by S. A. Lusher
“How is he?”
“Alive,” Mertz murmured. “I think-”
Allan’s eyes suddenly shot open. Greg felt his veins turn to ice as he saw not Allan’s human eyes, but cold metal facsimiles that glowed a malignant red. Allan’s metal arm shot out and wrapped around Mertz’s throat.
“Allan! Stop!” Greg screamed, rushing over to the examination table.
Mertz was beating against the man’s forearm but to no avail. Allan sat up and lifted Mertz off the floor. Greg grabbed at Allan’s arm. “Allan! Put him down! It’s Greg and John! We’re here to help you!” he cried.
Allan backhanded him hard enough to crack his visor and throw him across the room. Greg yelled in pain as a fresh wave of hot agony washed over his body. He crashed into one of the walls, shattering several screens. He cried out again as he hit the floor, but tried to shove the pain aside as he lurched back to his feet.
Allan was standing now and holding Mertz aloft. The man was gagging, the sound awful, his eyes beginning to roll back into his skull. What was he going to do?! He very well couldn’t kill Allan and he didn’t want to hurt him either. It was obvious now that he’d lost his mind to Erebus and whether or not he was still in there, Greg had to find some way to subdue him. While he was thinking about this, Allan made the decision for him.
With hardly a twitch of his metallic hand, Allan crushed Mertz’s neck, snapping it and killing him instantly.
“JOHN!” Greg heard himself scream as he threw himself at Allan.
For a little while, he wasn’t sure what happened.
Greg was only aware of screaming and pain and suffering and movement. Thoughts bled together. Fury, terror, remorse, sorrow, loneliness and anxiety all became a swirling maelstrom of agony. It came to him that he was rushing Allan over and over again, trying to beat him with his bare gauntleted fists, and was getting thrown across the room repeatedly. He wasn’t sure how long this went on, it could have been seconds or minutes, but abruptly, he hit his head and it bounced around inside his helmet and that seemed to smack him back into reality.
He had an idea.
Before he could think about any of it, if it would work, if it might kill Allan, any of it at all, Greg just went with it.
Because it was his only option.
He grabbed an EMP grenade, activated it and ran towards Allan. This time, when Allan grabbed him and began to lift him, preparing to throw him once more, he failed to do so as the grenade went off and the blast engulfed him.
Both of them froze, locked up, their bodies trapped.
Allan’s mechanical parts seized and powered down.
Greg’s suit of power armor did the same.
As Allan toppled over and Greg was dropped, he hit his head one too many times and this time he passed out completely.
* * * * *
“Greg, will you please respond?...Mertz? Come on, someone talk to me!” Callie waited a few seconds more and then growled in frustration. She hadn’t been able to raise anyone and she’d been trying every two minutes since they’d managed to get out of the crate room after they’d killed the huge elemental. She hadn’t received even a partial response, just a flat, dead silence. She and Keron had been hurrying through the facility ever since then, heading for the last known location of the pair, the other location where Allan might be.
They were almost there.
Neither spoke as they hurried up the final corridor. The still silence was really beginning to get to Callie. The urge to find Allan, to leave this wretched environment behind, was becoming almost unbearable. She hurried to cross the remainder of the distance and stepped through the room, clearing it with a sweep of her rifle.
A cascade of emotions burst within her as she saw Greg, Allan and Mertz in a heap on the floor. She ran forward and then froze, a scream trying to fight its way past her lips as the full horror of Allan’s condition hit her. She made herself continue and knelt by the three men. It became immediately obvious that Mertz was dead. From the way his neck was crushed and the blood all over Allan’s false metal hand, she realized with a sickening horror that he must have killed the medic. He was never going to forgive himself for that…
But she couldn’t think about that now.
She quickly checked Allan and Greg over and found them both battered and mangled, but alive. They were both still alive.
She saw something clutched in Greg’s hand, something that had fused with his armor. An EMP grenade, she saw. In a flash, she recognized what had happened: he’d used the grenade to knock Allan out.
