by Shad N Freud
Zeke sighed as he played a lower spade than Cenere and wondered when the two amorously inclined members of their team would just give in and enjoy themselves. Despite outward appearances, Zeke was a bit lonely himself. He knew that lizard folk around the globe were in steep decline; with their habitat being destroyed by non-ecofriendly corporations, his people were not long for this world. It saddened him greatly, as did thinking about the dragons who were facing a similar fate. He did not begrudge his friends their happiness, far from it; he hoped that he too would be as happy as those two would be if they’d just get over their hang ups and declare their feelings for each other.
Cenere picked up the trick and smirked as he placed the cards on his side of the table. The group looked up and glanced around at each other. Their finely-honed sense for danger was metaphorically tapping them on the shoulder, then laughing when they’d turn around and see no one was there. Cenere checked his belt to make sure he had his weapons ready to go.
Almost expectedly, the boat was rocked by a sudden impact.
“What in the name of the Allfather was that?” Caspian shouted over the warning sirens that indicated the Goldfish was under attack. The submarine’s regenerating hull sealed over after whatever it was that bored through the outer hull and power systems throughout the boat started going dark on the port side. “Who the fuck is breaking my ship? Stop breaking my damn ship!”
He gently pressed the control board, setting the ship’s wheel to free spin, allowing the ship to guide herself, and drew his jewel encrusted pistola. The butt of the pistol had a gold cap with a split circle in the center that opened, exposing a single eye that looked around rapidly.
“Krasivyy? Why’d you wake me up? What’s going on?” the pistol asked sleepily in a thick Slavic voice. “Do I need to hurt someone? You know I abhor violence.”
“I’m afraid so, Karina my sweet. Don’t worry, I’ll use you as little as necessary,” Caspian said, kissing the gun gently on the barrel. Karina closed her eye in joy as she felt her man caress the gold inlaid mithril barrel with his lips, his thumb gently stroking the ironwood handle, his index finger gently resting on the mithril trigger. She looked around, trying to see their enemy.
“Bozhe moi. I can see the little vermin. Three decks down, near the sleeping quarters. Luckily, no one…wait, is that Carl?”
∞∞∞
Carl continued glaring up at the ceiling, attributing the rocking of the ship to strong currents and paying them little mind. Demons that went into or near water were largely unknown, as most couldn’t swim, and none could breathe water. Merfolk tended not to settle near Africa these days, preferring deeper Atlantic waters. He really couldn’t wait to get off this rust bucket, as the lighting on the glorified bathtub was spotty at best. In fact, the lights couldn’t even seem to decide what color…wait, red was typically a warning color aboard a naval vessel.
Carl’s head snapped up to look face to face plate with a…well, honestly, Carl had no idea what the hell this thing was but had the feeling that if this were a fantasy novel, Ridley Scott would likely be suing the author for cribbing his intellectual property. He couldn’t hear it, but the thing hissed at him and produced a rank, fetid breath that would knock the flies off a dung pile. No second inner mouth? Carl wondered to himself for a bare moment as his pistol slid between the thing’s jaws. A welter of purple ichor sprayed silently all over the wall behind it, and whatever it was dropped to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.
“My my but you were a smelly bastard, weren’t you?” Carl asked as others filled the room. Carl staggered to the Head to wash up and nearly shot the security team that had come to exterminate the…things…that were invading the ship. Carl ripped his glove off and noted that there were blood red pips all around the outer ring. He massaged his temples as he counted to ten, trying to calm down. Going berserk because of the goddamn xenos on this goddamn sub would be bad for everyone.
Carl looked over his shoulder after seeing something in the mirror and noted one of the goblins holding up a post-it note that said simply, “The music is off.”
Carl grinned, and pressed his hands over his ears, smoke pouring out of his mouth and nose as his head became illuminated with a green light. “Thanks mate, I feel a damn sight better when I can hear my enemies coming. So, how many?”
“So far? This is the only one, sir.” The ranking goblin looked down at the corpse at Carl’s feet, the purple blood pooling around the bone white carapace.
