“Gerad sent us sir, he said we were soldiers now, he said we are to take his place,” I said trembling as I spoke. I felt like the silence in the room was poison that any minute now we would all keel over and die. I felt like I was suffocating as one of the Eek took charge and spoke, “Give each of them a rifle and put them in the monitor room.” We were then handed two black Eek rifles. The rifles were long and organic; they felt like they were made out of leather and seemed to attach to the arm like a tick. The rifles were created long ago by the Eek on their home world, spliced from a now extinct species of parasite; a blend of war and biology. They were just as deadly and accurate as any Skrav or human weapon though and that was all that mattered. We walked down the long metal corridor down a staircase into the monitors room. The room was dark and ice cold. It felt like we had walked into an icebox. From the corner we heard several voices, each low and nasally. “Sev and Aira, children of humanity, death follows you like a disease.”
I lifted my gun ready to fire. We had never said our names to anyone. “Lower your gun boy, you should not fear me, It is your own cursed kind and that wretched race that murders you you should worry about,” the voice spoke. The lights began to come on. Slowly one after another the room lit up. They were dim at first but we could easily make out the giant mass of flesh before us. It filled the entire corner, back wall of the room. It had limbs both human and tentacle that touched and ran along the sides of keys and screens. Each limb had an eye that watched the death and chaos outside. Soon it was light enough we could see its entire body. Blobs of fat and faces with no beginning and no end. I wanted to run away in fear but I lowered my weapon and watched as the mouths on each of the faces began to speak simultaneously. “I am the monitor, I watch with weary eyes as sentient beings come and go from Errikus, I have watched humans settle upon our soil and though it may be only a short time,” he paused thinking of what to say next, “ I saw your mother die praying for your safety, I have watched each of you just as I have watched each and every citizen of this world.” The monitor stopped again to gasp for air. It wasn’t use to talking in a human voice. It was almost like every word caused it to suffer a great deal of pain.
I now knew my mother was gone. Had Aira not forced me to leave her side then I too would have died. Did it really matter? Wouldn’t the beast be upon us soon, wouldn’t it destroy all of Errikus?
“I fear you more then I do the leviathan,” the monitor said… I had heard that name before but I couldn’t place it. “Yes, your people see their past, their future, you have been told of monsters that dwell in the darkness, in the unreal, the monsters even the Skrav fear. Surely your kind has seen them floating in what you call the immer. Course you dare not move too close less you wish for death,” “It’s form the immer?” I asked. The monitor did not answer instead he turned away and starred at his screens. The beast was moving away from our direction now. What a stupid question I had asked, it was obvious now the creature, the leviathan was from the immer. I watched alongside Aira starring at the cameras that showed the leviathan rampage through the city, a trail of destruction in its wake. It was moving towards a wall. I remember I heard stories from when I was young. Very few ever saw the future in the nexus but some that had said that there would be a day of ruins, chaos, and monsters, even monsters the size of planets that would swim in and out of stars. They described monsters that didn’t exist in our reality, that couldn’t exist in our reality but could exist inside the immer.
The leviathan that we saw now was fighting the very laws of nature. “This can’t be real,” I said aloud waiting for answers. The monitor did not speak again. It had only been thirty minutes since we found shelter, we stood for another ten before finally Aira asked, “Do you think Hayden is alright?” “His family was at hoe, they were practicing a ritual today, and thank god they are miles away from this mess.”
The monitor began speaking again. This time its voice in some other language then our own. It sounded like it was talking in tongues. I hadn't realized until now that Errikus though a world of many different races must be a colony of theirs. Everyone else was just visiting or setting up an embassy. Even humans. Different species would come and go but the Eek were about to lose one of their worlds. We had entered someone’s home and now there was a murderer inside. Is it more important for them to defend their houseguest or defeat their intruder? Errikus was a world that like Earth must have had a long and vast history. Humans abandoned the Earth during a time of devastation. Unlike Earth though Errikus was still around though given the chance we would probably abandon this world as well.
An augmented guardsman came into our room. "We are moving out, the Leviathan is changing course and heading our way. It will be here in twenty minutes." I thought he was talking to the monitor the way he didn’t look at us but then the monitor pushed us with its tentacles. "Hayden is searching for you," it said. Aira and I panicked. "Why the hell would he leave his home?" I yelled. "He has sworn a blood oath to protect you and Aira, in memory of your fallen friend, he searches for you now... you must go to him or there will be much more death this day." The monitor then handed us two small chips and motioned with a face and tentacle that we should put them on our ear. We did as we were told and the monitor spoke, “I will guide you.”
The earpiece made it sound as if the monitor only had one voice rather then the mass that it used to speak to us before. The other voices must be doing other things, giving orders, clearing commands. The monitor was leading guards around Errikus and civilians to safety. That was its purpse. It was an alien that could multi-task hundreds of things at any given time.. Our purpose, however meaningful or meaningless to the monitor as it could have been was to rescue our friend. All that mattered to us now was the one voice guiding Aira and myself through the ruins. I no longer felt terrified. I could feel my instinct to survive kick in. All I could think about was my friends. They were my family now. Aira, Hayden were all that mattered. Mother, Dom, the other human adults that were slain, all of them were memories now. Memories that would live on in my dreams. It was up to me to live for them.