“We need to get Greg and Allan suits,” Keron said quietly. “So that we can get them outside, across the ocean, to the ship.”
Callie nodded numbly. She detached her medical kit from her belt and carefully took off Greg’s helmet. He looked horrible. His eyes were blackened, one of his lips was split, his short black hair was plastered to his skull with sweat and his face was covered in small cuts, scrapes, burns and scratches. He also looked like he’d lost weight recently and she was sure he had. He hadn’t been eating much since his...incident on Ash.
Callie quickly began tending to his wounds and trying to bring him around. She focused on him intently because, although she knew Allan needed her help more and she wanted to help him more, she also knew there was nothing she could do. And she didn’t want to risk waking him or upsetting his condition.
There was nothing any of them could do for now.
Greg gasped awake. “Allan!” he screamed.
“Greg, it’s okay, it’s me,” Callie said, looking down at him, holding him down.
He looked up at her and anguish filled his eyes. “Is he dead?” he whispered. “I had to hit him with that EMP, he was going to kill me, Callie...”
“He’s alive, Greg. You did the right thing. He’s alive.” She paused. “I’m so sorry about Mertz,” she said softly.
Greg closed his eyes and let out an anguished moan. He covered his face with his hands. “He’s dead,” he whispered.
“We need to leave this place,” Keron said.
A few seconds of silence passed.
Greg took a few deep breaths, then removed his hands and opened his eyes. He looked awful, but more in control of himself. “I need a new suit,” he replied quietly.
“So does Allan,” Callie said.
“And we’re getting one for John. I’m not leaving him here.”
Callie simply nodded. They got to work.
* * * * *
Their exit of the underwater facility ended up being the most uneventful activity of the entire mission.
It took them fifteen minutes to locate new pressure suits and another fifteen to walk them back and get Allan and Mertz into them while Greg changed out of his own. Once that was taken care of, Greg carried Mertz and Callie carried Allan. They only ran into a pair of meat machines that were so thrashed Keron killed them in seconds. The facility was dead and dark now. Callie wondered how much longer it would last.
No one said a word as they cycled through the airlock they’d initially come through and came back into the ocean.
They encountered no local wildlife and when they got back to the ship, they found it in the same condition they had left it. Once they had cycled through the airlock, they went to the infirmary. Greg laid Mertz out carefully on one of the examination tables, then, after a moments’ consideration, laid a sheet over him.
Callie laid Allan out on another and assigned Keron to watch over him, then she went forward to the bridge and began to bring the speedship online.
It was time to go home.
CHAPTER 15
–The Hard End–
Drake slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle and waited for anything else to show up, but, at last, nothing more stepped in through any of the open doors. Slowly, he lowered his rifle and straightened up. After another ten seconds, he promptly began walking towards the left doorway. He and Stacker had been fighting their way through the core of the facility. He figured they must b
e getting close, because Erebus seemed to be throwing everything it had at them, although it seemed to have run out of quality troops by now.
They’d put down probably fifty more meat machines and elementals between the two of them since their last run-in with the hunter-killer. Which Drake was extremely grateful to hear was dead, or at the very least tripped up long enough to keep out of their way. He seriously hoped it was dead and gone. He and Stacker had been ambushed in the room they were currently leaving, and given how close it was to the center of the core, Drake had to assume that it was Erebus’ last hurrah in terms of forces. A last ditch defense effort.
Or really that’s what he hoped.
Assuming was bad.
He was glad at least to see that Stacker was holding out well. He hadn’t cracked or snapped, he was still holding his own against machine hybrid horrors. Hawkins had made a good pick. They were nearing the end of their journey. Well, hopefully not the end of it, but at least the end of this leg of the trip. Up ahead, down a short, broad hallway they’d stepped into, was another set of doors. Thick, vault-like doors that would take them into the central chamber where, he hoped and dreaded, Erebus itself would reside.