Now that Carl got a better look at the critter, he noticed some marked differences between the xenomorphs from the Alien series and the…thing laying on the floor of the berthing. First, other than smelling like death on a summer’s day, the blood was not harmful. Certainly not a molecular acid that could eat through reinforced titanium. Also, the creature’s exoskeletal plates looked like bone with fleshy purple bits showing through. They also had multiple adaptations for swimming in deep waters, with multiple rows of teeth for chewing. The fingers terminated in serrated, diamond hard claws perfect for tunneling through stone. The teeth were serrated like a shark’s, triangular and wedge like - designed to puncture hard shells and just as easily shred bone. The creature’s limbs were covered in hardened chitin and formed in hydrodynamic angles, and the tail covered was in barbs filled with tetrodotoxin. This creature was designed…bred…to be the ultimate killer.
“There will be more. This one was a scout,” Carl said as he made his way to the mess hall. He pulled his pack of smokes out and lit one up. “Let’s go squish some bugs.”
∞∞∞
Cenere, the girls, and Zeke crept their way through the ship, on the lookout for whatever was causing the brand on Cenere’s hand to go crazy. There were so many pips in every direction that he had a secondary ring around his brand. Cenere was nervous, as they were aboard a pressurized tube that the things were trying to get into, whatever they were. He heard screaming from the engineering area and silently motioned the others to follow, drawing his whip as well as a throwing knife as they crept along. Cenere’s ears perked up when he heard the sound of something big tearing flesh, slurping it off the bones, and swallowing greedily. He used the polished edge of a throwing knife to look around the corner and saw a bipedal…Cenere cursed Games Workshop for ever thinking up Tyrranids, as an analog was currently feasting on the flesh and bones of a crew member.
The goblin stopped struggling as a barbed spine pumped tetrodotoxin into his neck, watching in abject terror as the creature ate him, starting at the fleshy legs and working its way up. Cenere silently said a prayer for the poor bastard’s soul, then motioned his people forward, throwing a knife at the floor several meters away from the creature. Its head turned towards the noise and it hissed angrily, then lunged at the fire suppression system mounted on the wall, leaving it’s back exposed to Zeke’s long, sharp, heavy blade. The lizard man bisected the creature just under the arms just after it collided with a fire extinguisher trying to escape.
Cenere walked over to the goblin and grimaced. The femoral artery had been severed and the poor bastard had bled out in minutes, its last sight being the creature’s jaws coated in his blood and devouring his legs. He closed the goblin’s eyes, closed his mouth, and crossed his arms across his chest before placing a penny on its forehead. Then Cenere straightened himself and drew another throwing knife. A clatter from the next section alerted him to the fact that they weren’t alone. “Shit. We’ve got incoming.”
∞∞∞
“My sweet, how many of these damn things have penetrated the hull?”
“If the Goldfish is sensing them properly, there are forty-five like the one Carl killed currently within the skin of the ship and another seventy-five are trying to puncture the hull, Beloved. She is electrifying the hull as we speak, but the forty-five already inside will need to be handled by the crew. Anything she could do to handle this would kill everyone on board.”
“Shit. Well, that’s about what I thought. Alright, wel
l, I’m afraid you’ll need to get your barrel dirty, my dear. Time to get rid of our unwelcome guests. Goldie, I need you to give me access to the ship’s com system.”
A wall mounted vox speaker with built in microphone appeared at eye level and Caspian pushed the send button. “Hear this! Hear this! All hands, we’ve got forty-five enemy combatants aboard and I don’t remember inviting them to this soiree. So, I’d appreciate it if you lazy sacks of flotsam would be ever so kind as to get off your asses and get them off my damned ship!” Caspian smirked as he let go of the button, then drew his cutlass. He caught a hint of movement at the corner of his eye and heard hushed breathing, so he whirled around, pointing Karina at the…thing…and unleashed a fifty-caliber mini ball-shaped hello to the creature as it prepared to swing its tail at him. Caspian watched as the large lead ball splattered the creature’s head all over the wall like an overripe tomato. It slumped to the ground, oozing its vile ichor all over the deck and twitching slightly as the body tried to ignore its lack of head.
