Virus

by S. D. Perry

  “Richie? Richie—!”

  He saw Richie’s unmoving legs sticking out from beneath the pile of debris and his heart sank. He crawled over and started to clear away the rubble frantically, pushing at the chunks of decking as fast as he could manage. The creature had gone after the women, the detonator might still be ticking down—

  —and this man may have died to help us; I have to be sure.

  He pushed away a plank of light metal and Richie blinked up at him—bleeding but alive. Steve grinned, pulled at his shoulders to free him from the last of the debris—and stopped, staring.

  A steel pipe jutted up from Richie’s chest, at least an inch in diameter. Steve reached under him gently and touched warm, sticky metal; Richie had been impaled. He wouldn’t, couldn’t survive.

  He met Richie’s gaze, saw the question there—and shook his head, unable to lie to him.

  “We all thought you deserted us,” Steve said softly.

  “Shows you how smart I am,” Richie whispered. His voice was thick with blood. As he spoke, trickles of it coursed out of his mouth, but he struggled to say more, his eyes glassy with pain.

  “I’m not such a bad guy,” he said weakly.

  Steve shook his head, forced himself to smile. “No, Richie. You came back for us, you did good.”

  Richie’s return smile was dreamy and sweet, and Steve felt a lump knot in his throat; it was almost over.

  “Steve, there’s a . . . way off this ship. Get to the missile room.”

  “Missile room?”

  “C deck . . . and, Steve . . . kill that fuckin’ thing.”

  Richie gasped once more, staring into Steve’s eyes—and died.

  Steve reached out and shut Richie’s eyelids with one shaking hand, then stood up, forcing back tears; there was no time to mourn.

  He backed away, took a deep breath—then turned and started to run, one hand pressed against his left side. He had to try and find Foster and Nadia before the creature did—and he had less than five minutes now to do it.

  • 27 •

  Nadia led them running through a labyrinth of corridors that she said would take them back to the filter bay. Foster could feel the seconds ticking away as they hurried through the dark.

  “The ship’s going to go any second! Nadia, we’ve done all we can—”

  “I’ve got to be sure!”

  Foster knew she was right, but the thought of seeing Goliath again filled her with a terror so great that she couldn’t think straight. She hurt, body and soul, so deeply miserable and aching and afraid that it was all she could do to keep going. Not because of some brave, selfless desire to sacrifice herself for the good of humanity, she didn’t give a shit about the rest of the world anymore—she just knew that if she stopped, she’d collapse.

  And then all of this would mean nothing, they all would have died for nothing, and I can’t let that happen . . .

  They cut through a small storage compartment that was partly lit and Nadia slowed, looked around the room thoughtfully. Racks of tall, cylindrical metal tanks lined both walls, and although they were marked with Russian letters, Foster figured the Volkov probably had all the basics—oxygen, nitrogen, acetylene, others with science-specific purpose. She could see what Nadia was thinking, but they didn’t have another detonator; it was too late.

  They stepped through a double hatch and into a connecting hall that was too dark to see—and both women froze as the dizzying fumes washed over them, the chemical scent of acetylene gas. Foster reached out towards the wall and felt the cold metal of a pressurized canister beneath her fingertips. They could hear it now, the soft clink of metal ahead and the low hiss of escaping gas. It was a storage corridor—and one or more of the tanks had broken loose.

  Nadia reached back and took her arm, urging her forward. Foster tried to breathe shallowly as they edged through the darkness, the heavy etherlike smell making her queasy and lightheaded.

  “There is a hatch somewhere to the left . . .” Nadia said.

  Lights suddenly snapped on in front of them, illuminated the tank-lined corridor with a necrotic blue glow. Foster saw the loose canisters rolling on the deck, the closed hatch a few feet behind them—

  —and the source of the light, towering in the sickly gloom not twenty feet ahead. Foster wanted to scream, to run, but her body had seized, her heart no longer seemed to beat from the absolute dread that enveloped her.

