I know now what I saw. I know what Narville saw. I am Aelia Mercer, daughter of Chev Mercer. I have spent my life a student of Narville and science believing that the Nexus was a gift. A tool that we could use to save mankind. I am a user of the Nexus. I have seen through the eyes of a little girl, old men, and young women. I am a witness to history and the wonders of war and man. I have seen the future. I have seen the ruins of Deimos. I alone split the Nexus into a trinity and set us on our path. I have seen the darkness. I have seen through the eyes of Sev.
Tremulous
The first injection hurt like hell. Tapped into the back of the spine from a three inch needle and then wrapped in a thick white bandage. The second injection was painless compared to the first. A one-inch needle stuck into your ankle. It was an artificial dog tag tapered to the bone. Then there was the third. The one you had to be asleep for. Placed inside beside the heart. It was a microscopic container that would give you a mad dose of adrenaline when your heart rate dropped below a certain point. All of this made you a soldier. I had the training, been through the simulations and more. Inside the nexus I even managed to pick up a few things they didn’t teach. It had been weeks since I had seen Balkava. I was no longer allowed use of the nexus. I was out and as far as they were concerned I was no longer a user. There were others that would replace me. I doubt I was their first choice in the first place.
I would have been in stasis if Celes hadn’t been wrong. Killing the men and women inside stasis the way he did was done for a greater good. A greater good that never came. The plague he had tried so hard to contain began to spread. People were waking up from stasis sick or dying. The medics on the ship traced the cause to a poison inside their blood. It was a potent toxin that would slowly melt the insides of those infected until there was nothing left but bone, marrow, and blood. It wasn’t a plague though, that is were he had been wrong. It was an attack. So many parts of the ship had gone unchecked over the years. That was our first mistake. We thought we were alone in here but there were monsters breeding in the dark.
I was with Hayden when we first got wind of the attacks. It wasn’t the Skrav, Trepp, or any of the other alien species killing people in stasis it was a monster of our own creation. They were called antliods. Three hundred years ago when we left Earth humans weren’t the only creatures aboard the Erebus. There were dogs, cats, and a few smaller animals people kept as pets. They weren’t the problem either. It was the few bugs and rats that managed to find their way on board. The antliods were a hybrid, an evolution of a flea and an antlion that grew and adapted in the shadows. One began mimicking the other and soon a new species developed. First they fed off the rats that came aboard and when they weren’t enough they began feeding off the ship itself. It was an unlimited food source. Most of the inside of the ship was biomass. It was easy for them to adapt. Feeding off the ship had another side effect. They mutated. The change in diet also meant a change in size. Three hundred years of change and development and now they had finally outgrown their supply.
Why or how they began to feed on people in stasis we don’t know. We guessed the Erebus wasn’t enough to wet their appetite anymore. All we know for sure is that it began in the underbelly, the lower decks. Stasis pods that had been untouched for centuries; humans that slept for hundreds of years were dead in hours from a bacteria that was the byproduct of the antliods piercing fangs. All the stasis pods were connected. The water used in one was recycled and used in another. This meant the disease spread quickly. The woman Celes brutally killed was nothing but a victim, the latest in a long line of unfortunate citizens. The only thing we could be grateful for was that none of them woke up or suffered any pain (aside from the woman Celes killed).
The first thing we did when we realized what was happening was wake everyone up. The Erebus was now at maximum capacity. The crew that was awake before was only a few hundred but now we numbered in the thousands. Our resources were few. The old, the young, the antliods didn’t care. They didn't care we were starving, tired, sick. They didn’t care about anything. The antliods were out for blood.
We planted auto turrets and bio-rigged weapons around the Chev. We turned its den into a fortress. It was the one place we couldn’t let the antliods get too. It had become our main source of food. At night sometimes you could hear it scream in pain as third shift went into the mess. It had never needed to give so much. The doctors fed it painkillers but they couldn’t give it enough. They couldn’t numb it in a way that would have been humane because it would affect the food. We couldn’t risk the entire crew digesting a handful of pain medicine with every meal. When it was too weak to eat we forced a tube inside one or two of it’s several stomachs force-feeding it while the labs worked on breeding other ones and searching for other ways we might be able to survive.
Within a few weeks the antliods had begun backing us into a corner. Several corners of the ship had fallen into ruin. The Erebus itself was becoming sick with disease and slowly starting to slow down. We sent the autons into the underbelly fully armed. I watched Hayden himself reprogram several with the antliods description and targeting information. We watched through holos and projectors in horror as the autons walked into the darkness blind. Antliod limbs tore and mangled the mechanical bodies as soon as they showed they were a threat. They scratched and tore through their metal torsos until not one was left moving. To the antliods they were nothing more then a distraction.
