At the end of the corridor, he turned left. Something smelled unusual – tangy and sweet at the same time, and not at all pleasant. He slowed and peered through the doorway ahead. It was near-dark inside and he didn’t know if it was intentional or if the lights had failed.
He called a halt and listened – his microphone detected a noise he didn’t like either. It was like a thick, glutinous slithering.
“What the hell?” he said.
“Mess hall,” said Zargol. “The Raggers like to eat in the dark. It will not be agreeable to witness.”
Conway didn’t want to find out how the Raggers ate. He didn’t see much choice - this was the most direct route and he didn’t want to turn back. He crept to the threshold where the smell was stronger and the noise louder. Light strips in the ceiling provided the absolute minimum light for him to see, and there was other light coming from a single open doorway fifteen meters offset from this entrance.
“Head torches on,” he said. “If the Raggers come, we’ll just shoot them.”
His torch activated with a faint click and it threw a powerful beam into the room. Zargol’s description was an understatement – the Ragger mess hall was far worse than unpleasant and Conway struggled to hold back his revulsion. He wanted to order his men to throw grenades into this room until everything was incinerated.
“Ah, shit,” said Barron. “Why’s everything so screwed up?”
The mess hall was a rectangular room with a low ceiling and a total of four entrances, two of which were closed off by doors. Three channels – troughs – went all the way across the room, evenly spaced on the floor. The troughs emerged from one wall and disappeared into the other. Along these channels, an unctuous red mixture flowed, pulsing as it went, like a tiny river of blood. Lumps bobbed in the thick fluid – torn hunks of meat, raw and glistening, waiting to feed the Raggers who came here.
The longer he stared, the more details came unwanted into Conway’s brain - the bloody handprints and footprints, the dried pieces of unfavored meat thrown into one corner. Amongst the long list of terrible sights Conway had witnessed, this was one of the very worst.
“Those ones died feeding,” said Kemp, pointing into one corner. “Greedy bastards. I hope they didn’t crap in the chow.”
A dead Ragger, covered in radiation sores, lay face-down in the trough, causing the thick liquid to overflow onto the floor nearby. A second alien was curled up nearby, its head on the edge of the channel.
“Kemp, remind me to check out your psyche reports when we get out of here,” said Lockhart.
Conway turned his head so that he could see through Kemp’s visor. The man’s face was pale and he looked sick to the core. Everyone faced up in the way they knew how.
“Come on, let’s move. We already hate the Raggers – we don’t need to add more wood to the fire.”
“Shit that one’s alive!” said Kemp.
From the corner of his eye, Conway saw one of the Raggers lift its head, slowly and painfully. It made a hissing noise as if it was trying to say something. The next sound he heard was a Gilner. Bullets from Kemp’s gun tore into the alien and it slumped forward into the river of blood slops.
“Stop!” shouted Conway.
It was too late.
“Ah, you idiot,” said Barron.
“We could have questioned that one,” said Conway.
Kemp had realized his mistake and stammered an apology. “Sorry folks. I couldn’t help myself. All this blood and the sight of these Raggers drinking it down…”
Support came from an unexpected source. “Do not concern yourself, human,” said Lonstril. “I have seen this before and my reaction at the time was less restrained.”
It was a screwup and Conway knew he couldn’t do anything to fix it. He didn’t want to stay here any longer and headed for the offset doorway in the far wall. When the ship was fully operational, he was sure the feeding room would have been a popular destination. Not now, and the sound of gunfire didn’t bring any Raggers to investigate.
The doorway led to a passage and steps downwards. The air was noticeably cooler this way, though the lighting was still dim.
“On the positive side, it can’t get much worse than that,” said Barron.
It was like dangling a carrot in front of the gods of bad luck. The corridor ended at a door, with a green light on the access panel. A single word was emblazoned on the door’s surface.
Meat.
With his internal alarm bells ringing, Conway reached for the handle.
