“Affirmative,” Murakame said. “We will be decontaminated. Just send us the ship.”
“Roger that,” del Mar said. “Sending the second dropship immediately. We’ll all discuss what to do next once you are back on board, decontaminated, and able to better tell us what all happened down there.”
The video feeds shut off. Dollarhyde continued to try reaching the Dixon again, but all they got was the same static that had kept them from communicating earlier.
“Okay, I’m totally confused,” Bayne said. “Someone want to explain what just happened?”
Marsden was about to chime in and offer his best guess, but before he could Essentia spoke up. “I had an idea about what happened to Murakame, and I was about to tell Marsden about it before the video feeds kicked in. Now I don’t think it’s just an idea. I think I know exactly what happened.”
“Well?” Llewellyn asked. “Are you going to tell us, or are you going to make us guess.”
“Easy, Llewellyn,” Marsden said. “Go ahead, Essentia. You found something in the Sten-Plus data files, didn’t you?”
“I sure did. And if I’m right about this, and Murakame makes it back to the Franklin Dixon, then that will mean that the entire human race is screwed.”
August 2, 2147 (Earth Calendar)
2016 Greenwich Mean Time
Location: Corridor of Sten-Plus Spacecraft, Outside of Power Core Room Three, Bullfinch-2
Marine Heartbeats Detected on Planet: 32
“Well that sounds omelet.”
Llewellyn practically screamed at Bayne. “For the last time, you colossal idiot, it’s ominous. It sounds ominous. And yeah, no shit it does. Jesus, just shut your damned moronic pie-hole for once!”
“Llewellyn!” Dollarhyde yelled. “You are out of line! Reign it in or else I’ll order Conway to inject you with the same stuff she stuck into me, and you’ll be facing disciplinary action when we get back. Do I make myself clear?”
Llewellyn took a deep breath. When she spoke again, it obviously took her a great deal of effort to sound calm. “Crystal clear, commander. It won’t happen again.”
“Good, marine. See that it doesn’t.” Dollarhyde looked to Essentia. “Tell us what you’ve got, and do it quickly. I suddenly get the very bad feeling that we’re racing a clock here.”
Essentia looked a bit perplexed by the outbursts that had interrupted her, but she regained her composure quickly. “It’s the occupants of stasis field number thirty-seven,” she said, once again reading from her PDM. “While the majority of the creatures that were held on the ship were taken exactly as they were found, the ship did have limited facilities for genetic engineering. The Sten-Plus took the occupants of stasis field thirty-six, which didn’t appear to be any real threat to humans themselves, and then altered them.”
“What was it about the aliens in thirty-six that didn’t make them a threat?” Marsden said.
“It’s not that they weren’t a threat, it’s just that they weren’t a direct threat. They were parasites. Early tests showed that they were capable of infecting a number of animals that humans use as livestock. At first the Sten-Plus thought they could use this strain to damage our supply lines or possibly cause a famine. But I guess that wasn’t fast enough for them. They re-engineered a number of the specimens to create the parasites that were in thirty-seven. Unlike thirty-six, this strain could infect humans.”
“Tell us exactly what you mean when you say they can infect us,” Dollarhyde said. “Would it be like some kind of disease that would kill us?”
“Worse,” Essentia said. She paused to read more of the data, then hissed in a breath as she obviously didn’t like what she saw. “Apparently they are pink and fleshy looking things that slightly resemble the human brain, except larger. Maybe the size of a very large, very loaded backpack. They attach to the back of their host, then proceed to, um, eat the host’s nervous system.”
“That doesn’t sound very efficient of them,” Marsden said.
“It sounds like a species that used to exist on Earth,” Axel said. “Cymothoa exigua, also known as the tongue-eating louse. It lived in the ocean and would enter a fish’s mouth, clamp itself down, and then proceed to eat and then replace the fish’s tongue. They’re believed to be extinct now, considering most of the fish species they preyed upon were overfished into nothing.”
“Gross!” Bayne said. “You see, this is why I hate science. Nothing good ever comes from learning it.”
Axel looked thoroughly horrified by that statement, and Marsden had the feeling that, even if Bayne really had had the slightest chance of getting together with her, he had just lost it.
“Is that what’s going on?” Marsden asked Essentia. “Then replace the nervous system with themselves?”
“A large part of the nervous system at least. They completely devour and replace the host’s spinal cord, and extend tendrils into the victim’s brain. The parts of the brain that allow the host control of their own body are destroyed. But the worst part is that the parts of the brain that affect consciousness are left alone.”
Marsden grimaced. “So you’re saying that whoever gets infected with one of these things permanently loses the ability to live without it, yet at the same time they’re completely aware that something has taken over their body and is controlling them?”
“That certainly seems to be what this data suggests,” Essentia said.
“So wait,” Llewellyn said. “Are you saying that one of us could be infected with some parasite controlling us against our will, and the rest of us wouldn’t know?” From the way she eyed Bayne, Marsden could already guess the first person she would like to point a finger at as an imposter in their midst.
