by Ofelia Negra
Satisfied, he turned left again towards the controls for the transport gondola. The holo showed a schematic of the gondola. Across the schematic flashed the word MALFUNCTION in red block letters.
“Fucking great,” Marcus whispered to himself, looking around.
To the immediate right of him was where he would normally board the gondola. But it was several meters away from the platform, the boom gate down to stop him from accidentally stepping over the edge and plummeting to a squishy death far below. He could see in the dimly lit chamber the blood and gore covering the deck of the gondola. Someone had been butchered on it.
Marcus keyed the magnetic unit for extra power and stretched out his hand. Flexing his fingers, he extended the field of kinetic energy out to the gondola until he felt it snag. His arm suddenly felt as though he held a half-tonne of weight, but as though gravity were pulling on it laterally, rather than as it should have been. But he kept his arm up, with as much effort and assistance from his PDT as he could. He flexed his fingers again and the kinetic field began to retract, shrinking back into the palm of his glove. In response, there was a screeching sound… metal on metal… and the gondola came towards him, slowly.
It came to a clanging halt flush against the platform. The boom arm swung up and open. Marcus lowered his arm and keyed the magnetic unit into standby mode before he stepped onto the solid steel deck of the gondola. Under normal circumstances, he might even have moved the body parts off the deck onto the grill walkway. But circumstances aboard the Pandora were hardly normal. Marcus couldn’t take any chances, and so he kicked the body over the edge. He didn’t watch it fall, slightly disgusted with his own actions.
The holo-controls on the gondola were still functional. So he entered in the sequence to lower the boom arm once more and take him across the chasm to the other side of engineering. With a jolt, the transport started to move.
He was halfway across when he heard it: a terrible growl that echoed around the engineering chamber and seemed to come at him from all sides. Low and guttural, it reminded him of the thing that had been Captain Matthews.
“KYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYNE!” The reminder of Matthew’s alterations came unbidden to Marcus’s mind, and he shook his head to clear it of the myriad of images flashing behind his eyes. Matthews had been a great man, a great Captain. To see what had become of him only heightened the level of anxiety Marcus had been feeling about this whole mission since they’d intercepted Nikki’s recording in shock space.
If Matthews could be change… no. Marcus refused to believe it. Nikki was alive somewhere. Alive and herself. There had to be no doubt in his mind or else he would lose all desire to function. He would lose all sense for the mission, and therefore he would never know for sure because he would never find her.
He knew he would.
He knew he must.
The other side was coming into view now; the steam parted ahead of the gondola as if it knew he wanted to see what lay ahead. More darkness, he saw. More darkness and moving shadows.
He raised the plasma gun, checked its charge and slipped a fresh pack from his belt… the current charge pack only had a couple of shots left and he might need a quick reload.
Three shadows came out of the darkness on the catwalk he was approaching. All of them were emaciated vestiges of humanity. One had a jaw missing, with strands of muscle and the remnants of a tongue hanging loose in its place. Teeth were gone, either pulled out or fallen out from the change Marcus had no idea. Anothers midsection was more or less gone, torn away in parts and liquefied until there was almost nothing but the spinal column there. The top of anothers head had been sliced clean off by some kind of saw, and an eyeball hung loose by a thread from its socket. Spikes stuck out of the shoulders and their arms were little more than tiny protuberances from their abdomens.
All three of them stood more or less still on the platform ahead, looking across at Marcus as he approached them with looks of hunger on their repulsive faces.
Marcus didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t bring himself to analyze them for signs to tell him who they had once been. He didn’t really want to know. It would only make it that much harder to do what he had to. Instead he fired. Two plasma charges caught the first of the creatures, one in the head and one in the chest. Its head exploded, but the body remained upright, its bladed arms slashing in the air in an angry retaliation of a prey it could no longer see… if indeed the creatures could see. The third missed and sailed over its shoulder, fizzing out against the wall meters behind it.
Quickly, Marcus ejected the charge pack and slipped in the new one. Locking it in, he squeezed the trigger again and again and again, emptying the entire charge into the trio of offending creatures. Heads exploded, limbs were severed, and two of them fell over the rail to fall into blackness. The other keeled over backwards and crashed into the deck, twitching once before falling completely motionless.
When the gondola came to a stop against the platform seconds later, Marcus did his best to trample all over the corpse to ensure it posed no threat. The stacks nearby held a bunch of crates, and so he walked on over and searched the ones that looked unmolested. Inside, he found a few more plasma charges for his cutter and another magnetic unit. Thanking his luck, he pressed on.
Something on the ground, at the top of the ramp, flashed at him. It wasn’t overly bright, but in the darkness of the engineering section it stood out like a star in space. Marcus bent low to pick it up, exposing himself to attack for only an instant and fully aware of it. Turning the object over in his hand, it saw it was a bloody log chip. The body next to it had obviously either recorded it or was taking it somewhere. Marcus slipped it into the reader in his PDT and listened while he walked.
“Never should have let him live. Never should have let him live.”
“Shut it, Daniels! Shut… it! Engineering log; Thomas reporting. Someone has shut off the fuel lines to the primary engine, and damaged the valves in the process. They need to be repaired before I can reopen them, but we’re running out of time. With the engine offline, orbit decay will begin in less than ten hours. I just can’t understand who would do this. If it’s one of those crazy Seven Heavens bastards, I’ll break their neck!”
“Anderson said they were coming. We never should have let him live.”
“Shut up, Daniels. Help me with the tools! Thomas out.”
