Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1)

by Stephen Landry

  I no longer felt the sense I was being hunted. Perhaps the hellbeast had decided I was too easy a prey or it had found something more interesting. Maybe it was still tracking me curious as to what I am, even if I was edible. Errikus had been full of poisonous drachmae and bannerol – animals that resembled giant spiders and insects – that the hellbeast would hunt but certain types those marked with black stripes or red marks were always poisonous. The meat on drachmae was very much the same as the meat found in a cow full of protein. Humans for the most part couldn’t stomach it but the Eek and the Pok ate it all just fine. The drachmae poisons were occasionally sold or traded in the black markets almost like currency. The bones of the bannerol were so strong they could be welded together and used on the front of exotic ships and star fighters. Some Drok even fashioned weapons swords knives and bows from the bannerol bones.

  Thinking about Errikus seemed to take away the pain the cold was causing. It must have been twenty maybe thirty degrees below at this point and it was only going to get colder.

  I put my plan into action. The charge blew. Shards of egg whistled through the air the smell of rotten and burning flesh was everywhere and the smoke rose sixty seventy feet before it was too thin to see. The hellbeast screamed and howled. It was cursing me. Cursing all. I was hidden up on a ledge. Just enough cover so it wouldn’t be able to see me right away. I could see its silhouette in the smoke. It seemed different then the ones on Errikus. Its arms seemed to stretch out more as if it had wings. Through the smoke I could see tumors on its side glowing with red and yellow veins. It seemed strange against its black and brown reptile like skin. I got two maybe three shots from my rifle into its knees and another into what looked like a wing. The beast fell to the ground wailing.

  I took too much pride in my victory. The moment I thought I was in the clear the beast came charging through the fog and snow. I could see the red pouring from its eyes as if it was crying blood instead of tears. When I could finally see it clearly it was obvious this was no ordinary animal. It did have wings and it was flying towards me. I took off as fast as I could through the ice and snow. The ice carried me several yards away as I slid through the trench and out the other side into a small ravine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw what must have been a repulsorlift. I was right, this trench was a graveyard. A Skrav skimmer was buried in the snow by another crashed dropship. They must have sent several scouts down to this world before we arrived. I could see dried blood on along the steering panel and valves. The Skrav used skimmers (hover cycles) to float several feet off the ground; they were capable of traveling up to two hundred miles per hour.

  Not having any idea how to start it I searched over and over for a power source. My rifle had a wire that would normally attach to the back of my armor and together the two would use kinetic energy to power each other up. I broke the small cable from my power back and attached it to the one of the shock plugs just over the top of the skimmer. Again nothing seemed to happen. It took several hits from the back of my M44 rifle to make the skimmer start working again. In my rage I had hit it at just the right angle at the right time. The hellbeast was only a few yards away when I launched up and out over the snow watching him fade into the distance.

  I felt really damn lucky.

  Departure in Transit “You don’t need to rush... this will all be over soon,” a woman who’s voice so old and frail spoke in the distance. I could only understand a few small sentences of what she was saying. Was I dreaming? Was this a nightmare? The darkness seemed to surround me from all sides. My hands were bound with some kind of thin metal wire. I was on the ground. I could feel my own blood sticking and drying to my skin my naked flesh. That was when I heard the rats. At first there were only two maybe three then hundreds of them turning into thousands. I was screaming but my mouth was gagged.

  “I am death,” Another voice spoke. This time it was the voice of an old man. It seemed sweet and gentle unlike the woman. The gag fell from my mouth and turned to ash.

  “Why are you murdering me?” I asked hoping the old man would save me. Hoping death itself would come to my rescue. I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow I deserved this If not in this life then in another I must have done so many people wrong. Maybe this was just the curse of being human. I could barely believe I even had the strength for words.

