by Christi Smit
Gunn made sure that her Maiden was ready to take off as soon as the word was given. Being that close to the mutated creatures of the Beast made Gunn extremely agitated; her home was in the air or in the void, far away from sharp things that could hurt her. Her obvious reaction to the situation was to blame Jinx, she was pretty sure he was the reason they were in bad luck once again.
The Wolves and the three remaining Lancers had exited the ducts and were making good speed towards the reactors. They met resistance every step of the way, but it never slowed them down.
The Lancers trailed behind the Wolves fighting at the front of the column, Rivers and Locke covered the rear, cutting down any stragglers the other four leading Titans missed or left partially alive. Rivers had to stay at the back, he half worked on the plan Remy had suggested, double checking her work and his own role in the absurd idea, only stopping to fire his shotgun if Locke missed something, which only happened twice so far. The Lancers covered Rivers from time to time as the squad crossed intersections or passed bulkhead doors that stood wide open for some unknown reason. It gave the Fateful Moment’s corridors an eerie echo as the Titans weapons split open mutant bodies and bashed bestial skulls.
Pyoter was at the front, hacking away at anything in his path. The others struggled to keep up with the giant Titan and his rage. He swept his blade in deadly arcs in front of him as he moved forward, switching from one-handed to two-handed grips, shifting his weight with every step. His muscles burned from the fighting, but he felt more alive than ever, reaping the lives of the nightmarish monsters was what he was born for. His berserker heritage fuelled his beating heart and growing fury, hearing nothing beyond the sound of his sword’s lethal edge as it separated flesh and bone. All he knew was that the monsters had to die, so he kept fighting and following the highlighted path on his visor as best he could.
Everyone else knew not to speak to Pyoter when he fought at his current level, only keeping him in check if he strayed from the current path.
Xander followed the berserker Wolf, using his pistol and one hand blade to kill as many of the beasts that escaped the reach of Pyoter’s sword. He gave his giant squad mate a big lead, allowing the giant the freedom to free his anger. Xander’s explosives rattled against his armour as he plunged his blade into the head of a mutant, shooting another in the face that tried to pounce on him. He paused for less than a second to check for the others behind him before he broke into a jog again, keeping Pyoter in his sight range.
Christian and Nathan fought like twins, knowing each other’s style without any practice and complimenting each other’s every move. The brothers stormed forward with their shields raised, bashing apart anything still left alive or flattening the monsters that tried to enter the corridor from above or below. Christian was slightly ahead of his older brother, using his shield to flip smaller creatures into the rushing shield of Nathan. Nathan would follow up with his combat blade, slicing off limbs and severing heads from already mutilated bodies.
Christian’s blade sang in the air above his shield, those creatures too big or too fast to flip over his shield met their end swiftly. His blade rapidly striking at the monsters in front of his protection, burying his blade in mutated flesh as he stepped over the dead piled up throughout the corridor.
The squad kept the pace until they reached their destination. Pyoter had cleared everything around the opening into the reactor section of the Fateful Moment. Xander arrived soon after the big Titan, helping the giant to clear the last of the beast still alive to pose a threat. The brothers and the rest of the squad arrived exactly when the last monster died.
Pyoter shook the remains of the creature from his blade and nodded at the rest of the squad. Pyoter finally acknowledged their presence since they had left the ducts.
No-one spoke as Locke walked to the open portal descending into the reactor chambers in the belly of the cargo vessel. Locke held up his hand to halt everyone in place, he closed his fist to order his squad to hold and cover him.
Everyone took positions around the portal to cover their leader, weapons pointing down the dark staircase leading to the reactors.
Locke shouldered his Kicker and took the first step down the staircase, but as soon as his armoured boot touched the first step a bloodcurdling scream assailed the Wolves and Lancers from the darkness below.
The scream was born from pure anguish, unleashed from lungs that were never human to begin with. It was deep and hungry, almost powerful enough to tear sanity from reality, leaving nothing but the husk of human flesh behind. It reverberated up from the staircase and punished the senses as it passed over the rag-tag squad. The Lancers were visibly shaken by the time the scream ended.
Locke froze and instantly re-evaluated his tactic. He crossed his arms in front of him to form an X, and the pointed at Christian and Nathan.
Christian knew what it meant, moving to lead the squad down the staircase. He placed his hand on Jay’s shoulder and shook the Lancer, helping to steady the Lancer’s mind.
Jay looked up at the Titan and slapped Borstil who was whimpering beside him, the slap helped the chubby Lancer to regain some focus. Stevens was beside Borstil, gripping his rifle as if it was a child.
Nathan and Christian descended to lead the squad down the staircase. Whatever was down there in the darkness was purposefully placed there to stop anything from coming near the reactors.
Locke admired the planning orchestrated by the AIE and its master, and he made a mental note to put a few extra bullets into both once the Wolves were free of this trap.
Two colossal plasma reactors filled the space of the reactor room, cylindrically shaped like twin gun barrels from an ancient hunting shotgun. They stood a tank-width apart, held in place by hulking clamps attached to the deck, large enough to hold small starships in their metal embrace.