Caspian pulled the hammer back on his pistol, the runes for unending powder and shot activating and draining some of his aethereal energies as he made his way down and aft. He passed the corpses of several of his crew members, purple splotches around wounds inflicted by the tail spines. He ripped one out of one of his crew, and sniffed the tip, grimacing as he smelled tetrodotoxin. Each spine, roughly three inches in length, had a small gland that twitched and injected venom into their victim like a bee’s stinger.
“Whichever heathen god made ye deserved to die, you ugly bastards.” He spit on the corpses of a few other beasties, included one that had several throwing knives embedded in its skull, thorax, and belly, all in between the armored plates. The others he passed looked like they’d been put through a blender, the scorch mark of an HE 25mm grenade marring the floor that was already healing the structural damage. He turned, lining Karina up to splatter another critter’s head, and failed to hear one slide out of the cable runs over head.
A baton flashed out, crushing its skull as Caspian shot the ugly thing he’d been aiming at. Caspian spun back around, the pistol already cocked and the barrel in Carl’s grimacing face with Carl’s 10mm pistol pointed at Caspian’s own head. The pair glowered at each other for a split second, both considering pulling their respective triggers, then both shifted their aim to splatter two more critters that were trying to sneak up on the pair.
“You could have just let the thing take me, Carl. Why didn’t you?”
“The thought crossed my mind, but we’ll have plenty of time to kill each other another day. After this damned mission is over.”
“Agreed.”
∞∞∞
Jin hid in the cable runs as the things roamed the passage ways, ambushing and slaying the crew as they snuck past. He slid quietly out of his hidey hole as Zeke and the others made their way to main engineering and cast a quick light spell to get their attention. Three throwing knives, a suppressed spray of lead from Sachi’s MP5, and Zeke’s greatsword passed through the air just above his head before they realized it was just him. He placed a finger to his lips and pointed down into the bilges under the engines.
A slightly larger than average critter was chewing on a goblin’s leg as it shuddered, it’s back bulging. The bony plates over its upper back cracked and puckering holes formed as it shrieked, dark purple smoke pouring out of the wounds. The smoke began to fill the area with a fetid smell like rotting meat stuffed with rotting fruit. Cenere’s brow furrowed as he sniffed the air. Zeke’s eyes began to water. Jin began choking, as did Camilla and Sachi. Jin mumbled a clean air spell and a thin bubble formed, creating an island of clean air in a miasma of toxic fumes. Jin and the others slowly stopped coughing and breathed deeply. Cenere motioned for them to stay where they were and turned to see the critter was facing in his direction.
Cenere smirked as his hands became wreathed in Hellfire and unfurled his whip, rearing it above his head as it caught the flames and became infused with the powers of Hell. He snapped the whip at his foe, cracking the bony shell protecting its face and getting the beast’s attention as he stepped out of the bubble, his connection to Hell protecting him from the poisonous air. His eyes burned green with the channeled flames as he stepped forward, giving the smoking critter a rakish leer as he strode forward. It hissed at the tiefling as it took a step back, feeling the confidence rolling off the infernal being before him. Cenere slowly started humming the opening chords to a dark, rich song, one of deep basal tones that rose slowly and gained power with each step. His eyes flashed, green flames pouring out of the sockets as he began to sing.
“When the Devil is too busy…and Death’s a bit too much…just call on me by name you see…for my special touch.” Cenere’s smile began to take on a more sadistic bent as he punctuated the more powerful notes with cracks of his whip, lashing the beastie with flaming microclaps of thunder, disorienting the echolocatory senses of the creature before him. It shrieked in fury, blinded by Cenere’s song as well as the whip’s lash.
“And it’s so easy when you’re evil…this is the life you see, the Devil tips his hat to me.” Cenere’s song was layered with different spells, the smoke swirling as the air became hotter and hotter, the air becoming a blazing inferno.