  “I set you free,” it was the woman responded. The shield surrounding the shards of nexus inside me must have broke again. One moment I was racing down the bank of an icy river on a skimmer and the next I am on my back knee deep in a foot of snow. “This is the worlds way of punishing me for killing the hellbeasts babies,” talking to myself. It seemed to help with the isolation. The sun had set and aside from some light reflected from the dead world there wasn’t a single light in the sky. Nights on this world are going to be hard if not impossible if things get this dark.

  It seemed better to freeze then walk. My legs were numb and tired. Three out of five fingers on my hand my thumb, index, and middle finger had turned black. How long had I been passed out here? The hellbeast must have given up chase by now I was miles away and it had no direction to follow. “Hayden will find me... he always does,” I paused again.

  “Set me free?” I said, “I was born free. I have always been free.” “Your world is a cage. You are chained by your own senses. I forgive you. It is all you have ever known. You can only see what the darkness that surrounds you allows you to see. You my child are not free,” she seemed to go on but I couldn’t make out anymore of what she was saying. Her voice seemed to echo wherever the hell I was.

  Then as if out of nowhere I could see her as she a frail old woman turned into an angel a being full of light. Her magnifcent wings stretched ten maybe twelve feet in every direction. Her wrinkles became smooth and the harsh black tones that covered her face and eyes faded away into nothing.

  “Not yet, you are too young.”

  I could see the rats again biting my feet. I wasn’t in pain though. They were eating away at my fesh Something in the ground around me began to glow. It was a vibrant blue then green then red then back to blue. It was some kind of small creature like a dragonfly or firefly on Earth all around surrounding me. All together the smaller insects like white aphids lit the snowfields for miles. The light seemed to give me strength. It was more then enough to stand. It was enough to not give up and die.

  My head wouldn’t stop pounding. I felt like I was having a vision but then it seemed to disappear like a dream or a hallucination. It wasn’t anything familiar and I didn’t feel like I was in someone else’s body. The drowning feeling I had felt so many times going in and out of it was gone.

  Perhaps I had only been knocked down for a minute even possible it was less than that. Time in the dark seemed to slow down. It was as if the world around me had melted into a crystal ball shaded in and tinted blue. I lifted my skimmer from the ground. It was long maybe twelve feet across and only wide enough for either a Skrav or human to sit on. I guess it was a lucky thing both our species were roughly the same size. Aside from two large handles there were two smaller one close to were the stomach would be. I guess some of their scouts had adapted armor that allowed them to use their smaller arms and claws. I wish Hera had been here to see this. There was just enough room she could ride on the back of this with me. The two of us would have been able to run away together. Together we could escape this madness.

  Hayden and Brecca. The two of them would have had to come too. The four of us together with Aira and our few friends from the Erebus could start a small colony a settlement of our own away from the politics of the elders and Balkava. Away from the technology, tunnels, and darkness that has held us for a hundreds of years. Somewhere on Eden we could find a home. Hera and Sev - Adam and Eve.

  “I will destroy your body and take your soul.” The voice of death cried out. He was holding a scythe pointing it towards me. His voice was no longer kind and gentle. I was afraid again. With her eyes and glow the woman scared away t
he rats. It didn’t matter I was no longer in my own body I was floating flying above it.

  From the air the woman seemed to pull out a long two handed blade made from the bones of some primordial being. It had several points on it and the handle looked like it was made from glass.

  The woman I knew now was a Valkyrie. I don’t know how I knew it was like some voice inside of my head had began speaking to me narrating the scene in a language I couldn’t understand. The two figures grew to the size of skyscrapers as I floated above them looking down.

  She sank her sword into death’s chest and he fell to the ground. I began to fall no longer floating. Faster and faster in a downward spiral I could see mountains and clouds all around me to my left and to my right. Below me stood sharp pointy trees ready and waiting to puncture my heart and tear away my spine as I continued my descent.