“Cultists? Jack you idiot!” Jack Thomas was someone Marcus knew well. They’d been friends working in the engineering section when he’d been stationed on the Pandora. He’d been known for his wild theories, but he was a great engineer. It was even said that Thomas would make chief if he stayed on board the Pandora for a few more years. This… Daniels, though, was someone new. Marcus had never heard the name even in passing during his tour aboard. He reasoned that the engineer had been assigned to the crew after Marcus had left.
Marcus pressed on, despite the distraction; walking past a vent that was busted outwards, around a few corners and over the squelchy remains of a few engineers who hadn’t gotten away from the creatures fast enough.
“Hamilton,” he said, keying his comm. unit in to the Komet’s crew channel. “I’m at the fuel station in engineering. I picked up a log chip on my way here from one of the engineers.” Marcus knew there was no need to mention Thomas. Hamilton would have no idea who that was unless he’d been given a full list of the Pandora’s crew. “Apparently the fuel was shut off on purpose… sabotage. The valves have been damaged but I should be able to reroute through secondaries from here. I’ll let you know if I need any help.”
“That’s fine, Marcus. Be quick about it. I don’t know how long I can hold my position here.”
“Got it. Any word on Miss Davis?” He had to ask, though there was a part of him that didn’t particularly care right at that moment… not while there were more pressing issues to see to first.
“No, not yet. I’ll let you know when that changes. Hamilton out.”
The comm line went silent
again. Marcus sighed and rounded another corner. The valve controls were just in front of him now. A deactivated holo-control panel was to the right of it.
The release was a simple mechanism. Straight up and down, it was only slightly taller than Marcus was. The lever that would release fuel through the valves into the engines was at the top of the slide. It needed to be on the bottom, where it would slot into the circuit and trip the release. So Marcus did that; he reached up with both hands and pulled down on the lever until it was securely slotted into the circuit at the bottom. The entire panel glowed, and a light flashed from the ceiling of the cavernous chamber beyond.
An alert sounded and an automated voice came over the announcement speakers. “Refueling sequence activated.”
He backtracked across the chasm and took another turn, passing storage rooms and stepping over empty crates thrown over the floor. Down the bottom of a sloping walk, he saw another release, and headed for it. He pulled down on this release same as the one on the other side of the engineering section and waited for the audible click that signified it was in place.
Once again, lights flashed and an alert went off, preceding the announced, “Refueling sequence activated. Sufficient fuel to fire primary engine.”
Marcus’s comm blinked and he answered it right away. “Whatever you did, it’s working, Marcus.” Hamilton’s voice was crackly over the link this time, as if something was temporarily disrupting communications. “I have a fuel reading. It’s only quarter-full, but that should be enough to restore orbit once you bring the engines online. What the hell?”
“Hamilton? What is it?”
A sigh was the first response he got. Then, “False alarm. I thought I saw something.” And then he was gone again.
“For fuck sake,” Marcus swore, annoyed by the sudden severing of the link. He’d have to have words with Hamilton about that when he met up with him on the bridge. But first things first… the engines needed to be restarted.
He headed back to the control room via a nearby corridor, and came out of it just outside the central control room. Through the window was a sight he was hoping he wouldn’t have to see again so soon… if ever. Another of the bat like creatures was in there, its fleshy wings wrapped around the corpse Marcus had seen in the chair before. The long spike had drilled its way deep into the skull of the body and both it and the thing holding it semi-upright were twitching madly on the spot.
Marcus restrained the urge to vomit again on the spot. It was disgusting to have to watch this again so soon after he’d seen it happen to Captain Matthews. Yellow gunk oozed out around the spike and bubbled out from the mouth. Marcus had no idea what it was, but he knew it wasn’t normal to the human condition.
As soon as it had started, it was over. The thing released the body and flew away to find another victim. The body continued to twitch and writhe on the floor when it had been abandoned, and Marcus watched, disgusted and horrified, as the changes began. Soon, even they were over, and the body was barely even human anymore.
Without supporting itself with its arms, it swung up onto two horribly fleshy feet and turned to look at him. Both of its human eyes were intact, but its jaw hung loosely from where it had been. Tissue and fat had atrophied, giving it a somewhat mummified look, and the long spikes protruding from its shoulders glistened with blood.
Knowing he was going to have to go in there anyway to get to the centrifuge, Marcus steeled his resolve and loaded another charge into the plasma gun. Then he rounded the control room and opened the door for entry.
Immediately, he was set upon by the both of them. The walker lunged at him with a furious scream, but Marcus dropped it with two shots… one that severed both legs and one that blew its head into tiny chunks all over the wall behind it. The flier came at him faster after that, its long spike extending from the top of its body, barbed and dripping with that yellow gunk. Marcus fired three shots into the thing’s torso before he scored a fourth hit at the base of the spike. The thing snapped off and the flier dropped to the deck and hit with a wet sound. Marcus stomped on it several times to make sure it wouldn’t threaten him again before he went on.
***
The End!
*
The Never Dead saga continues in: Never Dead: Hell Awaits…
12
Final Thoughts
Well, I hope you enjoyed this, the first book, in the Never Dead saga. As you read future books, they will, more or less, be chronological… Each title, was written, more or less, as a stand alone story… but, does follow each previous title… as much as was intended. The main characters, Marcus Stone and Jess Lange, will continue in some form in each book, either as main characters or a minor role as the stories continue. But, either way, I sincerely hope you enjoy this book and all future releases.
By the way… when you rate and review… please, be courteous and respectful… insults and bad comments don’t help nor motivate authors… it only discourages…
Ofelia Negra
May, 2018…