“Maybe warn us before you do something like that,” Commander Blake grumbled, his complexion slightly green.
“Did we just warp across the galaxy?” Hadley said. “Are those spaceships?”
“They don’t look like any ships I’ve ever seen,” Fang said. “Looks like they’re made of rock, maybe asteroids?”
“No, it’s them,” Becca said. “Hadley’s right, it’s a fleet of ships. They’re approaching that solar system. That’s why they’re calling, to let everyone know they’ve almost reached their objective, but there’s no one here to pick up the phone. Everyone’s gone, dead...”
“Except us,” Hadley said with quiet trepidation.
“Except us…” Becca agreed, slowly nodding.
The stars in the pyramid suddenly span again. Becca anchored herself to Reece, who grabbed her in return. The hologram of the rocky spaceships whizzed away and was replaced with the image of Saturn, but this time its rings were vibrating, waves running through the ring-structure, which suddenly looked like the grooves of a vinyl record, about to broadcast its ancient message.
“No wonder they needed those chairs,” Commander Blake said, leaning on his knees. “Oh, god… that’s horrible…”
“Here we go,” Nori said, helping Commander Blake stand upright. “This is it, time to meet our predecessors.”
Across the Stars
A looming alien head replaced the image of Saturn, causing Becca and Reece to stagger back. Gasps went up all around. The unbelievable creature’s eyes carried the tint of the setting sun, jellied and set wide across a snout that narrowed to swollen, wormish lips. Its froglike skin was yellow with patches of dappled brown, almost translucent in places, revealing veins pulsing with dark blue blood. The creature’s moist skin glinted wetly as it opened its mouth to impart the repeating transmission across the stars. Its tongue folded and twisted, its cheeks ballooning and deflating, generating moist slapping warbles.
“Nori, any idea what it’s saying?” Commander Blake asked.
“No, it would be impossible to decipher without reference points,” Nori replied. “We’d need to understand a minimum of fifty words, maybe a hundred. If those are sentences, they mean as little to me as they do to you. I’m recording just in case, but we’ll likely never understand what they’re saying.”
Becca’s skin moved like thousands of creeping bugs had been dumped down her neck and were scuttling through her suit. She suddenly felt she was experiencing an impossible alternate reality. A quick glance at Fang and Scarlet’s petrified faces told her she wasn’t the only one experiencing a turn of events they’d believed impossible. The alien had stopped talking. Its mouth had closed and its head was lowering, looking left and right, as though observing the group. Becca’s mind was screaming at her to run as the sunset eyes bored down. Reece stepped defensively between her and the alien observer, who recoiled slightly at the action.
“Can it see us?” Hadley whispered. “Is that thing… looking at us?”
“It can’t be,” Schweighofer said. “There’s no way. It’s impossible. There’s no way this can transmit two way across the galaxy in real time. It’s too far. There’d be a delay.”
“I have a nasty feeling it can,” Scarlet said, the dread in her voice palpable. “It’s definitely looking at us. This is happening. Damn thing’s looking right at me.”
“And it’s one ugly prune,” Fang breathed.
Fanned appendages peeled away from lobes towards the back of the creature’s skull, rising like an organic headdress, rattling softly. Scarlet inhaled sharply and gripped Fang, knuckles whitening. The alien stared off to the side and flapped its cheeks, perhaps to a neighbouring observer. It turned back to the group, headdress shimmering vigorously now. The creature raised a four fingered hand, skin so translucent bones showed through. It flattened the hand and made a sort of flying motion, then gazed up. Rippling red light abruptly flooded the pyramid.
“Above us!” Fang cried, swinging her rifle up. “Heads up, they’re doing something.”
“What the hell is that?” Reece said.
“Nothing good,” Hadley cried.
Becca was frozen, rigid, the fear rising inside too overwhelming to process, her gaze glued to the alien tormentor. The projection above the table cut dead and the entire pyramid became bathed in blood-light. She managed to summon enough faculty to look up and recognize there was something materializing above them, something red. She couldn’t understand it. It looked like the pyramid was filling with glowing water, just in reverse, like it was filling from the top down. It was an impossible sight.