  I reached Hayden’s ship but there was no sign of him. The glass cockpit has been busted. Small breaks and tears in the glass as if several animals had swarmed over it hoping to reveal some kind of meat. They were smaller marks then a hellbeast but it was still something to worry about all the same. I opened the cockpit all the same to see if there was anything useful inside. Wherever Hayden had gone he had managed to take everything with him even more then myself. His entire seat had been shredded. He had probably managed to make a coat out of it.

  “The least you could have done was leave me a note,” I said thinking out loud. There was no way I could track him in this snow. I made my way back to the skimmer. There was a small hologram displaying various information in several languages including Trepp - one of the few I had managed to study onboard the Erebus in my downtime. The skimmer had been analyzing several dozen tracks in the snow.

  From what I could gather this is what it said...

  "What was once nothing more then a small parasitic/insect like creature with wings soon spawned limbs and began walking along land scavenging for food and picking apart bones to eat the marrow inside. and picking apart bones to eat the marrow inside. foot tall carnivorous creatures who flourished on Tetra V. They are the equivalent of a human rat. Their nests are nicknamed Terror Traps by naive explorers who fall into their hives. Hives can consist of hundreds to thousands depending where the colony is formed. Most Terra Vesp prefer warm climates and so underground colonies in tropic environments are usually the largest. The Terra Vesp have a queen that sits a few inches above two feet and is five times fatter then the average Terra Vesp that are usually skinny but they are able to reproduce individually asexually. It only takes one to create a new colony on a new world. A long time ago an ancient race named the Lethe who we know little about aside from the fact that they were a tier 5 civilization had built massive orbitals and airspheres that were able to accommodate life far better then oxygen rich planets (such as Earth). Some information states that the Terra Vesp were originally brought to the Orbitals to clean out vermin and eat trash. No longer satisfied as scavengers they turned to cannibalism and hunting. They became pack animals swarming on livestock and even colonists. They would latch onto their victims with their many limbs and dig their claws (two big ones on each limb) into their prey releasing a toxin that would stun them. The orbitals soon became home to a plague of Terra Vesp.

  Eventually the Lethe was given no choice but to create a genetic disease that would make the Terra Vesp population nearly extinct. Today the Terra Vesp live in the remains of the abandoned Lethe worlds hunting and scavenging the other wildlife. The ones on Tetra V are all but extinct give or take a rare sighting made by tourists. They are constantly poached because many alien species believe their skulls are a token of survival that brings good luck. It is not uncommon to see Terra Vesp skulls or even fake skulls on sale in the nets and markets. Their many limbs and bones are also ground up and made into a powder that is used as an aphrodisiac.

  There are some that believe the Terra Vesp are sentient primal creatures able to communicate with each other and other species. No one has tried or come back yielding positive results from this information but it the Terra Vesp have been observed using tools such as spears, ropes, and knives when hunting their prey. Others believe they are noting more then a pest. Children often sing songs about the Terra Vesp calling them bone eaters and tooth fairies."

  I recalled the name. It had been something I overheard one or more exotic species talking about amidst the black market on Errikus. I think I even remember seeing some Vesp tooth necklaces and jewelry for sale once in the black market.

  The Skrav and Trepp seemed to have a ton of information on orbitals and airspheres. It was a lot to take in. This one skiff probably held more secrets inside it then we would ever get out of a prisoner. Once I had it back at the Erebus they could pick it apart study it and reverse engineer it. Hayden will be thrilled. Even Balkava would be happy. If they were scouting this orbital they probably had a lot more useful information on it then we had. I now had another reason to get home safe.

  Around me just over the hill I could hear the soft quilling of several smaller animals. The information the skimmer gave me was right. Several Terra Vesp were biting endlessly at the corpse of a dead body. I couldn’t tell – I couldn’t tell from where I was if it was Hayden or not. I watched in horror as one of the Vesp with its crooked teeth and pointed jaw ripped an eye from the corpse. The eye fit perfectly inside its mouth and splattered like a grape. The snow around the body was bright red like it had been dragged several feet by the rush of the small creatures jumping to enter inside of it and feast. I shot one two three one two three round after round into the tiny creatures splattering their bodies. I didn’t want to die alone out here. If that was Hayden and he couldn’t make it what chance did I have? He had always been the better of the two of us.