“It’s time,” the order came from Balkava. She had retreated deep into the core of the ship, a place only the elders went. Many thought she and the other elders that made up the consul, the governing body of the Erebus had abandoned us. Soon though Anathem, the leading member of the consul and an elder for over fifty years had decided we needed to take offensive measures. We could no longer wait for the antliods to attack us. They were beginning to break through barriers we placed in the surrounding halls and were closing in on us more and more. It might be days, weeks, or years but sooner or later they would have us. Even worst it seemed the ship, the Erebus itself would die of toxic shock - poisoned from the inside out by the parasites within. Our quest would be over and we would never reach Eden. Anathem spoke how the elders had tried contacting the Aelita but when they heard what was happening they immediately swept their ship and told us we were quarantined. They could give no soldiers, drop ships, no provisions, and no way out. We were trapped inside our floating tomb with creatures just ready to suck the marrow from our bones.
It was late in the evening. I had been walking the hangar helping out some of the men and women who had just woken up when an officer came and asked me to Balkava’s chambers. “How are you Sev?” Balkava had taken me inside her quarters and asked the guard to leave. She was wearing her causal attire, which included a low cut top and dark pants. I was still in my uniform and tact vest from training earlier that day. This was the first time we had seen each other in a close setting since my torture. I was not ok.
“I’m fine, Hayden had been helping me recover and my instructor Duv’Mir has said I have a natural talent when it comes to piloting inside the simulation. “
“You always have, you’ve been piloting in simulations since you were a young child – I’m more curious how you are on the ground,”
“I’m as good as anyone else, I have my experiences on Errikus to thank for that,” truth was I hated being on the ground. The simulations were like a video game. Run with 'rift' technology you put a visor over your head and clip a few wires to your fingertips and you see and feel everything. Most simulations covered tactics, working in a group, fighting the Skrav and various other creatures. They were the violent video games of our time. I hated being on the ground. I was constantly freezing or collapsing suffering flashbacks of the things Aira and I fought through. I shared none of that with Balkava. Whatever trauma I had I knew I would have to face eventually.
“What I am about to ask you is going to be hard” she paused.
“I have a request I need you
to take a team of soldiers and escort one of our researchers into the underbelly. You are to capture at least one antliod... if you cannot capture one you must at the very least extract its toxin. We need a fresh sample from the parasite. If we have that maybe we can make an antivenom.”
“Why me? There are others far more experienced?” “I know and several going along are well trained for a mission like this... you can say no. I just wanted to give you the option. The researcher going is Hayden.” She froze. I stared at her. I was speechless. All the times Hayden and I have continued to meet and he not once mentioned he was planning an assignment like this. He must have known I would try and stop him. He must have known he was like a brother to me and this was a suicide mission.
“I’m in,” I said no hesitation. I wasn’t going to let my best friend go into the pits of hell alone. “I knew you would say that, you leave tomorrow.” “Thank you.” “I have one more request Sev,” she paused.
“What is that?” I asked unsure what she might say. “Will you stay this night with me?”
I stared into her eyes. I wanted to say no. Our relationship whatever it was had been over for what felt like an eternity. Instead I didn’t say anything. Balkava moved forward and pressed her body into mine. I had never realized how much taller then her I had grown since the time we had met. She seemed a whole different person now. We were different people now. She looked up at me and kissed my lips.
The next morning I met with Duv’Mir and several others in the ships veranda who were all preparing various gear and rations that we may need. Duv’Mir was ten maybe fifteen years older then I, shaved head, and several tattoos along the ridges of his face. He had told me once every tattoo was a story; he had served under Balkava as both a soldier and pilot when she was a soldier fighting the Skrav so I knew he had plenty to tell. We had a medic coming with us too who simply called himself Meddix naming himself after his profession. I would never know nor ask his real name or why he changed it. The other soldiers that were going with us were named Trevor, Slade, and two Drok Stath, Mak’r. Each one had their own unique scars and aside from Trevor and Meddix they all had a special black star tattoo under their eye. They were special ops. They were born and bred for missions like this. Hayden was the last to show up. Apparently he had gotten into a fight with some humans who were more then a little irritated about being out of stasis. They had demanded he give up food for them and when he declined they tried to take it. Luckily security was always close by and the fight ended before he got seriously hurt; nothing but a black eye.
There had already been two teams that were sent down below but never returned. The first team was called Alpha; it was a small group of humans accompanied by some autons. The second was Paladin; they were supposed to be a hardened group of soldiers that had fought several Skrav battles including the Battle of Colony-5458, the last human colony to fall to the Skrav before humans made their way to Errikus. They were all assumed dead. We would be going another into the underbelly by another path that was yet to be explored. The consul hoped this would make us victorious. Anathem was hopinh his mistake was the pathway he sent the first two teams on.
First we would have to crawl inside a small maintenance tunnel only three feet high and wide under the veranda to make it to the eight foot by eight foot shafts that made up the route to the underbelly. Each of us put on body armor that covered our bodies from the neck down in and took a M77 rifle loaded with alloy shells. Meddix took a M302, an automatic rifle that looked like a M240L from the days before space travel. We didn’t want to risk using energy weapons and blowing a hole inside the weak walls in the underbelly. We also put silencers on them to make sure we didn’t draw any more attention then we had to. Our mission was to bring back a body or head with fangs intact. If we were lucky we would find one by itself kill it and make a clean getaway.