“Go!” Reece barked, shoving into her. “Run!”
“OOOOUUUT!” Commander Blake roared. “Everyone out, out now!”
Becca allowed Reece to push her towards the exit, her legs soon finding their own impetus. The pair charged ahead of the group, who were pounding close behind. From the outside looking in, the temple’s entrance had towered above them, but from here, deep in the bowels of the dark void it appeared terrifyingly distant, a mere prick of light. The descending red curtain was gaining momentum, its undulating surface rippling off the glassy walls. Becca noticed little points of sparkling light levitating from the floor. One brushed her face as she ran, surprisingly warm and feathery.
“Keep going!” The Commander yelled from behind.
“We’re not gonna make it!” Someone cried.
A voice in Becca’s mind was agreeing. The grim fate descending upon them was inescapable. There didn’t seem any chance they were getting out alive. She could only imagine the alien aggressor had viewed them as trespassers, invading threats, and had engaged some sort of security system. The descending watery lava was almost upon them. Through shaking vision, she could see the inverted sea approaching the lintel above the door ahead. She leaned forwards and forced her limbs to move for all they were worth.
Ten meters from salvation, their exit dwindling, her aching legs losing power, she realized they’d run out of runway. She could feel the warm red ocean brushing the hairs on her head. They weren’t going to make it.
“Survive!” Reece grunted, shoving into her back and sending her flying forwards in a run that was too speedy and too acute an angle to maintain.
The black glass at Becca’s feet yielded to stone and she fell, sprawling across the ground, hitting hard and tumbling fast, her survival suit absorbing the impacts, pain exploding through her broken finger. She rolled to a stop, gasping for air, muscles on fire, skin prickling with sweat, her broken finger detonating with pain.
“Reece!” She groaned, pushing up and gazing back through the temple entrance. “No, no, no…”
Inside was nothing but darkness. There was no red light, no hologram, no drones or lasers, no Reece, no squad. They were gone, evaporated. She heaved herself up and stumbled into the empty void.
“Reece?” She cried, beyond panic now. “Reece!”
She dashed to the central seating array.
“Turn on, come back,” she begged, hammering the controls on each seat in turn. “Work… Come on… work!”
Her frantic efforts proved futile. Unable to stay upright, she sagged to the floor, body aching with a level of exhaustion she’d never imagined possible. All those weeks imprisoned in the cramped bunker by the cooksite, followed by her stint locked in the starcom facility with Aleksi had seen her muscles wither to half their normal bulk. She was weaker than ever, and boy could she feel it.
“How do you eat an elephant, kiddo?” She said weakly, recounting the mantra her dad used to impart when the obstacles ahead seemed too great to surmount. “One bite at a time,” she croaked, giving the answer he’d always delivered, the answer that had helped her overcome so many hurdles throughout her life.
She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself and allow her mind to work, but no solutions came. The only thing she could think to do was to wait for the transmission to repeat, but after hours, she realized that wasn’t going to happen. She gazed longi
ngly at the curved table, wishing for the hologram to return. She recoiled on noticing something out of place beyond the table, a reflection in the black glass on the far wall. It was of a figure standing in the light stretching from the temple entrance, their shadow long and thin.
“Hello?” She said, turning to face the doorway. “Reece, is that you?”
There was no one there. Her blood ran cold. She’d definitely seen someone. She turned to the reflection again, slowly, fearfully. Her scream echoed through the dark void. This time there were two figures, standing motionless, staring right at her. Icy daggers shredded her nerves.
“It’s not real,” she said, closing her eyes and clenching her fists, remembering the tricks the darkness had played on her mind when concealed in the cooksite bunker after the volcanic explosion. “There’s nothing there, Becca. Call Molotov, get to the fuel tank. You can figure a solution together. Don’t be alone. Just don’t be alone, not again.”
Keeping her head low, not wanting to see the reflections in the pyramid walls, she sped for the exit. She closed her eyes for the last dozen meters, not wanting to come face to face with the apparitions. She flew down the temple stairs and clambered into the fuel tank, searching the dash for the power switch, hands shaking, heart thumping.
