by Ofelia Negra
He placed his plasma torch on the bench to the side and picked up the shock pad. The appendages had hinges with locking pins in place, and he carefully folded them into and against the underside of the centerpiece. Then, he reached behind him with the device and sought out another vacant clamp to hold it in place.
When it was secure, Marcus picked the cutter back up from the tabletop and checked its charge, then he opened a channel to Hamilton.
“Hamilton,” he started, “I’ve got the shock pad. I’m returning to the security station now.”
“That’s great, Marcus,” Hamilton’s voice returned calmly. He mustn’t be in any imminent danger if he could sound so… not relaxed exactly, but less pressured. “Combine that with the thermite at the barricade to destroy it. I’m guessing you have an idea how you’re going to do that?”
“You bet I do,” Marcus replied as he stepped in front of the door, ready to leave. “I’ll get back to your when I find Captain Matthews.”
“OK.” There was a pause, then; “Shit! I can hear more coming; moving through the vents. Stay safe, Marcus!” The comm went dead.
Marcus hated this. If not for the fact that he still hadn’t found Nikki, or any evidence that he wasn’t going to find her, he would have just found a shuttle and gotten off the Pandora. It wasn’t such an unbelievable thing for him to admit that he was scared out of his mind. These creatures seemed to be everywhere. What little surviving crew he’d encountered so far hadn’t lived long. It was like they were living long enough to be found, and then… not so living.
First it was the crewmember behind the door when Marcus had grabbed the torch several decks below the flight lounge. He’d begged, he’d screamed, he’d cried until Marcus had finally gotten the door open, and the a split second after it had swung open, one of those bladed-arm things had torn him apart before Marcus had reacted and killed it. Then there was the woman at the tram station, who’d survived long enough to give him the magnetic module, claiming she’d known he was coming. Then she too had died. Then Marcus had seen it again in the growth lab. A medical technician, panicked, sure, but uninjured and seemingly healthy. He’d been killed by something that looked like a horribly mutated infant, right before Marcus’s eyes.
He’d had no chance to ask any of them if they’d known Nikki, or even if they knew if she’d survived somewhere on board. Would he ever get that chance if he came across another survivor? He hoped so. He needed to know.
He opened the door to the zero-gravity chamber and then dropped flat to his stomach as something dark and horribly veined flew at him.
He turned over onto his back and looked behind to see that it was another of those long tailed things. Quickly, while it was recovering, he shoved himself to his feet and dashed out of the room. The door slid to a close behind him, the lock clicked, and Marcus tore at the nearest power cell until he felt the snapping and wrenching he knew meant it was coming free.
Unfortunately, he’d had nothing to brace himself against, and he went over the edge, losing his footing. That was OK though. He thrust the power cell away from him, took a shot at it until it darkened, became useless. Then he looked around to make sure that there were no more of those things around. It appeared as though they weren’t, and he shifted his body around best he could and flailed until his course changed and he found himself propelled towards the platform with the holo-panel attached.
He left the chamber without looking back.
***
9
IX
Hamilton was royally pissed off. And to top that off, he was scared. He couldn’t shake the sense that he was being watched, that those aliens were out there somewhere, crawling the ship. He was safe here, in the captain’s nest, below the Bridge. But the Bridge was likely to be crawling with them now.
Who knew where Kira Davis was? She’d disappeared when the tailed alien had attacked them. Had one of the aliens dragged her away? Had she ran? It galled him to think of her as a coward. He wasn’t particularly fond of cowards, having come from a long line of military men. But if she had fled under her own power, then perhaps it was for the better. He couldn’t begrudge her the instinct to survive. He just hoped that she was safe, wherever she’d gone.
Slumped as he was in Captain Matthews’s comfortable, Derrick Hamilton gazed intently at the holo in front of him. It was a schematic of the medical section that Marcus Stone was going through now. He’d already burned through the barricade that had been blocking off the medical wards and the morgue with the thermite-shock pad combination.
It didn’t relieve or surprise Hamilton at all that it had worked. Knowledge of explosives and other heat-related weaponry was required knowledge for him. Marcus, too, had seemed to know what he was doing. Either it was basic knowledge for engineers as well, or else he’d learned it from someone else. Either way, the main obstacle was out of the way.
Most of the ship’s systems were still locked out by Matthews’s command codes. Stone was going to have to get those codes if any of them hoped to get into the system and find out anything. Hamilton knew he was motivated enough to do so. He had a lover on board somewhere, and Hamilton had promised to locate her for the engineer once he had the codes. He had no intention of breaking that promise.
As far as he was concerned, however, the mission the PMC had sent them here to complete was over. He wasn’t going to lose any more from his team to repair a ship that was, more or less, beyond their capabilities. Even if the Pandora had all the required resources and equipment on board and even if there were enough survivors on board to even both with a repair attempt, Hamilton wasn’t sure he’d even authorize it. His priority now was getting himself and his people out. If they came across survivors, well then they would take them back to Earth as well.