“No. Remember when I said about the parasite’s size? It’s not like it can hide that in someone’s body. If the Thirty-Sevens act in the same way that the parasites in thirty-six did, then they will be clearly visible on the person’s back.”
“Not exactly an efficient method of hiding,” Laughingmoon said.
“No,” Marsden said. “Not unless you were, say, broadcasting using the small screen and camera of a PDM, in which case whoever was receiving the message wouldn’t be able to see your back.”
“So that’s what we think happened to Murakame?” Hemingford asked. “Jesus. I always liked her. Very polite. That’s one hell of a way to go.”
“Are you sure there’s no way at all to rescue someone once they’ve been taken over?” Marsden asked Essentia.
“There isn’t, at least according to the limited tests the Sten-Plus could do. I mean, parts of the host’s nervous system are just gone now. They permanently become puppets of these things.”
“Is it just Murakame?” Bayne asked. “Or is it everyone else that got left behind in Delta team, too?”
“When Murakame sent her broadcast, she said that she and two others were still uninfected,” Dollarhyde said. “I would actually bet money that there’s three of them that have been taken over.”
“Which means there’s still seven members of Delta team that are unaccounted for,” Conway said. “We might not be able to save the three taken over by the Thirty-Sevens, but we’ve still got to mount a rescue mission for the others.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not dropping that as one of our objectives,” Dollarhyde said. “But all this does mean we have to add one more, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it in.”
“I’m not following,” Llewellyn asked. “Is it something to do with the dropship they requested?”
“Yeah, something about that doesn’t sit right with me,” Marsden said. “I think I could see what they’re trying to do by getting back to the Dixon. Whatever it is these parasites do to spawn, they can make more of themselves and take over the crew of the Dixon, then head on back to the core planets. Except there’s already a dropship here on the planet, and unless something terrible happened that none of us are aware of yet, it should still be in perfect flying condition.”
; “Two possibilities,” Axel said as she looked at her own PDM. “The first would be that they need a pilot. It seems so far that the parasites only know whatever it is their hosts know, so if none of them have the skills to handle a drop ship, they would need someone to come down and get them, then infect that person before continuing. The problem with that scenario is that, of the two other marines who seem to be showing the exact same irregular vital signs as Murakame, both of them have basic flight training.”
“So what’s the other possibility?” Trieloff asked.
“The second possibility is that they need the extra room,” Axel said. “One dropship wouldn’t be enough for what they need.”
“Why would they need that much room?” Hemingford asked. “One drop ship would be more than enough for just three of them.”
“Unless they’re not planning on it being just the three of them,” Marsden said. “Either they have more parasites with them that need hosts, or they’re planning on taking some of the creatures from this ship with them.”
“Either way, things look really bad for humanity if they get back to the Dixon,” Dollarhyde said. “How long is it going to take for the second dropship to land?”
“Given that the crew on the Dixon thinks this is an emergency, it will probably be on the ground in right around ten minutes,” Marsden said. “But we probably have much more time than that. Whatever they want to load onto the two ships will take time.”
Dollarhyde stood up. “Okay then, no more screwing around, everybody. We have three objectives and maybe a half an hour to complete all of them. Normally in this circumstance I’d suggest splitting up, but since we’ve still got an unknown number of monsters roaming around the ship wanting to turn us into Value Meals, we’re going to have to stick together.”
“We can’t do all that as one group in time,” Llewellyn said.
Dollarhyde’s voice dropped and gave the order they had probably all been expecting, even though none of them would have wanted to admit it before now. “Priority one is stopping those parasites from reaching the Dixon. Priority two destroying this ship and any harmful biological matter still left on it. That means, against everything we believe in, our missing brothers and sisters have to be priority three. If we find them, we save them.”
She didn’t need to tell them what would happen if they didn’t find the missing marines. They would go up with the ship. Marsden looked at his PDM and the life signs of the vanished marines. None of them looked like they were in good shape. For the first time, Marsden hoped, for their sakes, that they would die sooner rather than later. Blowing up with the ship would probably be painless, but they would still suffer up until that moment.
“Everyone off your asses and move out,” Dollarhyde said. Her heart didn’t seem to be in the order.
August 2, 2147 (Earth Calendar)
2021 Greenwich Mean Time
Location: Corridor of Sten-Plus Spacecraft, Bullfinch-2
Marine Heartbeats Detected on Planet: 32
“From our current location, it looks like the quickest way out of the ship would be to head for the hole in the hull that we came in through,” Essentia said. “Otherwise, we’re starting to get enough of a map in our data that we could probably be able to get to the main door from here. That would allow us to get to Dropship Alpha faster.”
Marsden listened to all this with only part of his attention. Although Dollarhyde was back in command at the moment, he’d taken the lead on their path down the corridor purely because he had one more eye to see danger than Dollarhyde did at this point.
“Any idea how close we might be getting to the second power core room?” Axel asked Essentia.
“Not a clue. We’re approaching roughly the middle of the ship. If the three core rooms are evenly spaced out, then maybe we’re almost there?”