Chapter Twenty
The meat room was dark, cold and smelled bad. Thousands of shapes hung from hooks on the ceiling and those hooks were attached to runners, presumably so the meat could be moved around as required.
“We need to get out,” said Conway, the moment he realized what the closest shapes were.
He was too late.
“My people,” said Zargol, the sound deep in his chest. “Dangling from hooks. Waiting to be cut into pieces and thrown into a Ragger feeding trough.”
“We don’t have to go this way.”
Zargol’s chest rose and fell with what Conway recognized as fury. The Fangrin didn’t speak for long moments.
“We can’t unsee this, human. Going back will not help - we must go forward.”
Conway didn’t want to cross the meat room. “I can’t see an exit.”
“Then we must look for one,” said Zargol.
“The Fangrin can’t stop now, Lieutenant,” said Griffin on a private channel. “This room has become a challenge they need to overcome.”
The signs were there and Conway had missed them. “Let’s go and find that exit.”
He stepped into the room with his eyes now fully adjusted. A couple of meters ahead, a naked Fangrin dangled from a hook driven through the flesh in its back. The alien’s throat had been cut open and the blood left to drip into a shallow channel under its feet. Another Fangrin hung a meter away and next to that, another type of creature which Conway didn’t recognize. It was human-sized, but not human, with dark red skin, long, thick limbs and a face that resembled that of a wild animal.
“Do you know what that is?” asked Conway.
“I have never seen one before,” said Zargol. “It might come from a Fangrin world or it might not.”
“I guess what I’m trying to ask is if the Raggers found any other intelligent life forms before they came to the Fangrin.”
“We do not know for sure.”
Conway took a deep breath and pushed his way between the two hanging Fangrin. He tried not to look too hard and kept repeating that whatever they’d once been, their worries were over and, as the word on the door said, they were just meat.
For some reason, the thought didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, Conway found his anger rising with each step. He elbowed his way through the next row, with his eyes aimed right between the hanging bodies and towards the opposite wall. The room was enormous – far larger than he’d first realized and one part of his brain tried to calculate how many corpses were in here. It wasn’t an answer he wanted to know and he tried to think of something else.
Every few rows, Conway paused to make sure everyone was with him. He’d been concerned this would be too much for the Fangrin, but they had plenty of inner strength and stalked after him with their anger held in check. Conway had fought the aliens enough times that he should have known they would overcome whatever obstacles were thrown in their way.
“Just like a damn human,” he said to himself. “Who would have thought it?”
Conway was brought out of his reverie when a rectangle of light suddenly appeared in the wall at a slight offset from the way he was heading. Shapes crowded into the gap.
“Raggers,” he hissed.
“Got more coming from the left,” said Barron. “Shit - and the right.”
“Watch our backs!” shouted Lockhart.
“Incoming behind,” said Kemp a fraction later. “How the hell did they find u
s here?”
“I don’t know,” said Conway. He had his suspicions – maybe the Raggers had picked them up on internal security and waited until they thought it was a good time to attack. “Get down!”
He dropped onto his chest and aimed his Gilner towards the opposite doorway. The dangling meat came close to the floor and he wasn’t able to get a clear shot underneath. Instead, he fired through a gap into the doorway, aiming for the enemy’s legs. The Raggers came fast, but they couldn’t avoid his bullets. Conway poured his anger into the shots and the enemy fell as he took their legs out from beneath them.
The other members of the squad joined in, firing at whatever targets they could aim at through the dead bodies in the meat room. Conway checked he was safe to move and then crawled a meter forward to get a better view. He found himself swapping magazines in a channel filled with irradiated blood. It clung to him and added to his fury.
He emptied a second magazine, glad the muzzle flash suppressors made his squad harder to pinpoint in the semi-darkness. More Raggers fell and he put bullets into them where they lay, hoping to finish them off.
“Grenade out!” yelled Barron.