“All right, Stacker, we’ve got absolutely no idea what will be waiting for us on the other side. It’s probably going to be a mainframe that we need to trash, but...well, who knows what Erebus has guarding it,” he said, switching to his grenade launcher. He’d been saving it for just such an occasion. Stacker switched to his flamethrower.
They were ready.
Or as ready as they were going to be.
They moved up to the doors and Drake hit the access button. Surprisingly, they opened up. Also surprisingly, before they could get all the way open, a huge, malformed hand of bone and steel and meat shot out, grabbed Drake, and yanked him into the area beyond, then hurled him the length of the room. Drake screamed as he sailed through the air for a few heart-pounding seconds, then grunted as his impromptu journey ended abruptly as he slammed into a wall of screens, shattering several of them. He grunted again as he slammed to the deckplates.
Blinking rapidly, trying to regain his vision and his feet, Drake raised his grenade launcher. Or tried to. It was gone from his grasp and he couldn’t see it anywhere. As he struggled to his feet, Drake caught sight of the thing that had assaulted him.
It was huge.
And intensely disturbing.
A three-legged, three-armed, skinless abomination bore down on him with a great, black, glowing cyclopean eye that took up a good portion of its face. Its mouth was a wide, lipless slash filled with metal shark teeth that oozed and dripped a corrosive purple substance. Each of the three arms ended in something lethal. The first being a huge, skeletal metal and meat hand, the one that had grabbed him. Another one ended in a bludgeon covered in serrated blades. The third ended in a long, narrow drill that was spinning madly.
“Specialist Winters. Specialist Stacker. You have arrived. I have been waiting for you,” Erebus said, spinning the drill and clenching and opening its skeletal fist.
There was something ominously flat and dead in Erebus’ voice now. It sounded more cold and calculating, like an emotionless machine. Its voice was deeper and resonated more. “I have constructed this body for myself. I thank you for the opportunity to test it.”
With that, Erebus swung its bludgeon around and tagged Stacker, not quite smashing into him, but hitting him hard enough to send him stumbling and spinning. A gout of white flames sprayed the air, barely missing Erebus. Drake pulled out his pistol, as his rifle and his launcher had been thrown from his grasp, aimed at Erebus’ head and opened fire. Most of the shots went wide, as he was having a hard time seeing, but a few connected.
None managed to do much damage.
Drake dropped the pistol as Erebus sent the drill straight for him and he narrowly dodged out of the way. Looking around, he frantically hunted for either his launcher or his rifle. He spied the launcher across the room and began running for it. The serrated-edged bludgeon came smashing down directly in his path, narrowly avoiding him by inches. Drake leaped over it and at the same time he heard another gush of flames.
An electrical howl sounded.
Drake dove, grabbed the launcher, rolled and spun back around. Erebus was aflame now. Stacker had hit his mark. Now that the big beast was distracted, Drake took his chance and squeezed the trigger. A grenade sailed through the air and connected directly with Erebus’s broad back, exploding upon impact and blowing off two of its arms. The digitized wailing only grew louder as it stumbled. Drake didn’t let up, squeezing the trigger over and over again, as fast as the weapon would allow. He emptied all six grenades into it.
By the time the smoke cleared, it became obvious that whatever was left of Erebus had been splattered all over the walls.
“Shit,” Stacker said after about twenty seconds of solid silence.
“It’s done,” Drake muttered, getting to his feet. He fed more grenades into the launcher, unwilling to believe he was safe. Once it was loaded, he let it hang over his back, then retrieved his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Looking around, he found a relatively intact looking workstation and moved over to it.
“What are you doing?” Stacker asked.
“That was too easy,” Drake replied as he accessed the terminal and began sorting through whatever data he could. “Something’s wrong.”
“What? Come on, we kicked that thing’s ass! It’s dead,” Stacker replied.
“I know. That’s my point. Something feels off.” He spent another minute hunting around, unsure of what he was looking for. Finally, something caught his eye on another screen off to the side. Frowning, he stepped up to it and studied it.