It took us an hour to make it through to the first shaft. By the time we reached the blast door to the underbelly we had already seen signs the antliods had been closer then we thought. Star jelly. That was what we called it. Named after some of the exotic creatures humans discovered inside the immer that resembled Earth jellyfish. It was a clear liquid that seemed to like sticking to our clothing. Hayden took a sample on the spot and tested it for toxicity and found nothing. It was merely a secretion, he said more then likely it could have just been a waste product. There we were crawling through bug piss. The day could not have gone better.
Balkava’s voice cried out to us from our comms. “Riots have just broken out in the veranda. All the elders are being called into an emergency council. We are working to contain the situation. Antliods have begun breaking through the barriers in the hangars.”
The comm went dark. Communications had been cut. We had no way to know what we would be going home to now even if we did succeed. Duv’Mir ordered us to turn our comms off. We were to stay within viewing distance of each other and use sign language when necessary to talk. Meddix and himself would take point.
Meddix sprayed a lime green gel around the blast door. In seconds it melted away the metal and biomass and the door fell to the ground. The ship was too sick to open it for us and had even begun cutting parts of itself off as a sort of immunization. The Erebus herself was fighting back the infection. Inch by inch we continued through the darkness using only the light from the edge of our rifles to see. The light pierced the darkness like scissors cutting through paper. A few hundred yards inside and still we found nothing. The walls all looked the same. They were rounded with grooves every few feet. These shafts were originally meant to be access tunnels, quick and easy ways to get from one end of the Erebus to the other but over time they had became abandoned and ruined. The biomass that made up the ship had begun to cover parts of the wall from which it was indistinguishable unless you felt the cold slick texture of it. It felt like warm skin. It felt almost like it was sweating. As I ran my hand against the side wall I could only wonder if it was another side effect of the ship being sick.
Hayden had joked before about the Erebus being alive. Now it was no longer a joke. We were the white blood cells. The Erebus was alive and we were nothing more then another parasite living inside it.
The tunnels began to space out and became more like hallways. We finally had a little room to breath. When we came to a fork we decided we would go left. It was a group decision that left would be the only turn we took. Stath had been marking the walls of each corridor with his dagger. Each corridor he would scratch a line. At the first turn there was one line, then two, then three. If we got lost we could hopefully find our way back. Four left turns later we began to feel the toll walking with so much gear. Our guns alone weighed seven pounds each and we were walking alert the entire time. Aside from our weapons each of us had a small backpack with two days rations, medix, a breather, and a cutting tool. Meddix was carrying extra ammunition and Stath, Mak’r, and Hayden had all brought a Drok sword and dagger with them. Hayden also had some small research gear with him.
We set up camp inside a garbage disposal that hadn’t been used in centuries. It was something that had doubled as a storage room. Most of the rooms and chambers inside the Erebus could function in several different ways. You could still see stains and burns on the floor if you stared close enough. The garbage disposal was tall and wide enough for all of us to set up in and the best part was it only had one entrance. An entrance we could block and fight our way through if we had too. The antliods as far as we knew had no way to break or melt through walls so we were safe.
We only slept a few hours each that night. When we woke up we found just ahead of us a hallway full of broken bones, torn limbs, and mechanical parts thrown and mixed. It was a massacre complete with human remains and auton parts mixed together so well there was nothing to identify anyone. It was only when we found a broken rifle we could all agree we were staring at either Alpha or Paladin squad.
Slade who had been the most quiet of us began to pray. In his hands he held the end of necklace
that was once the symbol for an old religion. Trevor threw up.
Meddix sat in silence.
Stath and Mak’r began to see if there was anything to salvage.
Hayden stared into the darkness. I could see tears falling from his eye.
He barely managed to hide it but he did - from everyone but me. “They must have woken up and tried to run,” Duv’Mir said.
“This...” I was speechless.
We searched through the dead hoping we could find at least one antliod among the deceased but there was nothing. No one got a single shot off. They couldn’t even take one out by shear force or luck.
That was when I noticed two familiar Drok. Faces I had seen so long ago on Errikus. Faces that only barely resembled now the people they once were. Hayden’s parents. I thought they had died on Errikus, it turned out they had been injured and found by a rescue crew and since then they have been in stasis. I wonder if Hayden knew? No. I knew he had no idea they were alive. He had come to terms with their passing long ago.
I looked down and found his mother still breathing. I could see the pain and suffering inside her eyes. She tried to crack a smile when she saw me. The kind of smile that you never forget. I wanted to scream for Hayden to come. For a second I thought we could save someone. Then I saw her legs. The lower half of her body had been ripped apart and the only reason she hadn’t bled out was because an auton had fallen on top of her - its gyros and gears blocking the wound stopping her from bleeding out the way a dam would hold back a river. I looked over at Hayden who was searching in the other direction then I looked back and all I could think about was when I lost my mother.
Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) Page 15