  Goliath had been waiting for them.

  Nadia stared at the creature, shocked.

  How did it—

  The cameras. She’d forgotten.

  The monstrous beast clomped forward through the hissing corridor and she saw that it had repaired itself, that the damage from the explosive grenade had been patched over clumsily with uneven tatters of rotting human tissue. There were no sparks, no flashes of electricity that could set off the streaming gas.

  A confused, terrified whisper from behind. “Nadia—?”

  Nadia didn’t answer, didn’t move as she realized what the intelligence held in one giant hydraulic fist. It moved closer and she could smell the sphacelation of its human parts beneath the reek of gas—but still she couldn’t move.

  The low red light of the detonator blinked from between the skeletal fingers.

  The creature clanked to a halt two meters in front of them and raised the hand with the detonator. Nadia could see that it was still counting down, that the numbers had fallen away to less than ten. Without the thermite grenade, it was useless, but she realized that the intelligence knew that; it had detached the timer for another reason entirely.

  To show us that it has won.

  The hydraulic fingers squeezed and the device crumbled into powder. A deep mechanical voice rumbled out from the creature’s chest as the crushed plastic and wire dropped to the deck.

  “Checkmate.”

  They backed away, Nadia reeling from the absolute malice of the entity that had taken the Volkov. Murder and dismemberment were not enough, it had to taunt them, terrorize its victims on some kind of sociopathic impulse, and she was afraid, so afraid—

  Do what must be done.

  She heard the voice of her husband, soft yet urgent in the darkness of her terror—

  —and her mind cleared, the exhaustion and horror falling away in an instant. The means to the end were in front of her and she embraced the knowledge openly, free from the despair that had haunted her for so long. She knew exactly what to do. What must be done.

  Nadia turned to Foster, to the brave and struggling woman beside her, and spoke quickly.

  “Get to the upper deck and get off this ship. You will be the only witness; you have to survive and tell the world what has happened here.”

  Nadia pushed open the access hatch and shoved the bewildered woman through before she could resist. Foster fell into the other corridor, landed hard on the decking of the lower hallway a meter beneath the storage tunnel.

  “No, Nadia—!”

  Nadia turned and the creature had moved, stood in front of her, and suddenly it locked one massive talon around her shoulder, crushing skin and muscle. It lifted her easily, held her up in front of its terrible head. She was blinded from the beams of light that fixed across her face, heard the whirring of lenses and the pulse of circuitry beneath the armored limb.

  “Are there more of these devices aboard this ship?”

  Nadia dug her free arm into the pouch of the survival suit, ignoring the pain as the metal fingers tightened.

  She pulled out the flare gun and aimed as best she could for the hissing tanks on the floor behind the creature.

  “Nadia, NO!”

  “This is for Alexi,” she whispered.

  She pulled the trigger and welcomed the light.

  • 28 •

  Foster ran through the smoking dark, stumbling down corridors that she didn’t recognize, lost and not caring that she was lost. All that mattered was that she keep running, away from the brilliant flash of light and sound that sh
e couldn’t seem to escape.

  Her lungs burned and eyes teared from the heavy chemical smoke that filled the passages. Again and again she ran up against walls and hatches, the pain of impact only reinforcing her need to keep moving.

  . . . no no no . . .

  When she banged into a bulkhead hatch hard enough to knock her down, she realized that she couldn’t run anymore. She staggered to her feet and opened the door, blinking at the dim light in relieved shock. A small cargo bay, empty. Safe. She went through the hatch and sealed it against the smoke and the darkness, gasping the clean air of the shadowy room as she crumpled to the deck.

  For a long time she sat with her eyes closed, dirt and sweat coursing down her face as she took huge, shuddering breaths, thinking nothing at all. There was only feeling—cool air and a pounding heart and the echoing sounds of her harsh breathing in the stillness. The pain seeped back as her heart slowed, the leaden ache of her muscles, the bruises and cuts that seemed to cover every inch of her.

