I said dryly, finally allowing our forward momentum to slow. “I think we lost it. I don’t hear it anymore.”
“I think you are correct,” Tong said, swallowing hard. “I do not hear the sound of that creature anymore.”
“Creature or creatures, we still aren’t sure,” Arun reminded us. “Tong, how far are we out now?”
“We should be there soon,” he said, looking down at the gauge that had been tracking our distance since we entered the mist land. “The installation will be difficult to miss.”
That proved to be an understatement.
As if someone just decided the mist should part for us, it did. One second we were in the thick rolling fog, the next we’d burst through it like some kind of physical barrier.
The crawler had already decreased in speed, but when we burst through the fog, I decided to err on the side of caution and step on the brake. For the hundredth time since we landed on the planet, my mind was having a hard time figuring out what my eyes were seeing. I knew what I thought they saw, but that couldn’t be right.
A wide circle free of mist opened up in front of us. About two hundred meters directly in front of us was a black pyramid that rose five stories into the clear blue sky.
I stopped the crawler altogether, marveling at the awesome structure in front of us.
“Is everyone seeing a giant pyramid in a space where the fog just stopped?” Ricky asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“Good, I thought I was dead for minute or maybe hallucinating,” Ricky said.
“Tong, is this your installation?” Arun asked over the comms.
“Yes, yes.” Tong nodded vigorously. “This is the Tch tichs sa Installation.”
“Nope,” I said. “Definitely don’t understand that. Try again.”
“Uh, in your language, the Cerberus Installation,” Tong said, as if that was going to end all of my questions instead of opening up Pandora’s box of more. “Quickly, we must get inside. Ricky is not breathing.”
I looked over to Rick, who had just been cracking jokes a moment before. Sure enough, he wasn’t breathing.
18
“Rick!” I yelled, shaking his still form. His eyes were closed and he didn’t respond, no breath coming in or out of his lips.
“Hold on,” I pleaded. I pressed the gas pedal, sending us forward toward the pyramid. The ground here was hard again and the crawler’s tires gripped it, spurring us forward.
It was as if by some miracle this pocket of the marsh was shielded by some other worldly force. I didn’t really know where the pyramid opened, but I aimed the vehicle at the base and pushed the motor to its limits. From the outside, it looked like it was made of a single piece of black slate rising in clean lines toward the heavens.
“Ricky?” Arun asked, panicked. “Ricky, talk to me.”
Ricky didn’t make a sound.
We were at the front of the pyramid a second later, and I was out of the crawler as it came to a stop. I grabbed Ricky, not worrying about how I moved him. If we didn’t get him breathing soon, he was dead already.
Stacy and Arun unclipped themselves from the back of the crawler, along with Mutt. Tong jumped out of the passenger side seat, racing to the pyramid. He slapped a three-fingered hand on the cold rock surface.
A dull beep sounded as the surface read his hand.
Nothing happened.
Tong tried again.
I bit back yelling at him for the time being. I knew he was trying. Screaming at him wasn’t going to help.
Arun didn’t feel the same way.
“Tong, what’s wrong!?” Arun ripped off her helmet. Her tone was so harsh, I thought for a moment she was going to point her blaster at Tong. “Get us inside!”
“I’m trying,” Tong said, placing his hand on the black rock surface again. “It’s not—someone has overridden my access code.”
“Someone?” I looked at him in half confusion, half anger.
“We need to start CPR,” Arun said, running over to me and helping to place him on the floor. “We need to get him breathing.”
I obeyed, already preparing to accept the idea that Ricky was gone. I started chest compressions on my unmoving friend, while Arun tilted Ricky’s head back and pressed her lips to his.
“Tong, what are you talking about, that someone changed the access code?” Stacy asked, trying to make sense of what was happening behind me. “You’re the only one of your race that should be awake. That’s what you told us. That you alone were awoken.”
“I—I don’t know. I don’t understand,” Tong replied, wringing his hands in a very human like gesture.
I had my right hand over my left, both placed on his chest, counting the compressions in my mind as we worked on him.
Arun pressed her lips to his one more time when Ricky coughed up blood. She rolled him onto his side, a concern still dominating her features.
I sat back on my heels, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Easy, easy, you’re safe,” Arun said, cradling his head in her lap. “We’re here.”
“What the hell is going on?” I rose to my feet in anger. The happiness of Ricky being alive vanished as the reality of our new problem set in. Tong had led us on a wild goose chase, and I wasn’t letting that go.
To my surprise, Stacy was already on the case, towering over Tong with a firm grip on her weapon. She wasn’t pointing it at the alien, but the ferocity in her voice told me that action wasn’t far behind. From the look on Tong’s face, he understood that too.
“Answers now,” Stacy said. She still wore the dark helmet on her head, her face hidden to us. “Why won’t the doors open?”
“They should have,” Tong said quickly, panic edging into his voice. “It couldn’t have been the Rung. They wouldn’t have been able to get inside. It had to be one of my own, a Remboshi.”
