by S. A. Lusher
On the other hand, that thing had seemed huge.
Feeling the slightest bit better and at least more focused now, Eric took the turn and entered the next corridor. All he had to do was get to its end and move through a door and then he'd be at the security center. He could find out what had happened. Why no one was responding to him on his radio. Not just his own team but the others as well, or Jensen. His instincts told him that it must be some kind of technical glitch. No way something just up and wiped out everyone but him when they were spread out all over the facility.
Of course, he had no clue as to what was happening here.
Fucking anything could have happened...
Eric came to the end of the corridor. He stood just outside the door that would take him to entrance of the security center, pausing, for a moment not wanting to see what may lay beyond. It could be anything. Then, the driven, relentless determination that he'd developed as a survival mechanism during (and before) the war, kicked in.
Eric stepped through the door.
A scene straight out of a horror film awaited his inspection.
There was a great deal of fresh blood sprayed across the walls, the ceiling and the entry door to the security hub. It dripped from the ceiling, ran down the walls in rivulets and pooled on the floor. There was a scattering of spent shell casings marring the bloodied deckplates. However, most importantly, (to him at least), there was a severed arm, free of its suit, still clutching a pistol, lying on the floor, as if someone had left it there for him. For a cold-gut second, Eric felt absolutely certain that it was Autumn's arm.
It would be a tragedy if it was either Autumn or Amanda's arm, but he didn't know if he could handle it being Autumn's.
For several seconds, he simply stood there in stark horror, frozen, staring at the severed limb. Then a thought came to him, bursting in his mind like a beacon. It was the right arm, he could tell that much, and Autumn had a scar on her right bicep where she'd been shot once and had refused to have the scar fully removed.
Eric dropped to his knees, setting his pistol down and grabbing the arm. For a split second, he felt the skin-crawling horror of picking up a severed human limb. The awful, grating knowledge that this had once been part of a fully functional human being, and now it had been ripped off, rendered no longer a limb but an object, settled horrifically into his brain. But his need to see, to know, pushed aside this horror.
He searched the arm over twice and did not find the scar.
With a soft sigh of relief that made him feel immediately guilty, Eric set the arm down. He shuddered in disgust as he released it from his grasp and grabbed his pistol. He realized that he'd set it down in a pool of blood and felt his face tighten in further disgust. He glanced back down at the arm. At the pistol clutched in its grasp.
His instincts wouldn't let him leave it behind.
Hesitantly, Eric glanced around, then dropped into a crouch and holstered his sidearm. He pried the pistol from Amanda's stiff fingers. It was a grim, grizzly task, but not one he hadn't performed before. As he got it free, Eric straightened back up and checked the pistol out. It was empty. Amanda had unloaded on whatever it was that had ripped her arm off. He reloaded it with a magazine from his suit and kept it in his grasp, leaving his own pistol in reserve. With that miserable chore out of the way, Eric turned to the door.
The whole reason he'd gone away.
Eric approached the door and hit the access button. This time it opened without a problem. He stepped into the security center beyond. After giving it quick once-over to ensure that he was really alone in here, he closed and locked the door behind him. For a moment, he simply stood there, his back to the door, staring long and lonely into the security center. Details came to him slowly. A bank of monitors to the right, a row of gun lockers and a work bench at the back, a desk and security terminal to the left.
The place looked empty, cleaned-out, utterly void.
Like no one had been there in years.
Eric realized that he was close to hyperventilating. He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. He could do this. He could get through this. People were counting on him...hopefully. The alternative was worse. If there was no one left alive then...he wasn't sure he had the strength to go on for himself alone. Pushing those thoughts aside, Eric realized he'd gotten his breathing back under control. Okay, first things first.
He walked over to the security monitors and studied them. Most of them had been rendered non-functional, but those that did still work didn't show him much that he wanted to see. A bleak, bloodied corridor here, a disused, bloodied room there. After several minutes, he determined that he could see no one, living or dead, from his team. As he began to turn away from the monitors, he caught a hint of motion on one of them.
Eric jerked back, studying it. He saw something, some dark movement, just leaving the screen as he stared at it. After waiting for several more minutes, simply staring and waiting, the movement didn't return. With a sigh, Eric turned back away from it and moved over to the terminal. He needed the radio functional, needed to know who was alive, what was their condition. It was the top priority right now. So, he sat down and began navigating the menus, hunting for several moments in the gloomy silence of the security center.
Finally, he had his answer.
A communications relay was damaged somewhere deeper in the facility and it was spitting out a signal that was blanking out their communications. It was a common thing that happened on older models and Eric knew that he could fix it in a snap...if he had the right parts and tools. He had the tools, but not the parts.
He took a moment to memorize a route that led from this security center to a maintenance chamber, then to the relay in question.
Once that was finished, he performed a quick search of the security center, found nothing of value, said a small prayer to whoever might be listening and left.
* * * * *
The way to the maintenance bay was clear, at least.