The Pandora was lost now, lost to the aliens that infested it, crawled in its air ducts, slaughtered its crew, attacked without mercy, without conscience, without intellect. Damned if Hamilton was going to stay on board.
The indicator blip on the holo that represented Marcus’s position stopped suddenly. He was in an office in the ship’s clinic. Hamilton was about to radio him and ask if there was a problem when the indicator moved out of the office once more and toward a thick corridor marked just opposite it. The indicator stopped again, obviously as Marcus waited for the doors to open, and then passed through into the corridor and slowed.
Hamilton minimized the holo and shunted it to the side. He brought another screen into focus… footage from a surveillance camera just above the door Marcus had just stepped through. He could see Marcus now in the holo, proceeding down the long hallway slowly, cautiously. The way he carried himself… Hamilton considered he would have made an excellent security officer or Marine. He didn’t need to entertain the wonder at why Marcus hadn’t pursued such a career. It was obvious to anyone that knew him, even as little as Hamilton did, that engineering was his true passion.
The corridor was dark, but dull white emergency light shined down from irregularly spaced panels in the ceiling. Gurneys complete with drips and monitoring equipment had been shunted into shallow slots against the wall to Marcus’s left. He ignored the door ahead, and Hamilton saw that it was locked, explaining why.
He minimized the security feed and picked another from the schematic… they were clearly marked.
While Hamilton watched Marcus round another corner into view of the surveillance camera, he brought up his PDT’s comm diagnostic system and ran another check. The static that had been cutting him off earlier had since died away, and Hamilton could find no explanation as to its cause. But he still routinely checked the comm just in case it returned.
When it checked out clear, he tried to tie into Davis’s PDT frequency. “Miss Davis?” he started softly. It was his fifth try at contacting her since they’d been separated and he’d fled to the nest. “Miss Davis; it’s Hamilton. Do you read?” There was no answer except for the shrill of static. “Kira? It’s Hamilton. Can you hear me? Am I coming t
hrough?” And still no one replied.
He gave up, shutting down the comm. and returning to the surveillance feeds. Marcus had disappeared again. Reviewing the section map, Hamilton saw that he was just outside the morgue.
***
10
X
Medical Log…
Dr. Dain, G. (Medical Examiner)
Report of death on ship
Subject: Captain Matthews, B. It is my sad duty to officially pronounce Captain Benson Matthews dead. Reports of the exact circumstances surrounding his death are conflicted, and beyond the scope of my role. I can only report on the body.
The subject was in generally good health for his age, though a cursory blood test indicates his leukocyte count was very low, with eosinophils in particular almost non-existent. His pre-flight physical exam showed no such problems, indicating rapid onset; however, it is unlikely this had any effect on his death.
Multiple contusions on the arms and hands, indicating a brief struggle pre-mortem. Slight contusions around the ribcage, suggesting his chest was restrained in some way. Cause of death was a single prolonged trauma to the ocular body which continued on through the cavity wall, and finally into the frontal lobe, causing rapid neurotrama, seizure, and death.
The force required to puncture the ocular cavity in this manner is great, and the possibility of self infliction correspondingly low.
I therefore have no alternative but to record a preliminary finding of UNLAWFUL DEATH. Whether deliberate or accidental is beyond my jurisdiction.
***
Marcus almost threw up the second he stepped into the morgue. If the science labs had been a mess before, it was nothing compared to the state the morgue was in.
Gurneys had been tossed around carelessly. Some were lucky to still be upright. There were three corpses on the floor in varying rates of decay or mutilation. Nearly a dozen morgue locker doors were wide open, slabs extended and empty. Blood covered nearly every surface; smatterings of gore in places. There were scratches on the walls, the lockers.
The autopsy bay on the far side of the room was sealed. Glass walls allowed Isaac to see into the bay, but the door was locked, barring him entry. There was a body on the slab in the bay. The man was elderly with grey, almost white hair and beard. Age lines decorated his face, and he was dressed in the standard officer uniform of the PMC; Captain’s rank insignia wrapped around the cuffs of the uniform. Something, a syringe Isaac noted when he was less than a meter from the glass, had been thrust through his left eye. Only half of the syringe was visible. Marcus shuddered.
He switched his comm. on and tied in with Hamilton. “I’ve found Matthews.” He examined the edge of the glass, looking for weakness.
“What state is the body in?” Hamilton asked. “How did he die?”
“Needle to the eye, it would appear,” Marcus said. He punched the glass as hard as he could; attempting to shatter it. It didn’t budge. “Looks like the needle punched right through to his brain.”
“Instant death,” Hamilton muttered. “Can you reach the body?”
“The door to the autopsy bay is locked, and the glass looks unbreakable. I could try shooting it?”
“Give it a go.”
Marcus took a couple of steps away from the glass. Then he turned, raised the plasma torch, and then squeezed the trigger. The blast slammed into the window and dissipated, seeming to dissolve into the glass itself. Marcus frowned and fired three more times. By the third shot, however, all he’d managed to do was cause a small crack to appear.