  The Vesp I didn’t kill scattered. They would probably regroup and attack in a minute or two. Worst-case scenario I could just fire off a few more rounds at them. I had to be an animal wild and hostile just like everything else on this world. Every shot was my way of saying I owned this body... this kill.

  The body wasn’t Hayden. It was a Scourge. I had only ever heard what they looked like in person. From what I had been told each of them being a clone looked similar though the color of their skin and sometimes hair and body type varied – a doctors way of saying the science was never perfect and never would be. The top of its head and eyebrows were completely shaven. I doubt it ever had a single shred on its entire body. Its mouth was open and I could see it’s teeth had been filed into sharp points. On its forehead there were several black bars. A barcode. That must have been how they kept track of him after they were placed in stasis. I could picture it perfectly. Walking through the halls of the ship looking at the walls seeing into the stasis chambers the eyes of the scourge all around you each with their own small story and background. A room full of clones each labeled like a product. Its body had been mostly stripped of gear. There was nothing useful on or near it aside from a small knife. It was protected by a small skintight body suit. It was some kind of exotic kevlar probably strong enough to stand an impulse blast or one or two projectiles but it was light and meant for a warm environment. The Terra Vesp were rodents scavenging for a meal- they were this environment’s clean up crew and they had done a good job eating through most of the lower body and even the kevlar it wore as well. Small teeth marks shredded the thick layer of kevlar down to the skin and in some places the flesh had been chewed away leaving muscle and bone visible. In this cold the Scourge must have frozen. I wonder if he was even dead before the locals started eating.

  She grabbed me. With her sword sheathed she moved her arms and hands around me cradling me like a small child. I felt like I had just run a marathon. Every inch of my body was now in pain. I never hit the ground. I could see behind her Death lying on the ground defeated. His blood poured out in waves over rock and concrete.

  Every few seconds I wanted to wail out in pain. It was as if someone was breaking my beating it senselessly with a hammer or digging
the crest of a shovel into my spine one column at a time. I could feel something small shivering and as it struggled to insert itself into the small space on the bone and then I could feel it lift and pull. It was like opening a small can. Even the pores of my skin had begun to feel like they were being stuck with thousands of pins and needles.

  Then I looked at my hand. – My hand was withering away fading into ash and nothingness. All of this while the Valkyrie hummed some kind of strange archaic song. Maybe it was suppose to be soothing. The harder I tried to get myself free the faster and louder she sung.

  “It will all be over soon.” She said. If I don’t find shelter I will freeze too. From where the Scourge lay I could see another piece of ruin sticking out from the base of the snow. It was good enough. Another howl. The hellbeast was back. It had managed to track me. I could see its shadow in the distance block out the pale blue light of the aphids. It was flying. Damn monster had wings. I had no cover were I was at and only two choices; run on the skimmer or hide inside the ruins. My best bet was to hide.

  I didn’t run straight to the ruin. I still had to hide my skimmer. I unhinged the cable from my rifle and plugged it in. If the hellbeast caught up to me here I could ram it. It would be suicide and I would lose the skimmer and my life but at least I wouldn’t freeze to death like the Scourge. There was nothing more I could do now I drove my skimmer into the tunnel at the base of the ruin. It was farther away and taller then I thought. The cold was toying with my senses – and my breathing. Hayden wasn’t with me but once again he had saved my life. I had taken a re-breather from his ship. It was meant for a Drok but it would still work for a human. As soon as I stopped I placed it into position swallowing the chord. I could feel the gel like tails of it make their way down my throat and slither themselves into my lungs. It stung for a moment before I took a deep breath of fresh clean air. It was working.