  With the awareness of her body, she realized that there was something clenched in her right hand. Foster opened her eyes dully and looked down at her fist, uncurling her numb fingers.

  Alexi’s dog tags and a piece of broken chain. Foster stared at the shining metal for a moment and then started to cry helplessly, softly.

  Woods and Everton, Hiko, Richie, Steve, and his partner, Squeaky; Nadia and her husband and probably the entire crew of the Russian ship. They were all dead because an alien intelligence had decided that they didn’t belong here—and it all had been for nothing, it was a senseless rendering of human lives by a thing that had mistaken them for a glitch, a bug in the machine. A virus.

  She wept with the desolation of total aloneness, low, keening cries of pathetic sorrow; why had she survived, how was it fair that she was the one to make it? Nadia had sacrificed herself to save the whole goddamn world while Foster had cowered in fear and misery, too terrified to think of anybody else—

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The sound of thundering footsteps vibrated through the empty bay.

  Foster raised her head in stunned disbelief—and heard a high-pitched electronic shriek peal through the corridors, from somewhere not far away.

  She jumped up, shaking, her heart pounding in renewed terror. It couldn’t be, couldn’t—

  Boom. Boom.

  Foster turned and ran for a hatch across the bay, past empty boxes and shelves towards a way out. It wouldn’t die, there was nothing that could stop it, and she had to get off the ship, had to find help.

  She fumbled at the latch, moaning. The door opened and she stumbled through—

  —and smashed into a shadowy figure that stood in front of her. Foster screamed and collapsed, sobbing, and then warm arms slipped around her and held her tight in the rocking darkness.

  Thank God, thank God—

  Steve knelt on the deck, holding Foster, unable to believe that she was still alive. He’d heard the explosions and had run frantically through the corridors towards the blast—until he’d been forced to retreat by the toxic smoke. When he’d heard the pounding steps of the creature, he’d had no choice but to assume the worst, had started searching grimly for a way to the missile room, midship starboard—and had found the scuttle just outside of the bay that she’d come from. In another few seconds he would have been gone.

  —I got you, never let you go, never—

  He held on to her for a long moment, wanting nothing more than to stay there, feeling her in his arms—but the booming steps still resonated. They had to go.

  Foster shuddered, clutching him weakly. He pulled back, studied her tear-streaked face, and decided that she was beautiful.

  “Nadia?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head, fresh tears coursing down her smudged cheeks.

  “Richie’s dead—”

  Another of the creature’s eerie electronic squeals cut him off; it was closer than before.

  “C’mon, we’re gonna get out of here.” He started to rise, wincing at the pain in his side—

  —and Foster shook her head again, still holding on to his arm.

  “I can’t,” she whispered, and he crouched down again and saw how it was with her; there was a look of utter hopelessness in her streaming gaze, of total despair.

  “I can’t do it, I can’t—”

  Steve cupped his hands around her pale face and stared deeply into her frightened eyes.

  “Yes, you can. And I’m not leaving you here alone. Now, get up, we have to go.”

  For a second he was afraid that he hadn’t gotten through—and then she took a deep breath and nodded. They helped each other up, still half embracing awkwardly, and Steve realized that he couldn’t hear the crashing steps anymore. He listened for some sound, any hint as to where the giant biomechanoid could be—

  —and the wall of the empty cargo bay buckled inward with a deafening crunch. Metal wrenched and groaned, the awful shriek of the monster blasting through the empty chamber.

  Steve caught just a glimpse of the enormous thing behind the billows of dark smoke that poured into the bay, blackened metal and wire that crawled with a furious blue light. One of its misshapen arms was torn completely away, tangles of circuitry sizzling and snapping from the blighted socket.