“Come on, you can fly helicopters, calm down, it’s gotta be similar. There,” she said finally, engaging the power. Systems across the craft whirred and the radio’s digital display blazed on. She tore up the headset. “Molotov, Razak, do you read?” She waited until the count of ten. “Starjet, this is Becca, do you read?”
“Copy,” Molotov responded. “You sound… has something happened?”
The events as they’d unfolded tumbled out of Becca in a torrent of breathless anguish, the image of Reece searing her mind throughout. The only bit she left out was of the phantom apparitions. The story was crazy enough as it was. She didn’t want to seem as though she’d lost her mind, for her own benefit as well as Molotov’s.
“Okay,” Molotov said when she’d finished. “Get on a warhorse and I’ll bring you back. We’ll make a plan. We’ll get them back, all of them. Schweighofer and Reece, we’ll get them back. We’re not leaving without them, trust me.”
“There’s things under the ice,” Becca said, trying to steady her shaking voice. “We can’t go on the ice. They’re huge, everywhere.”
“Shit, that’s right. Okay, hold tight, I’ll be back.”
Becca rested her head on the headrest, shivering with cold now the adrenaline was wearing off.
“We’re coming to you,” Molotov said eventually, his panting voice blasting the speakers.
“No. You can’t go on the ice, there are…”
“Aleksi can fly. We’re just getting some hot soup in him and we’re coming by air.”
“Don’t trust him, he’s…”
“Things are different now,” Molotov said. “I’ll explain when we get there. Sit tight. Button up the fuel tank and don’t go anywhere. We’re coming right away.”
“Please hurry.”
“Count on it.”
The Best Feed
W arhorses recalled to the hold, Molotov strapped into the co-pilot’s seat where he could keep a close eye on Aleksi, who’d taken up the pilot’s seat. As per instruction, Razak stood behind the duo, providing a second pair of hands and watchful eyes in case Aleksi decided to go rogue. Molotov had attempted to position his warhorse in place of Razak, but the hulking machine had proved too bulky to fit through the narrow galley passageway. Instead, Molotov and Razak’s warhorses were facing the cockpit from the hold, weapons trained on Aleksi’s only escape route. If the man got any funny ideas, the robots would cut him down before he so much as sniffed fresh air.
“If you screw us, you’re toast,” Molotov said as Aleksi powered the jet’s engines. “Don’t even think about it, I won’t warn you again.”
“You are ones who kidnapped me, mister meat,” Aleksi hissed. “You want to keep stressing me or you want me to fly, what do you want? I don’t run on soup and I have a little bit of a hurting head. Don’t know if you realized, but for last month I have been maggot farm. Little bit nasty experience, no?”
“We saw,” Molotov said as the jet lifted and swung around. “That’s why we’re giving you the benefit of the doubt. There’s no more second chances. I’m just giving friendly warning.”
“Shut up and let me fly, meat. I need to concentrate. Do you know what happens when maggots feed off brain? Pieces of your mind go missing, perhaps memory of left turn or recognition of mountain, or letter F for flaps. I don’t know, but I do know I need space to think. You need to back off, beef face.”
“He’s not wrong,” Razak said. “He could be missing stuff, even what he did to Becca. Let him work, man. We all need this to run smooth.”
“Hey,” Molotov said, lifting his hands, “I’m just saying, leopards and spots. So long as we’re reading from the same hymn sheet that’s good enough for me.”
They flew at a low altitude. Through the viewscreen, Molotov could see vague outlines of massive creatures rolling beneath the sunset blushed ice. The larger ones swooped in to observe the flying machine, then darted out of view, trailing long tentacles. Off their starboard side, brooding clouds were amassing above the mountains on the mainland. An angry looking storm system rolled back on itself as winds gusted across the icefield and swept up the mountain’s slopes, holding back the leading edge of the storm. If the wind changed direction, the weather would take a nasty turn.
“Becca, do you read?” Molotov said into the radio as they came up on the island.
“Yes, thank god. I’m here.”