Cables as thick as a human ran from the walls into the reactors at each end, giving onlookers the impression that the reactors were held up by the cables instead of the clamps. But the true purpose of the cables was to pump thousands of gallons of coolant around the reactors, cooling the outer shells of the plasma core inside the reactor. The coolant never stopped flowing, even if all ship systems were disabled backup after backup system would ensure that the reactors were always cooled.
The constant movement inside the reactors electrostatically charged the entire reactor room. Bright white electricity arced between reactor and metal all around the room, running up and down cables, dissipating as the charges lost their potency. A storm of arcing, deadly electricity went off between the colossal reactors, creating an instantaneous death trap for any organic creature, human or not. Anything that stepped or found itself in the middle of the reactor storm would be burnt to cinders.
A raised platform watched over the reactors, it housed all of the consoles needed to maintain the reactors and the sub-systems. Between the platform and the reactors a two-foot thick, armoured glass shield protected crew from the chaotic storms around the reactors. It also served to nullify the electrical charges, protecting the consoles from overload or damage.
If a person stood at the centre console and looked out over the two reactors, it would give that person the sense of seeing two new-born suns, safely tucked into their metal cots.
The stairs the Titans and the three Lancers descended led directly onto the raised platform, giving the squad a clear view of what was waiting for them the moment they stepped foot on the platform.
On the other side of the armoured shield a towering avatar of murder crouched in silence, watching the humans walk into its domain. It was at least twice as tall as any normal human.
Christian and Nathan stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the thing, the lightning arcing behind it increasing the threatening aura the creature was projecting. One by one the Titans saw the monster as they descended the stairs, pausing as soon as the avatar looked at every one individually.
It was definitely not human, and probably never was.
It was hunched over like a great ape from ancient Earth, resting its broad, muscled torso on arms of pure power. Its legs were shorter than its arms, but were probably just as powerful. Thick alien veins ran down its body, viscous crimson fluid surged through every vein, visible from the other side of the shield. It had no hands, instead its arms ended into solid muscle stumps with bone shards tearing through its skin. Its face was the most troubling aspect of the avatar; its face was small and in direct contrast to the rest of its body, dominated by a snarling mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. There were so many teeth the creature was unable to close its mouth, and shredded its own lips as it moved its jaw. Tiny black eyes watched its prey from behind a thick muscular brow. The creature had no visible nose, if one had to guess then it would probably have been on its head somewhere, but the mutation it had undergone had hidden or removed the organ completely.
Everyone readied themselves, reloading weapons with whatever ammo they had left, checking suit systems internally as they formed up.
Stevens was about to ask Locke what they should do when the avatar howled again, this time it sounded hungrier and excited, probably delighted that it finally had prey in its assigned territory.
The howl signalled the start of the creature’s attack. It reared up on its short, stubby legs and thumped its spikey stumps into its chest. It snorted and charged at the armoured shield.
It leapt clean over it, aiming for the middle of the platform. The Wolves and Lancers scattered as it plummeted towards them.
The platform shook as the avatar landed, shaking consoles apart and breaking displays.
It turned and picked a random target, stomping towards its first kill.
Clumsy Borstil never had time to react before his life ended, and everyone on that platform would remember how he died for many years after the fight.
Sabian’s part in Remy’s plan was simple - sweep and clear a path for the Wolves to fall back to the docking bay once their mission was complete.
Sabian was used to playing second fiddle to the Titans, and he never minded it for a second. He knew that the Wolves were his superiors, regardless of his rank or battle experience. It never irked him to take orders from Locke, and he always answered when they called, never hesitating. Sabian was one of the most loyal soldiers to humankind, his men following him every step of the way.
It was no surprise that the Lancers on-board the Fateful Moment sprang into action the moment the orders were passed down. Squads of elite soldiers re-sealed bulkhead doors, Lancer engineers welding them shut as they closed off every entrance, save one, into the docking bay where the Maiden sat on idling engines.
The Lancers re-positioned and set up new firing lines covering that single point of entry, forcing the beasts still alive to bottleneck through that single entrance, drawing the monsters out of the surrounding docks and cargo bays, away from the Wolves. This entrance into the dock was however not the route the Wolves would take to get back to the Maiden. In the middle of the docking bay engineers and the Maiden’s automatons worked frantically with cutting torches. They were cutting and removing debris from an old cargo elevator, an elevator the ship’s captain probably did not even know about during his many years of service. But Remy had found the disused and rusty piece of forgotten hardware on old ship schematics. Her discovery had fit nicely into her plan for everyone to get off the Fateful Moment alive.
The elevator was the final piece to a solid plan built on a slippery slope; everything had to succeed before the elevator could lift the Wolves to safety.
Torches cut through metal as automatons did all of the heavy lifting, clearing almost all of the debris in only a handful of minutes. As the engineers worked a squad of Lancers stood nearby, checking their gear as Sabian issued more orders. These men, and Sabian, would rappel down four decks, landing in what was once a cargo bay, but it was now sealed off due to the Fateful Moment’s current mission parameters.