  Steve jerked open the hatch to the scuttle and pushed Foster ahead of him as the creature shrieked again in maniacal rage, tearing great chunks of metal away in a desperate frenzy to get at them.

  He climbed in after her, praying that he was right about this being the passage to the missile room—and that whatever Richie had seen there would deliver them from the Volkov and the murderous giant that wanted them dead.

  • 29 •

  They crawled out of the scuttle and into the quiet dark of a huge room, Foster holding the hatch open as Steve climbed out behind her. All he’d said on the way up was that they had to get to the missile room, but not why—and she didn’t care, as long as he was with her. She was still afraid, but at least she wasn’t alone—and it made all the difference in the world.

  They edged quickly towards one wall and Steve found a worktable with a light. He snapped on the small fluorescent and both of them turned—and stared wide-eyed at the organized stacks of metal and wire that littered the shadowy deck. There was a faint, lingering trace of pot in the air. Foster almost smiled.

  Richie.

  One side of the bay was lined with racks of tools and dead computer consoles while the hull wall was set up with a launch track and tubes—but it seemed that Richie had sat on the floor to do his work, and he’d been busy. Foster saw piles of rivets and bolts, curved pieces of painted metal, rounded caps and tiny components and snarls of wire and cord.

  But what was he doing here?

  Steve checked the bulkhead hatches and then they both walked towards the hull, their boots clanking across thick metal grates set into the deck. There was a huge coil of cable near the launch track, next to a large stack of darkly cased metallic objects, a duct-taped cluster sitting on top.

  Foster blew out sharply. She didn’t recognize everything in the heaped pile, but those were definitely grenades beneath the gray tape.

  “Foster, look at this.”

  Steve was crouched by the track, frowning down at a bulky mechanical block, covered with switches and caps.

  “What?”

  He stood up, still frowning. “It’s a rocket motor . . .”

  They stepped around to the front of the track and saw what Richie had apparently been working on. At the base of a massive, open tube was a platform with a chair welded to it. Straps hung from the seat, and more loops of cable ran from the inside rail to the small platform. There was a bundled pack at the back of the braced stand that Foster realized was a parachute.

  He picked up a makeshift control box, its cable wired through a small hole in the platform. “Looks like Richie rigged some kind of ejector seat.”

  There was a sound, somewhere below—a crash of metal that
echoed up through the grating on the deck.

  Steve turned to her, his face bruised and pale in the dim light.

  “Get in.”

  Foster looked back at the bizarre contraption and shook her head. “You’re crazy. We’d never survive.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  Steve wasn’t wearing a survival suit and his life jacket was in shreds; jumping from the top deck wasn’t an option, not for him—and she wouldn’t leave him, no matter what.

  There was another crash, louder this time, and Foster’s stomach knotted. She’d thought that she was too drained for terror to take hold again, but she was wrong.

  There’s got to be another way—

  BOOM!

  It was the sound of a metal door ripped open directly below them, slammed against steel hard enough to jar the deck beneath their feet.

  Blue light shined up through the grating, accompanied by the stink of burnt flesh and melted wire.

  Goliath had come.

  They’d run out of time. Steve grabbed her arm and pushed her towards the platform.

  “Get in!”

  “No!”

  “I said get in—”

  She searched his gaze with her own, seemed to accept that there was no alternative.

  “I’m not going without you,” she said firmly, and Steve realized that he would have to force the issue.

  He grabbed both her arms and lifted her onto the platform, broken ribs digging into his side as she struggled against him. He pushed her against the chair and she sat down, hard. He kept one arm across her chest as he fumbled for the straps, managing to pull one of them across her stomach as she pushed at him.

  She was strong, but he was stronger. The sound of wrenching metal came up through the grate, pounding and tearing as the creature searched for a way through.

  Foster managed to deliver a solid kick to his shin and he leaned over her, looked into the panic and fear and tried to find the right words to make her listen.

  “We don’t have time! Look, Richie only built this for one, and you’re it—you have to go!”