Marsden looked up at the lights in the ceiling as several of them flickered. He hadn’t seen any of the light sources do any such thing since the moment they’d turned the power back on, so he had to take that as a bad sign. The last time they’d been in a room that didn’t have the correct amount of light, two of their people had become fertilizer.
“Something about the corridor ahead looks different,” one of the marines said.
“It all looks weird-ass to me,” Bayne said.
“No, look.” Axel pointed at something on the wall up ahead. “The coloring is different.” The group approached this oddity with a mix of speed and caution. Once they were closer, Marsden called for them to stop while he took a closer look. Something light and shimmery had been spread on the wall. It looked similar to the slime that had dripped from the plants on the ceiling, but it was a different consistency. In fact, there seemed to be a couple different consistencies of the stuff. All of it came in the shape of rope-like strands. In some spots the strands were thick while in others they were thin and fine. Looking ahead, Marsden found the substance in patches all along the corridor ahead with increasing frequency the farther he looked.
“What is it?” Dollarhyde asked him.
“I don’t know,” Marsden said. He pulled out one of his knives and touched the tip into one of the thicker patches of the substance. The knife went into the goop easily, but he had trouble pulling it back out. He had to actually put down his other weapons and grip the knife with both hands just to yank it free, and he hadn’t even sunk the knife in that deep.
“Some kind of glue,” Marsden said.
Curious about the thinner strands, he took the same knife and touched it to one of the thin gossamer strands. All Recon Marine knives were made with a special poly-carbonate steel that was supposed to withstand anything up to temperatures of nearly seven hundred degrees, yet the oh-so-thin strand sliced off the tip like a band saw through a weak piece of wood.
“Yikes,” Laughingmoon said.
“There’s a lot more patches of this stuff up ahead,” Marsden said. “Maybe it would be better if we found a way around.”
“I’m not sure that we have time for that,” Dollarhyde said. “It doesn’t look like any of the patches are so close together as to be impassable. We’ll just have to step carefully. No one touch them, and try to keep quiet for the moment. Something did this, and we probably don’t want to run into it.”
They all proceeded to carefully make their way through the corridor, stepping gently when getting too close to the various filaments and patches. As they became more numerous, however, Marsden shot Dollarhyde several worried looks. While the stares Dollarhyde gave him back were even and calm, he could still tell that even she was wondering if this had been a good idea.
“I thinking we’re getting close to the second power core room,” Essentia said quietly. “Unless the rooms are laid out in an asymmetrical pattern throughout the ship, my best guess is that the next one will be two side corridors ahead and to the right.
“What do you think?” Dollarhyde asked Axel. “Will destroying two power cores be enough?”
“I don’t even know that my charges would be enough to destroy one power core,” Axel said. “But given our new priorities, I think we need to risk it. If my explosives fail to destroy the ship, then we’ll just have to come back after stopping the Thirty-Sevens.”
“And if that happens, we still might be able to rescue the remaining marines,” Conway said. Suddenly she paused and gestured for everyone else to stop and be quiet. With their footsteps no longer echoing through the lonely corridors, all that any of them could hear was a slight, high-pitched whine from the energy coursing through the walls to power the overhead lights. After several seconds of standing there, Dollarhyde carefully stepped around a particularly large patch of the willowy goop so that she could stand right next to Conway.
“What is it?” Dollarhyde asked.
“Maybe… maybe it’s nothing,” Conway said with a distinct note of disappointment. “I could have sworn I heard—”
“…help…”
The single word was faint and breathless, the kind of thi
ng that could have easily been attributed to the imagination if it wasn’t clearly evident that every single one of the marines heard it. Conway looked for a moment like she was going to dash on ahead, her medic instincts automatically kicking into gear at the sound of someone in distress, but Dollarhyde put a hand to her chest and held her back.
“No,” Dollarhyde said quietly. “We all go together, and stay careful. Everything about this stinks of being a trap.”
Conway looked unhappy but nodded. They resumed their movements, gently picking their way through the minefield of slimy booby traps on the walls, floor, and ceiling around them. At one point Axel put a hand on Marsden’s shoulder and pulled him back a few centimeters. He had no idea why she would do this until he saw a single strand of the silky filament hanging down in from of him from the ceiling. It was so thin that he hadn’t even been able to see it until it was pointed out to him, and if that one strand acted in the same way as the stuff he’d seen earlier, if he had walked into it the strand would have lacerated his face. Marsden nodded his thanks to Axel for seeing it first, then carefully went around it and resolved to pay even closer attention to his environment than he already had been.
“…help… please…” At those words everyone again stopped. Marsden looked back at Conway to see her visibly shaking with the strain not to run ahead, but his own close call had shown everyone else just how much folly that would be.
“That sounds like it could be Arizona,” Trieloff whispered. Conway promptly took out her PDM and looked up Arizona’s vital signs.
“Whatever’s wrong with her, it’s different than Murakame,” Conway said. “Too-rapid heartbeat. Low oxygen levels. Brainwave patterns suggest an incredible amount of pain. Christ. Whatever’s happening to her, her pain must be off the scale. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“And the other missing members of Delta team?” Dollarhyde asked.
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