Eric resisted the urge to call out for help over the radio as he slunk through the bloodied, flickering corridors of Theseus Station. He knew it would be useless, but that didn't stop him from wanting to do so. If he could just hear one other person's voice...Eric had been alone before. Alone and lost, the last survivor of a particularly brutal battle, wandering through the wasteland of warfare, trying to get away, to get home.
Where was home, nowadays?
He had no home.
This was different, though. This was unlike anything he had ever faced. There were...things, creatures, stalking the corridors of this distant way-station. Genuine aliens. Eric knew about the Cyr, everyone with even half an education did. The galaxy was littered with remnants of the ancient civilization. But that was as close as they had ever gotten to any kind of contact with another intelligent species. Sure, there were animals out there, some of them particularly brutal, native to other planets. They were technically aliens.
But no other aliens, not in the sense of old science fiction.
There were rumors, of course. There were always rumors. In fact, there'd been more than usual, just lately. He'd heard stories about some kind of shadowy war between paramilitary groups waged along the peripheral of civilization, using Cyr technology and alien monsters as pawns. Eric didn't particularly believe it himself. It sounded like something an old sci-fi author might write, and not too good of one at that.
And yet...yet here he was, trapped in an installation along the peripheral of society with what very well could be genuine alien horrors. Of course, he hadn't had a good look at one yet. But that growl he'd heard, its very presence, had screamed: other, inhuman, alien. He could almost feel its awful, noxious presence radiating through the wall the same way you could feel the cold of deep, dead space radiating through your cabin window if you touched it. What were they? Eric hoped he never had to find out.
It wasn't, he surmised, a very realistic hope.
Eric came to a halt as he arrived at the door
that would lead him to the maintenance bay. He paused in front of it, listening intently for any signs of the creatures, and, when he heard nothing, he opened the door and stepped inside.
The maintenance bay was a large, low, rectangular room spread out before him. He had a good view of the whole area, as he stood atop a ramp that led into the sunken room. A great deal of lockers, crates, storage cabinets and workbenches were spread out in a pretty random pattern, creating little alcoves between each other. Not exactly the greatest place to be, given his current predicaments. Well, best to just get the parts and get this over with.
Hurrying down the ramp, Eric found a manifest terminal and booted it up. If the people who ran this place did their jobs, this should tell him exactly where the parts he needed were. Luckily, he knew precisely what parts were necessary because the diagnostic on the comms relay itself had given him a clear picture. He just needed two parts. After a few moments, he had them. They were, of course, on opposite sides of the room.
With a sigh, Eric set off, making for the first one. He plunged into the confusing network of artificial alcoves created between the stacks of crates and awkward rows of lockers. It seemed odd to have lockers not against walls but, he imagined, this was an odd place, not run like most other installations. Distant outposts like this, especially ones not run by corporations or the military, tended to do things their own way for a variety of reasons. Eric tried to keep his thoughts from drifting as he navigated the maze.
It wasn't easy.
He could feel worry and terror creeping up on him, insidiously encroaching on the edges of his every thought, threatening to infect him with pure fear. What had happened to Autumn? To the others? Were they even still alive? He ignored these questions and took a right hand turn, then a left after moving down the alcove, kept going, counting off the crates. Abruptly, he stopped, checked one of storage cabinets.
The number painted onto the top, right-hand corner matched the one he had in his memory. He pulled open the third drawer down, rooted around for a bit through the mess of parts and tools, and found exactly what he was looking for.
Eric grinned. Perfect. He shut the door and pocketed the part.
Now, just to-
A growl sounded from somewhere in the room, as deep and menacing and lethal-sounding as the original one had been. Perhaps even more so. How had he not heard it enter the room!? Eric froze, trembling again in raw, adrenaline-soaked terror. It was in the room with him. He had to leave, find a way out, somewhere to hide...only he couldn't. He needed that second part. If he had any hope of getting to the others, he needed it.
Eric waited, listening intently, trying to discern where it was.
He heard heavy breathing, then a sound like metal scraping against metal, then a single footfall. It was to his left...unfortunately, where he needed to go. But whatever it was, he imagined it couldn't actually enter the narrow alcoves created by the crates and cabinets. Unless it forced its way in. Which would mean he had to be quiet, very quiet, and not give it a reason to. But maybe he could wait it out, maybe it would leave...
There was no way he could just rely on that to happen.
As carefully and cautiously as he could manage, Eric set off. His movements were slow and calculated. He was careful not to bump into anything and to press his feet into the deckplates with as little impact as possible. Even still, when he began moving, he heard a warning sound from somewhere up ahead and the heavy tread of footfalls. Whatever it was, it had amazing senses. And yet, it still seemed to have trouble detecting him. It was like it knew he was in the room, just not where. Was that a weakness of it?
Eric continued along. Seconds melted by, bleeding painfully slowly into minutes. Eric reached the end of the alcove he was in, turned right, moved apprehensively up the next one, then took a left. The creature began to move faster, as if growing frustrated. It slowly circled the exterior of the room while Eric navigated the tight maze. Finally, after ages and eras, he had arrived at his destination. Even more carefully than before, he opened up the appropriate drawer of the storage cabinet he stood before. If he could just-
The cabinet let out a protesting squeak.