Once they secured the entry point into the elevator they would need to find access controls on the other side of the cargo bay, controls that would open maintenance access between the cargo bay and the reactor room, which was conveniently close by. Sabian and the Lancer squad with him would take positions at the mouth of the maintenance access and wait for the Wolves.
Remy had done a miraculous job at organizing the plan and all of its intricate details, but it still depended on one very important thing - the Wolves needed to complete their part and survive. No-one even considered the idea of leaving Locke and his men behind, everyone was leaving the Fateful Moment together, only the dead would be left behind. Sabian silently hoped to himself that Locke and his wolves, including most of his Lancers, were not numbered in the ranks of the dead by the time this trap expired.
In the back of everyone’s mind the invisible timer still ticked down, but there was no known zero moment, no-one knowing exactly when the end would come.
Everyone focused on their tasks instead, hoping that time would for once be on their side.
Borstil’s body exploded from the force of the monster’s blow. It had used both meaty stumps to crush its first target, bringing both down on Borstil’s armoured head. His armour splintered under the descending flesh maces, cracking as his body was pulped and forced through new cracks in the Lancer’s armour plating. The hammer-blow from the chaotic creature had reduced the man into a pinkish paste, creating puddles of congealed human remains on the decking where Borstil once stood.
Worst of all was the sound Borstil’s death had made. He had tried to speak moments before the meat-hammers had connected. The unnatural crack of bones shattering mixed with his gargled scream and the monster’s bizarre howl had echoed in the reactor room, assaulting the senses of everyone around the death scream.
It was a gruesome way to die and far from heroic. The Wolves were steeled against such sights, the two remaining Lancers were not, but they had no time to let their friend and squad mate’s death interfere with the plan that needed to be executed.
Locke was the closest to Borstil’s death, he had side-stepped the human remains as the Lancer had exploded, recoiling from the bone fragments flying through the air towards him. He raised his rifle and fired at the muscular side of the beast, yelling orders over the squad radio, knowing the fight would be a true test for all of them. “Move Rivers, NOW!” he yelled at his sergeant, who was standing on the opposite side of the platform.
Rivers was lost in thought at seeing the monster crush the Lancer on the other side of the portal. Locke’s yelling over the radio roused him from his mind, and he immediately moved, sprinting for the edge of the platform.
River’s grabbed Jay, who was firing at the beast like the rest of the squad, by his neck armour and dragged the Lancer from his feet towards the edge, “I need your help soldier! Follow me!” Rivers screamed at the Lancer he was dragging, letting go of him as soon as the Lancer regained his footing and followed the Titan.
“Yes sir!” Jay responded, falling into step behind the Wolf.
Rivers and Jay did not look back as they reached the edge of the platform, both knowing that sentiment meant nothing now, they had to get to the reactor emergency control panel hidden beneath the platform the others were fighting on.
They dropped out of sight from the fight, jumping off the edge onto the reactor room’s bare floor, disappearing beneath the masses of cabling and panels in the dark below the platform.
The monster had chosen Locke as its next target - probably because the bullets from the captain’s rifle irritated its flesh.
It moved on its short but powerful legs, charging at Locke with all of its ferocity, swinging one of its meat-hammers at the Titan’s head.
Locke dodged it just in time, ducking under the blow as he stepped to his right, firing at the monster again.
The beast raised its other arm-stump to take another swing at the captain, but paused before the swing ever came.
A volley of bullets hit the monster in its back; the relentless fire a
lmost caused the beast to stagger forward, almost. The volley angered the beast and its focus shifted again, focusing on the three humans staring at the beast through their weapon sights.
Christian and Nathan had switched from defensive tactics with their shields to full offensive. Christian was kneeling, firing his Kicker into the creature’s torso. Nathan stood over Christian, firing his own Kicker into the head of the monster. Xander was the third, he stood next to the brothers, firing his pistol at what he thought might be the creature’s vital spots. In Xander’s free hand he held one of his high incendiary grenades, ready to throw it at the beast as soon as Locke was clear.
Locke saw the grenade and dove to get clear of the monster, mostly getting out of the way of the coming flames.
The beast faced the three Titans head on and howled a challenge at them, beating its chest in excitement, snorting at them.
Xander did not hesitate; he primed the grenade and threw it at the giant hulk’s tiny head, hoping to cover the beast’s body from head to toe in flame.
The incendiary exploded right in the face of the avatar, engulfing the creature’s flesh in bright flames, Christian and Nathan never stopping their volley of fire into the beast, expending the last of their ammo reserves to soften up the creature’s outer fleshy defences.
The avatar roared from anger and pain, the flames still burned as it rose up on its legs, stretching its meaty arms above its head in anger as it kept roaring, its face turned up to the roof of the reactor room’s ceiling.
That moment, when anger overtook reason and the lines blurred between killing to survive and needing to kill to slate some deep hunger, was the moment Pyoter was waiting for.
The giant Titan struck without a word, moving like a ghost through the shadows the fire was casting, revealed only by the flames illuminating the Wolf and his massive blade as they ate away at the creature.