“We’re coming up on you now. I’ve set Fang’s warhorse to equestrian. I need you to go outside and mount up. It’ll be the one on all fours. Get on its back and hold on, that’s all you need to do. I’ll guide you in. We’re gonna swing round and I’m gonna jump you into the ship from the temple stairs.”
“What about Reece and the others? We can’t leave them, we…”
“I know, we won’t, but we can’t land here, we’re too heavy. Trust me. I was thinking about what you said, about what you described in the pyramid. To me it sounds like a transporter. It has to be. They’re not dead, I know it. I think I can use Fang’s horse to track her nanos. If we find her, we find the others, but I need that horse and you safe to be able to do that. Understand?”
“You think that’ll work?”
“It’s all we got right now. Get on the horse and hold tight, don’t let go. That’s all you need to do. You ready?”
“Yeah, I’m heading out.”
Becca was so desperate to get to the safety of the starjet and start hunting for Reece, she jumped from the cab, bypassing the ladder, crunching down on the ice and jarring her bones, her broken finger cracking with pain. A warhorse cantered over and presented its offside. She shoved her boot into the foothold above the machine’s cannon and mounted as the starjet swung over the ridge, engines purring, crimson sky rippling beyond the jet-wash. Becca gripped tightly as the horse trotted towards the stairs.
“I can’t find ramp control,” Aleksi said, bringing the jet to a hover and searching the buttons and switches across the dash. “I can’t see it. Where is it? Help me.”
“Easy,” Molotov said, straining forwards against his seatbelt and looking over the controls. “It’s gotta be here somewhere, no rush.”
Razak leaned across Aleksi’s seat to help. He felt a sudden swiping motion at his side, heard his magnetic holster disengage as something zipped against the fabric of his suit. Molotov lurched for Aleksi, his seatbelt arresting his momentum, his reaching hands just out of reach. A gun shot basted through the cockpit. Mind spinning in a thousand directions, Razak watched Molotov’s hand fly to his neck, his shocked expression relaxing as his head sagged forwards.
Razak saw the javelin pistol in Aleksi’s hand turning towards him, the muzzle coming up. The movement was slow, yet lightning fast at the same
time. He tried to order his thoughts, which were careening out of control. Yes, Aleksi had taken his pistol, yes, he’d shot Molotov, but had it been set to stun or kill? The weapon was still turning to face him. Why was Aleksi doing this? It was madness. Even if he took them both out he’d never get past the warhorses in the hold. It was suicide.
Razak threw himself across Aleksi, pinning the pistol between the pair. Muffled shots rang out, but none penetrated Razak’s suit. He merely felt them graze by. He gurned and fought to push his hands down so he could wrestle the weapon free. The starjet pitched wildly upwards. Through the galley, Razak saw a warhorse tumble from the hold, towards the ice, metallic limbs flailing. The second horse grabbed hold of the cargo netting. The falling horse punched through the ice and was swallowed by the frothing ocean. The jet slewed violently to the side, the view of the ice zipping away, becoming replaced with dazzling sunlight. Razak managed to get his hand to the weapon, his face pushed up against Aleksi’s, both men struggling for their lives. Aleksi was straining so hard his spittle spattered Razak’s lips, flavoured with the tomato soup the psychopath had eaten minutes before.
Razak was just beginning to overpower Aleksi when a colossal impact threw him backwards. He bounced off the console and slammed up against the viewscreen, his spine lighting up with pain. There was a second crunching impact, jarring his teeth, making his head whip against the viewscreen painfully. He gazed back at Aleksi, who was sitting facing him, smiling with a level of demented malice that chilled Razak’s soul.
“Why?” Is all Razak could say as Aleksi lifted the pistol.
“Because they are calling me, their chosen one, and the first pig to the trough always gets the best feed.”
“Wha…”
The pistol’s muzzle flashed and Razak felt an ice projectile prick a hole beside his nose. The toxins hit his bloodstream in under a second, rendering the muscles across his body useless. At least one question had been answered. The weapon was definitely set to stun. Wide eyed and fully aware an awful end was approaching, Razak watched Aleksi unbuckle himself and wade through water rushing into the craft.
Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set Page 49