“Oh shit,” he whispered as a horrific, dawning realization stole over him, turning his blood to ice. He stabbed out at the controls, working them frantically.
“What?” Stacker demanded.
“Erebus. It’s sending out a file. A big file, transmitting it via the comms network. It’s still uploading before it can be sent. Fuck, it was just keeping us distracted!” he snapped, hurrying back to the workstation and calling up a map of the station.
“But what does that mean?” Stacker pressed.
“Erebus is an AI. It’s trying to escape by sending itself out over the comms array to some other location. We have to stop it,” Drake explained quickly. “Fuck!” he snapped, smashing his fist into the nearest screen after several seconds, shattering it in a spray of sparks and glass. He turned and began sprinting out of the room, activating his radio.
* * * * *
“Eric, come in!”
Eric nearly jumped out of his skin in response to the sudden radio message. He’d been walking around the base for twenty minutes now, expecting some kind of attack, having to double back several times due to corridors being closed down or doors being shut and locked with no way to open them. He keyed the respond button.
“I’m here, what’s wrong?” he replied.
Drake sounded out of breath as he updated Eric. “We killed Erebus’ body, but it was just a decoy. Erebus is trying to transmit itself out of here and I can’t shut it down. We have twenty minutes to get to the top of the facility, where there’s a communications tower that goes all the way to the surface. We have to destroy the tower. Find some explosives if you can and then get up onto the roof and find us. Hurry,” he explained.
“On it,” Eric replied.
He skidded to a halt as he found another general access terminal, booted it up and quickly looked over the map. Within a minute, he’d found the nearest armory, as well as the nearest roof access, and plotted a course from there to the comms tower Drake had been referring to. He’d noticed it a few other times when he’d looked over the maps before. Once he had it committed to memory, Eric turned and began jogging.
He was past the point of exhaustion now, both physically and mentally. Losing Porter had really taken it out of him. He felt like hammered shit. He just wante
d to turn off, to sleep for three days, to not think anymore. But of course that option was not open to him. Not yet, at least. Once it was all over, he could be with Drake, see Luna and Sierra again, be among his friends on the Dauntless. Provided he survived the massacre.
Speaking of which…
Something was slamming into metal over and over again up ahead, the sound getting louder as he drew closer. Eric jogged to the end of the hall he was in and skidded to a halt, waiting for a few seconds, wondering what the fuck could be doing it. Leaning around a corner, rifle at ready, he saw the source of the noise. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what in the hell it was that he was looking at. It was a meat machine, that much was obvious, a pale man, perhaps a former colonist or solider, half his body replaced or covered by metal and machinery.
The thing was slamming its head into the wall over and over again, each time spraying a bit more of its red-black blood.
Slowly, Eric raised his rifle. He aimed and fired, capping the thing and dropping it. Why had it been doing that? It took his exhausted mind another two minutes to come up with the answer as he resumed his jog through the facility. Erebus was dead, or at least otherwise occupied. It no longer had control over its meat-metal army. Apparently, left to their own devices, they went fucking insane. Wonderful.
Eric managed to make it to the armory without running into any more hostiles, although he was hearing a lot of disturbing sounds now, and they seemed to be getting closer. Hoping that he could slip out before something showed up, he hurried into the armory and began a quick hunt. Two more minutes passed as he gathered up a smattering of grenades and shaped charges. He wasted another thirty seconds finding a detonator and yet another minute hooking the charges up remotely to the detonator. Once all that was stored, he took off.
Twenty minutes wasn’t exactly a lot of time to work with.
The sounds were getting louder as Eric pounded down the corridors, breaking from a jog to a flat-out run. If they let Erebus go...there was no telling what could end up happening. He sprinted down a corridor, hooked a right through a junction, cut across a barren storage room and finally burst into the area that would grant him roof access. It was a conversion bay that had apparently gone completely fucking insane in the wake of Erebus’ absence. A dozen meat machines of varying states of construction were stumbling around, fighting each other.