Seraphim We were a mile away from the monitor's bunker when we ran into Gerad again. This time he wasn't talking. He was sitting with his back against a wall. A blue holo-projection of himself and a woman dancing played out before him. His eyes were red and his mouth was bleeding. He did not blink or say anything to us though we begged for him to follow us. He stared empty at the dancers. The monitor told us to keep moving. Gerad was alive but his consciousness had already been lost. Gerad was broken. The voice in our head continued telling us there was nothing we could do.
"Is this what war is like?" I asked out loud. We have been at war with the Skrav for hundreds of years and I have never seen anything like this. I had never imagined going into battle. I was wrong though. I wasn't thinking about it at the time but we had lost worlds before. Anytime humanity settles or slows down death and destruction follow. This is why the monitor said death followed us like a disease.
The monitor spoke inside my earpiece, "this is an act of nature, an act of the gods."
I knew little about religion on Errikus.
I knew that the Eek were polytheistic. They had many temples throughout the world each devoted to a separate deity. The only thing I really knew for sure about their culture and the culture of many Errikans was though they had guards and guns they were all pacifists. Humans would joke and say they had war bred out of them. Others said that in this part of the galaxy far away from the galactic core resources were better, life didn't need to evolve to defend itself. Even if Errikus itself was a hostile planet full of dangerous life the worlds that the Eek, Pok, Myra, and hundreds of others came from must have been pretty nice.
The Leviathan was nothing more than an animal. Its home was inside the immer - far away from here. The Tritan must have hit it or picked it up. This whole thing was nothing more then an accident. I could hear it now as it screeched and tore through the city. It was just scre
aming to go home. It was screaming for it's mother. The monitor spoke again in my ear, calling the creature a name that when translated meant Seraph.
Seraph - Seraphim (plural) - 1. an angelic being, regarded in traditional Christian angelology as belonging to the highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy, associated with light, ardor, and purity.
The Eek it seemed believe the leviathan was one of these creatures. That it had followed humanity in order to wipe us away and purify the galaxy that they themselves had become caught in the eye of our struggle and would become pure once the creature had killed all of us. I didn’t want to think about any of that. I just wanted to survive and not just for myself but for those that had died. If Aira and I stopped now our entire lives would be for nothing, the lives of every human on Errikus would have had no purpose. If we survived the two of us could make a difference.
“Do you ever wonder why most of the alien’s species we ally with all have names that end in k... Eek, Pok, Drok,” Aira asked. She was laying in my arms. Night had fallen; we couldn’t continue our search for Hayden until morning, especially with that creature out there tearing up the city. “I don’t wonder I know, when the first colonists set down and encountered aliens they tried to communicate with them... some of the time it was a success – other times it took years. The only syllable we could ever fluently make out was the ‘k’ sound at the end.” She didn’t say anything after that. I think she might have been trying to make me laugh. It did seem kind of funny but scientists never really good at naming things.
The Aelita was meant to arrive that night but with everything going on it would probably be two days before they came after the Tritan. I knew enough about how they approached situations like this, they would be cautious, they would watch their enemy and make sure that there were no Skrav coming to hinder any rescue. They were only a few hours behind each other in the immer but time works differently once they exit and switch to regular star drives and ion engines. Feeding off radiation and space debris turning molecules into energy... that was the trick to regular space travel. The cost of regular space travel meant that days in real time could be months or years depending on velocity. Time dilation. What would come with the Aelita though... another leviathan, another space beast... or something worse?
“We will be lucky if the Aelita and Erebus get here at all...” Aira said. She was falling asleep as I brushed her hair. “They will come especially the Aelita. Your father is on that ship.” I didn’t realize how much of a mistake that was to say. I didn’t think about Aira’s mother. Aira had left her and their position at the space dock to come and find me. She would be dead or among the missing now. She might even be searching for her daughter. Worst she might have used this as an escape. Maybe she went and joined the runners and deserters hiding underground. Aira cried herself to sleep. Nothing I could have said would have made any difference anyway.
For the next few hours I sat awake in the dark. All I could think about was my own mother telling me to “run”. Her last words, her last lesson in life to teach me. I never really said her name aloud before, it was Faith. It was a kind name and fitting for someone like her. She put her faith in Aira and I to survive. Her death would be her legacy now. I could see someone in a hundred years watching through the nexus. Two scared little brats crying while this middle-aged woman who had given so much to the fleet screamed at them to run. Even in her last dying breath she was giving us a chance and teaching us how to survive.
The last thing I thought about before falling asleep was how I had never really had a father. He had died giving his life so that others may live just as my mother had. Even if I was her only child I believe that I was something she was proud of. Even if I wasn’t going to be a user, even if I just went into stasis and accomplished nothing with my life I was hers and I would always be. Aira was blessed she still had one parent around... and he was coming for her. That’s what parents do... they look out for their children, they protect them and watch over them even in the darkest of times.