“At this rate, it’ll take two full charge packs to blast that thing open,” he grumbled. “I’ve got that, but…”
Suddenly, he was cut off. There was a scrabbling sound above, moving toward the autopsy bay. He looked up, but saw nothing clinging to the ceiling. Whatever it was must have been traveling through the vents. It was probably another one of those aliens, he figured. Instantly, his defenses went up, and he looked around to make sure that none had snuck into the morgue behind him.
Something dropped down behind him, and he spun again toward the autopsy bay. Something large and fleshy was in the bay with Matthew’s body. Marcus rushed over to the glass to get a better look at it… it was behind the slab.
It reared up; unfurling from the ball of flesh it appeared to be. It was long. Its insides appeared to be little more than bone and some muscle. Large flaps of flesh extended from either side, looking from his view like bloody wings with something akin to hands at the ends. There were no arms or legs, and where the head and neck would have been was just an extension of the body, encasing small feelers and sacks.
The thing spun around in the air slowly, its wings beating to keep it afloat. A strange crooning issued from somewhere in the creature’s midsection. It set Marcus’s nerves on edge, his teeth clamped together to force down the scream that bubbled its way up his throat. Then it was facing Matthew’s body, and it stopped. The crooning grew louder, and its wings beat stronger, propelling it toward the corpse.
“Get away from him!” Marcus shouted, angry.
“Marcus? What’s happening down there?”
“One of those things is going after the Captain’s body. I can’t stop it!” Marcus pounded on the glass again. It turned and “looked” at him. “Get away! Shit!”
The thing turned back to Matthews. It was within reach now, and its wings enveloped the body, the hand-like appendages gripping the shoulders tight. Marcus watched as a long, sharp-tipped appendage extended from somewhere around its “head.” When fully extended, it reached at least a meter, and it was crooked slightly. The proboscis jerked once, fast. The tip disappeared into the Captain’s skull, buried, and still the proboscis pushed deeper.
A small section of the appendage was a little less fleshy, a little thinner it appeared, than the rest. Marcus could almost see through it. Something appeared to be pumping through the appendage and into the Captain’s skull.
“Oh, fuck!”
“Marcus?” Hamilton sounded on the verge of panic.
“Hamilton, I think I just worked out what the fuck these things are!” he shouted, taking first one step, and then another away from the autopsy bay.
“They’re alien, aren’t they?”
“Uh, not quite. They’re us. Or, well, the crew. The Pandora’s crew.”
“What?” Incredulity. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. That thing just pumped something into Matthew’s head,” Marcus replied. He bumped into something, and turned to see it was an overturned gurney.
When he looked back up at the autopsy bay, he saw that the winged creature had moved away from the body now, its stabbing appendage disappearing back into its body. Now that he’d considered it, his examination of the creatures he’d found thus far seemed a little more forthcoming. They did appear humanoid. Most ran on two legs, and the long, bladed arms could very well have ended in five-fingered hands instead. The ones with the tails had human-like arms.
And the smaller creature he’d seen in the growth labs… no, he couldn’t bring himself to think it. It couldn’t have been.
Matthew’s body jerked once on the slab, drawing Marcus’s attention. He watched as the back arched and there was a loud crack of snapping bones. Another crack, and then another soon followed.
“KYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYNE!” The voice was guttural, barely human. But it was coming from Matthews. It was the only thing he said before he went slack again.
“What the fuck was that?”
“That… was Captain Matthews.”
“What?” Hamilton demanded. “Are you saying that he’s coming back to life?”
“Think about it, sir…” Marcus could barely keep the panic out of his voice. He watched as Matthew’s skin darkened, cracked, sloughed away to reveal muscle and tendon and raw flesh beneath. “If this was an alien occupation of the ship, we’d have seen a lot more bodies as the crew was slaughtered. Where are those bodies? If the crew was still alive somewhere on board, don’t you t
hink they’d have contacted us by now?”
It hurt him to say that. He didn’t want Nikki to be dead. There was still a good chance she was holed up somewhere, as much alive as the scientist in the growth labs had been before that mutated thing had killed him. Perhaps she cowered somewhere the creatures weren’t likely to look for her. Or perhaps she was somewhere with other survivors, armed and waiting for rescue.
“Fuck!” Hamilton swore. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
A guttural groan came from the open-locked jaw of Matthew’s corpse. A loud ripping followed… material, Marcus realized. The Captain’s PDT was ripping down the sides. The flesh of his arms was stretching and melding into his sides. The arms themselves seemed to drain, to flush away, as they joined into the torso. A couple of small cracks, and the forearms were suddenly sticking out through the Captain’s stomach, withered and veined. The groan had morphed into something of a bubbling hiss now, as bony scythes punched through the flesh of the shoulders and extended up and out. A final two cracks sounded, and Marcus watched as those straight scythes bent forward at what would have been elbows on normal arms. The chest and abdomen caved inward slowly, as if the insides were being sucked away, leaving only the flesh and bones. All the white hair on the Captain’s head and face fell away from the skin, truly dead.