The creature issued a low growl that was so deep and powerful it rattled everything around Eric. Giving in to panic, he found the part, stuffed it into a pocket and began running. He sprinted through the maze, making for the door. The creature was on the opposite side of the exit. He at least had that going for him, but not for long, from the way it was moving. Eric burst free of the maze and charged up the exit ramp.
As he reached the door and slammed his fist on the emergency close and lock feature, the thing let out a furious roar that shook him in his suit. Eric didn't wait around, he began sprinting down the corridor, towards the comms relay.
His only thought was that he still hadn't seen what they look like.
* * * * *
He didn't run into any more trouble as he reached the comms relay. All it took was five minutes of studious work to make the repair.
Once it was done, he activated his radio.
“This is Starck to anyone, do you read?”
The response was immediate. “Eric, thank god, I thought the others were all dead...what happened? What's your situation?” It was Marco.
“I'm okay. A damaged comms relay was blanking our comms, I just fixed it. I'm pretty sure Amanda is dead and Autumn is missing. I, these things-”
“Amanda is dead,” Autumn said suddenly over the network, her voice heavy and grim. Despite this, Eric felt relief surge through him.
“Autumn?! You're okay?!” he asked, unable to keep the joy out of his voice.
“I'm holed up in a vent right now. I'm not hurt.”
“What happened?”
“When you left, this...thing showed up. It was huge, long arms...” Autumn trailed off.
“Listen. Ronnie's dead,” Marco said, taking control of the situation. The fear, however, was obvious in his voice. “Seth and I are locked up in a storage room. We need to get back to our ship, immediately. We can't handle this on our own.”
“Couldn't agree more,” Eric replied.
“We should regroup,” Autumn suggested.
“Yes. Everyone meet back up at the hangar we entered through. Quick and quiet as you can. You see anymore of these things, you stay out of sight or run. They seem almost impervious to bullets. At least the kind of bullets we have on us.”
“I'm already on the way,” Eric replied. “Autumn, where are you? Can we meet up?”
“If you keep going back the way we came in, you'll run into me. I'll...I'll stay here, wait for you,” she said, her voice breaking slightly.
“Fine. I'm coming.”
Eric set off, ready to get the hell out of this godforsaken nightmare.
CHAPTER 04
–Situational Deterioration–
Eric stood outside of the security center once more.
Amanda's arm was gone.
This simple fact send mindless terror whispering through his body, chilling him to the bone. One of them had been here, had come back for the specific purpose of gathering up the arm. How soon after he had left to fix the comms relay had it done so? More importantly: Why? There was an awful kind of intelligence implied in such an act. Or was that just his imagination? Either way, he couldn't stand here lingering, pondering over it.
He needed to move.
So he did.
Eric set out, pistol in hand, eyes constantly scanning his surroundings for signs of the creature. As apparently large and dangerous and noisy as they were, they seemed to have the ability to creep up on you. How was that even possible? Again, he surmised that he didn't have nearly enough facts. He hadn't even seen one of the things yet. He just had hints, what'd he heard, the aftermath he'd come across. What had Autumn said about them before? Long arms. She said they had long arms. Well, that didn't do much for his mood.
Despite the skin-crawling horror of how exposed he felt now, there was a great relie
f in the fact that he at least knew others were alive. For the time being. That thought made him quicken his pace. He reached the end of the corridor that led to the security center and paused at the junction, remembering Autumn's words. She hadn't been too specific on where they were going to meet up and it wasn't as if there was a great deal of distance in between the security center and the hangar. So where could she have ended up?
“Eric.”
He jerked and bit back a surprised shout, spinning around. At first, he saw nothing. Only military discipline had kept him from firing off half a magazine in pure fear. For a long moment, he was completely stymied.
Had he imagined that?
“Autumn?”
“Up here.”
He glanced up. High in the ceiling was a ventilation grate. Behind it, he could just make out Autumn's face. He sighed in immense relief as the grate opened up and she began shifting around until finally her feet poked out. Eric helped her down out of the vent. As soon as they were standing, he wrapped her in hug, made awkward by the pressure suits they were both wearing. She hugged him back fiercely and for a moment neither of them said anything. Then, distantly, something let out a deep, bone-chilling roar.
They let go of each other.
“We need to keep moving,” Autumn said.
Eric nodded absently, looking back the way he'd come. Autumn set off, hurrying towards the hangar. Eric followed after her.
“What happened after I left?” he asked quietly.
“We were alone for a while. Then I started to get nervous and tried to reach you over the radio. When I didn't hear anything, I thought I might go and check it out. Amanda and I were debating about that when this...thing just came in from one of the side doors. It opened the door. It was huge. Dark. So tall. Its arms...” She shuddered. “Amanda and I both opened fire on it. It grabbed her and I just...I ran. I cut and ran.”
“You'd be dead if you hadn't,” Eric said quietly.