Conway sensed movement to his left. Barron surged to her feet and threw - the grenade arced between the hooks, bounced off the ceiling and descended. It detonated in a flash and Conway heard the rattle of metal hooks sliding through runners and the thuds of bodies colliding.
He swapped magazines again, leaving him with two more fully loaded, and focused on the open doorway. The Raggers had worked out he was firing low and they sprang through into the meat room, before getting to their feet and running erratically towards the squad’s position.
“Coming from every damn side,” said Lockhart.
Somehow, the enemy had managed to get what seemed like dozens of soldiers into the room. They sped between the meat racks with their thin, black-clad legs difficult to spot and harder to shoot. Conway did his best and fired in short bursts so as not to burn through his ammunition too quickly. Chunks of meat flew everywhere as the enemy sought out the soldiers with return fire.
Conway’s senses became heightened. Part of his mind registered every detail. The superfluous was ignored and only the events critical to his survival affected his actions. Adrenaline coursed through his body and his skin felt tight.
Suddenly, a long row of corpses exploded under a tremendous hail of incoming gunfire. The existing spaces seemed to fill with bloody pieces which landed everywhere and made it harder for Conway to aim straight. The smells became more intense – blood and raw meat mixed in with ammonia from his bullets and the heat from his Gilner barrel.
“Chain gun!” he shouted on the comms. “Find it!”
Conway saw it first – a tracked unit to the side of the left-hand door.
“Zargol! Launcher! Left door!”
The Fangrin was his feet in one fluid motion. The coils of his launcher whined and the projectile whooshed across the room, right through the lines of meat hooks. Conway knew what to expect and waited for the devastation. The projectile struck close to the low ceiling and a huge cloud of white-hot flame expanded with such ferocity that Conway thought it was going to kill everyone. The blast wave came a moment after and it struck him hard. The noise of the explosion joined it and pieces of dense matter thudded into Conway’s body.
The sound of a Fangrin’s laughter filled the comms – it was Zargol and his joy at the pure chaos of it affected Conway too. He turned to see Kemp rise and throw three grenades in quick succession. Barron was nearby and flat to the floor. She side-armed one of her own grenades close to floor level and towards whatever her target was.
More explosions went off, not all of them from human grenades, and one not too far from Conway. A slaughtered Fangrin landed nearby, its flesh burned and its eyes closed. He crawled away from it, saw movement, fired. His rifle clicked dry and he swore while his hands swapped in a full magazine.
A shape exploded through his periphery and Conway watched Akandar sprint past him, his gun firing and his high-grip soles shrieking against the gore-covered floor.
“Move!” shouted Lockhart.
Another grenade went off in front of Conway and this time the heat of it was enough to set off the alarms in his suit. He’d stayed in one place for too long and now it was time to move. Conway tried to figure out the best direction, but his sight was blocked from every direction by piles of smoldering meat.
Smoke drifted in the breeze from the HVAC and he crawled into it, following the direction Akandar had taken. The comms updates from his squad never let up and Conway added his own. He found himself next to Barron – she was behind a pile of meat and she fired over the top. She dropped back to reload and grinned at him.
“Who’d have thought it?” she asked, her face a veneer of sanity.
The words said so much and Conway felt himself choked up and unable to reply. A moment ago he was feeling Zargol’s joy, now he didn’t know what the hell to think. He saw a thin, spindly shape, only a few meters away and he filled it with bullets. The Ragger tumbled out of sight and another sped past. Conway shot and missed, Barron likewise.
The gunfire abruptly lessened and a moment later, Lockhart gave a welcome update on the comms. “Clear left!” he shouted.
Conway remained in place with Barron, watching to see if the alien would reappear. Nobody had fired a bullet for the last few seconds and he wondered if one of the other soldiers had made the kill. He pulled away from the barrier in front of him and turned in order to check the vicinity. Many of the bodies were still attached to their hooks and they swung gently, like wind chimes on a summer’s day.