The monitor was silent.
I began looking for answers in my mind, unaware he was no longer listening. Did it mean he was dead? I don’t think monitors sleep... and if they
did it wouldn’t be very long. Maybe they slept one head at a time shutting down certain body parts at will. It was something I had heard some species could do. That wasn’t it though. There was nothing on the other end of the comm – just silence. When we were running through alleyways and dodging guards and looters earlier we could still hear his breathing through our headpieces even when he wasn’t giving us direction. Aside from telling us to rescue Hayden the only other thing he had said, “Children should never know such violence.” Perhaps that was when he stopped. It all feels like a blur now, out of synch – out of order. It was time for sleep was now. Hayden would be smart, he would be doing the same. Unless the leviathan kills us in our sleep we will have a chance to escape tomorrow and find each other. We could retreat underground or hide on the other side of the city. The leviathan was last seen heading in the opposite direction. I remembered that. It was breaking through a part of the wall. It would only be a matter of time before the entire city is overrun.
The morning light began to shine in. There was nothing but silence. Most mornings on Errikus you could hear the birds singing. They weren’t exactly birds more like bats. Each had two sets of wings. A longer set was used for flapping and gliding and a shorter set they used to steer through the sky. They had long tails and could grow anywhere from a foot to three feet high. They were scavengers though. It was rare if ever that they would attack anyone on the street. If anything they weren’t singing now because they were having a feast on the corpses of all the fallen. I hadn’t eaten anything but a ration snack the day before. Thinking about the birds made me hungry and then more disgusted as I began to think about my mother. Aira woke up a few minutes after me
“Where are the birds?” she asked .
I didn’t answer. I thought it was better to let her think they were all dead, or let her imagine where they might be. I wouldn’t let my opinion bring
her discomfort.
“We need to head out. Hayden is probably waiting for us.” I said. “The last place the monitor said he was near the drop ship repair factory.
We’re not too far from there, plus if there are any drop ships around I’ve had practice in the simulation... Maybe I could drive one.” I was beginning to feel slightly optimistic as I spoke. For years I played games in one of the simulators we brought down from the Erebus. They were meant to train soldiers, train pilots, even train workers but some of the simulations were fun. It was like living inside another reality, some even called it a ‘meta-verse’. The things you saw, heard, and touched all felt real. The only thing it couldn’t reproduce was smell (and that was how you knew it wasn’t real).
“So that’s the plan?” Aira asked... “Find Hayden and ride into the sunset inside a drop ship.” “Find Hayden and run. Just like we’re supposed to. Whether the Aelita and Erebus come we have to survive.” Those words were enough to get Aira up and ready to move on. I knew I wasn’t great at making speeches but I’m glad I could motivate her.
We grabbed our gear the Eek had given us. After ten minutes I was finally hungry enough to pull off a ration snack from a pack we found. It was pure protein. It had no real taste but it wasn’t disgusting. It had the texture of a hard piece of bread. It would have been nice to have something to wash it down but I was grateful we even had food. At that moment I realized there were probably a hundred maybe even a thousand other survivors all starving. All those who locked themselves inside underground bunkers and basements had locked themselves inside a prison that could only be opened from the outside. The only food source they had would come from anything anyone brought with them... or the vermin that had taken up living in the empty holes. On the outside at least if you had to you could loot a store.What was worst is that unless someone came for them they would all suffoca
te. The shelters weren’t built to supply air to the hundreds they now contained.
I began to wonder why they had even built the underground shelters. It had been nearly a hundred years since any of the hell beast had broken their way inside the city. It was hard to believe an adult hell beast the size of a three story building was seen as much of a threat. They were slow and could easily have been gunned down before getting past the gates.
“I don’t hear the leviathan screaming anymore, do you?” Aira asked. “No.” “Maybe that means it’s gone!” “I wouldn’t count on it...it might just be so far away now that we can’t hear it.” “If it is, I’m glad. I hope the hell beasts tear it to shreds.” I should have agreed. I would have been happier thinking it was gone. We could have found Hayden without feeling rushed and scared but we were scared. We were looking over our shoulders ever other minute now. We climbed through what remained of the buildings that had been torn apart. Pieces of the Tritan had landed all across Errikus. For all we knew, pieces of the Tritan could have been scattered all over the land and oceans. Errikus was an old planet but it had mostly been unexplored. There were only two large landmasses and chains of smaller islands in between. North of the colony was a jungle full of ancient ruin and even farther north of that was tundra. Our colony made up most of the bottom half of the landmass. The area right outside the wall was nothing but fauna and forest.
We were closer and closer to the drop ship factory when we heard gunshots. It wasn’t a typical M44 or alien weapon. It was something human... something projectile based. The only ones that used weapons like that were the deserters and runners.
We crouched behind rubble and made our way to one of the slanted alien roofs. I took it upon myself once we were safely on top of a store front when we looked over and saw several Eek soldiers laying on the ground.
Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) Page 6