“But no one loves you when you’re evil…what I’d do to make you smile, even for a little while...” Cenere’s voice became a whisper as he backed the creature into a corner and whirled his whip over his head. “I’M LYING THROUGH MY TEETH! Your tears are all the company I need!” Cenere screamed the last line of his song, the sound waves striking the hot air as he lashed his whip at the lunging creature, wrapping the whip around its neck and setting the monstrosity ablaze. Blades of sound flew from the maelstrom, cutting deeply into the carapace, causing the fetid purple blood to spatter on every surface. The beast dropped to the ground and the smoke began to clear as the halon system kicked online, killing the flames as Cenere collapsed. From within the smoke, shapes began to take form; more of the smaller ones.
They all lunged for the fallen Inquisitor, who smiled as he snapped his fingers and dispelled the maelstrom. Instantly the sonic blades trapped in the eye of the ‘storm’ flew in every direction to slay the beasts summoned by the pheromone filled smoke. Camilla, ignoring the danger, ran to his side and checked him for injuries. Zeke followed an eyeblink after and stood over them as Sachi and Jin likewise made their way over.
Camilla breathed a sigh of relief when she could confirm Cenere was unhurt, just exhausted. “Hey there gorgeous, come here often?” Cenere managed to smirk as he gently patted her rear. “You should become a nurse. A starched white uniform would look great on you.”
Camilla’s eyes became the size of saucers as she felt the Lust Inquisitor’s hand on her bum. She glared down at the tiefling as he waggled his eyebrows at her. A deep blush rose on her cheeks as a vein in the side of her head began to pulsate in rage. She raised her fist to strike the barely conscious man below her, all the while feeling an intense heat begin to blossom between her legs. It wasn’t that he had offended her by feeling her up; it was that he had done so when she thought he might have been hurt.
“Shift th' hand or lose it ye wee jobby,” Camilla ground out as she stared into his blue eyes that were…dilated and slowly twitching? “Oh, Hell. Pheremones. Th' muckle numpty wis spewing pheromones tae summon the other ones.” She looked down at the tiefling that was weakly trying to reach up and paw at her chest, giggling about ‘Bewbs’. The rage left her, but not the sexual frustration. She rubbed her thighs together as she slapped his hands away, trying to fight the urge to tear their clothes off and take him right then, right there.
Suddenly, an arctic chill filled the room as Jin crackled with energy, his eyes glowing white and his aura frosty. The ground under his feet froze and the air cleared as the cold caused the pheromones to condense on the nearest surfaces before freezing over. Zeke backed away, the cold too much for his body to handle. Both Cenere and Camil
la began to shiver as the cold caused their collective ardor to fade. Cenere’s eyes lost their delirium and Camilla felt the chemically induced lust melt away like a snowball in Dis.
She lifted the downed tiefling, coughing as the Halon began to displace the air in the engineering area. “We need tae get out of here!” Camilla shouldered the surprisingly heavy tiefling with a grunt and began staggering towards the Quick Acting Water Tight Door, followed quickly by the others. As soon as the door was sealed, Jin’s aura guttered and he bent double, breathing heavily after having had to hold his breath for several minutes due to being shorter than the rest. The air temperature rose quickly, and the shivering stopped.
They looked up to see a familiar half-orc and the ship’s captain pointing their guns at them. “They mutate,” Jin said breathily. “We need to get out of here tout suite. These things are a menace, and we’ll die if we have to keep fighting them.”
“Wish we could, little man, but your destination is a mile away. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that they are swarming from there. They need to be eliminated as a threat.”
“Agreed.” Carl sneered as he glared at Caspian. “You’ll need to drop us off. I’ll see if I can find a door and have Jeeves call you when we need a pick up.”
Cenere shook his head, the exhaustion slowly leaving him as Camilla set him on the floor. “Carl, when this is all over, I am never travelling with you again. Lucifer’s Fist shock troops don’t see as much combat in a year as we have in the last seven weeks. I for one am going to spend a month on a beach in Tahiti.” He looked up at Camilla. “Care to join me?” he asked with a smirk before he saw the glare she directed his way that melted into a far more terrifying smile.