He saw movement, lightning-quick through one of the gaps and a Ragger darted between two of the hanging corpses. It didn’t spot Conway immediately and he guessed it was lost in the carnage, looking for something to murder. The alien brought its gun around at the same time as Conway did the same.
Before Conway was able to fire, a huge shape burst through the corpses. Akandar swung a mighty fist, which struck the Ragger on the side of its helmet. The alien didn’t so much drop to the floor, as it flew two meters sideways and then dropped to the floor unmoving. Akandar was on it at once. He ripped free its gun and threw it to one side.
“This one we will keep,” said the Fangrin. He put the Ragger over his shoulder and its long arms and legs dangled close to his knees.
“Is it over?” asked Kemp.
The Raggers’ surprise attack had failed and Conway hoped they’d lost a significant quantity of their remaining forces. Once he was sure no hostiles were waiting to ambush, Conway gathered the squad and led them towards the far exit door.
The meat room was a bloodbath in more ways than one. Smoke hung low and many hundreds of the bodies had been dislodged from their hooks, some of them piled up where the explosives had thrown them. Conway did his best to find a path around so that he didn’t have to see the faces of the bodies as he stepped over them. Here and there, he saw a dead Ragger, or the limbs of one protruding from beneath the piles.
“I think they would be glad,” said Mavingkar. “To have taken part in this would have pleased any Fangrin.” He laughed and then Lonstril joined in.
Conway shook his head. The Fangrin were no longer a total mystery and he wasn’t sure if he completely liked what he was seeing. A small part of him liked it. That small part of him liked it a lot, though he tried to pretend otherwise.
Even Kemp showed signs that he was coming around.
“You dogs fight okay,” he said. “Not as well as a human, but not bad.”
“Not dogs!” said Lonstril. “Wolves!”
They exited the room after Conway had assured himself that a second attack force wasn’t coming. The passage outside was filled with more irradiated Raggers. Kemp gave one of the bodies a kick and Barron did likewise.
“Feel better?” asked Conway.
“A momentary surge of endorphins, sir,” said Kemp, always quick with a response.
&nb
sp; Conway jerked his thumb in the direction he wanted to go. “Let’s find somewhere we can talk to our prisoner,” he said.
If the look on Akandar’s face was anything to go by, he doubted the Ragger was going to enjoy the experience.
Chapter Twenty-One
They marched quickly from the meat room and turned right at the next intersection. It remained quiet and they entered a new corridor from which several rooms led away. Conway rejected these ones as being too close to the scene of the last engagement, but he did look through the open doors to get a sense of what this part of the ship was dedicated to.
“Technical,” he said, when he saw the control consoles.
Griffin had more interest and a greater understanding of the hardware. He paused and stared through the second doorway.
“Anything we can use, sir?” asked Conway.
“No. Maybe.” Griffin made up his mind. “Let’s move on, Lieutenant.”
After another couple of turnings, Conway judged they were far enough from the meat room. He chose the next door they came to, which was locked until Zargol put his hand on the access panel. The door slid aside, Conway checked it was clear and they entered. It was another room filled with high-tech Ragger kit and Griffin walked over to check it out.
“Put that Ragger here,” said Conway, pointing at the floor.
Akandar leaned forward and dumped the unconscious prisoner. The squad gathered around with interest. The force of the Fangrin’s punch had been enough to crack the Ragger’s visor. The radiation levels hadn’t fallen and it was going to die one way or another. Conway looked into its face, trying to find something – anything – human about it. There was nothing. The creature’s eyes – open even when it was out cold – were bottomless pits of emptiness.
“We’d best take that helmet off it in case it speaks to its buddies on the comms,” said Conway. “I’ll do it.” He crouched and after a few seconds of trial-and-error, he managed to unfasten several retaining clips. The helmet slid off and the Ragger spasmed. Zargol gave it a hard kick.
Alien Firestorm (Fire and Rust Book 2) Page 16