Starck's Lament (The Shadow Wars Book 11)

by S. A. Lusher

  It was decided. They would stand and fight. Eric aimed for its head and squeezed the trigger. The rattle of his SMG seemed insignificant against the almighty roar of Seth's heavy machine gun as they both opened fire. The bullets hit the beast in a storm, more often than not simply rebounding off the tougher parts of its scaly black hide, but a few managed to puncture it and sprays of dark gore escaped it. The thing loosed a bellow of fury and came right for them, long arms reaching, claws gleaming in the low light of the passageway.

  Eric began backing up in reaction to it getting closer, his SMG shaking in his hands as it spat out its entire magazine. Seth stood his ground. It didn't work out too well. Eric shouted for him to get back, the beast was getting too close, but Seth seemed intent on taking it down without backpedaling for whatever reason and as a result, the beast got close enough to leap forward and gore him on its lengthy obsidian claws.

  “Seth!” Eric screamed as he slapped a fresh magazine in.

  What happened next seemed to take place in a world apart from the one he normally inhabited. Eric had a view of Seth suddenly being raised up, of the tips of the claws punching bloody holes in the back of his suit. He heard the man scream. Then, Eric was racing forward, towards the creature, gun in hand, murder filling his mind. The beast slung Seth aside and he slid easily off of its razor claws, hitting the wall in another cry of agony. Eric raced up to the creature and leveled the barrel of the gun directly into its face.

  The thing bore down on him, staring into his soul with its distant pinpoint irises, and it opened wide its madly grinning mouth.

  Eric squeezed the trigger.

  He emptied half the magazine into the thing's wide, teeth-studded maw and watched the ceiling spray with dark gore as the back of its head opened up. Its brains were sprayed across the dull metal and the thing began twitching spasmodically as it toppled over backwards, crashing against the deckplates with a heavy thud. Eric spun around as he came back to himself and spied Seth lying on the floor, not moving at all.

  He felt cold and distant as he rushed over to his fallen ally. He dropped to his knees and leaned over Seth's face. His eyes were closed and he was pale. Eric cautiously reached out and checked for a pulse, as he did, Seth's eyes fluttered open.

  He groaned. “Stupid,” he muttered, and then he coughed up a spray of blood. “That was really fucking stupid of me,” he added.

  “Quiet,” Eric said.

  He looked down at the man's wounds, his mind becoming calmed and analytical. Three major wounds to his torso. He'd have to act fast, but the man might be dead regardless. Eric tore Seth's medical kit off his belt, (he'd lost his own during the explosion or when he was being dragged, he wasn't sure which,) and pulled out a coagulating powder. It would do in a pinch but it hurt like shit. “Get ready,” he said to Seth.

  The man just grunted. Eric poured a small amount of the dry powder into each of the man's wounds. Seth bit back a scream as he performed the painful task. Eric finished pouring it into the last of the three wounds, then pulled back for a second. He looked around, scanning the area to ensure they were still alone. They were.

  “Okay...now I've got to do the other side,” he said.

  Seth groaned. “Fine, just...get it over with,” he replied through gritted teeth.

  Carefully, Eric rolled the man over onto his side, then onto his stomach. The exit wounds were just as nasty. Working fast, he dumped the remainder of the coagulating agent into the wounds, eliciting another bitten off scream of agony from Seth.

  “Okay, done,” he said, tossing the tube away.

  Seth remained lying down for a little bit, then slowly began to pick himself up.

  “We need to get you to an infirmary,” Eric said as he helped the big man to his feet.

  “I'll be fine,” Seth grunted. He rose to his full height, hesitated, then groaned and staggered forward. “Ugh, maybe not. We at least have to get the thermal units fixed.”

  “...fine, I'll go as fast as I can,” Eric replied.

  “Don't do a shoddy job on my account,” Seth muttered.

  Eric helped him through the door and into the bay that held the thermal units. They made it over to a central workstation set up as a circular desk on a slightly raised platform that overlooked the whole area. It was a mess. The rectangular room had high ceilings and most of the open space was taken up by a pair of huge industrial pieces of equipment. The thermal units themselves. They were cast in a grim, black metal, studded with all manner of buttons and switches and screens. It looked like a bit of a battle had gone on in the area, but nothing too devastating. Seth took a seat in one of a pair of rolling chairs within the circular workstation.

  “Watch my back,” Eric said.

  “All I'm good for at the moment,” Seth grunted.

  Eric set to work, firing up the thermal unit diagnostic system and waiting for it to run its course. He listened to the sounds of the base as he did. The hum of energy, the quiet respiration of oxygen, the subtle groan of the bulkheads responding to pressure and temperature fluctuations. Most obvious of all was Seth's labored breathing. It sounded heavy and off-kilter. Eric couldn't only guess at which, if any, of the man's major organs had been nicked or outright pieced by the claws. He guessed that Seth's lungs had been compromised.

  Either way, things didn't look good. Eric was no medic. Even if he could get him to an infirmary...he turned away from that thought.

  The workstation chimed, informing him that the diagnostic on the thermal units had run its course. He spied a pair of problems, minor problems that he could fix in five minutes. He let out a heavy sigh of relief.

  “Thank god,” he muttered. “I can fix this, Seth. Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Take your time,” Seth replied, offering Eric a small, pained grin.

  “Hang in there,” Eric said.

  He hurried off the platform and set to work. As Eric worked, time seemed to move opposite of how it normally did. In tense situations, seconds seemed to agonizingly drip by, slow as sloths, but now it was like there just wasn't enough time. He kept glancing at his chronometer in his HUD and he'd be shocked to see that a whole other minute had gone by when he could have sworn it had just been thirty seconds. Occasionally, Seth would let out a small sound of pain and he was beginning to wheeze more, spurring Eric on further.

  In the end, it took him just shy of five minutes, and it was pretty good work. He'd gotten good at working under stress over the years. He replaced a pair of parts that had been hit in the firefight and returned to the workstation.

  “Okay, Seth, I'm checking the units now...Seth? Seth!?” Eric asked, startled when he didn't respond, turning to look at him.

  Seth jerked awake. “Huh? Ow!” He hacked and coughed, then turned and spat out a thick mouthful of blood. “Ugh, hate that taste,” he muttered. “Sorry, drifted off. What happened?”

  “Good news,” Eric replied. “At least, it should be. Give me a moment.”

  “Uh-huh,” Seth replied.

  Eric cursed the workstation for taking so long as it brought up the information he needed. After an agonizing ten seconds, he confirmed it: the thermal units were working. They weren't going to freeze to death.

  So...that was good.

  “Come on,” he said, turning back. “When we were checking out how to get here I saw an infirmary marked in the area. I still remember how to get there.”

  “All right,” Seth replied, slowly standing up.

  Eric helped him get to his feet. He was moving slower, doing worse. Again, Eric wondered if there was even a point to helping him. He ignored that thought. So long as he was still alive, there was still hope. He begin helping him out of the thermal bay and back into the small network of corridors that crisscrossed this sector. As they hobbled through the bloodied industrial complex, Eric just kept the same thought repeating over and over again: to not be discovered by any more of the creatures. He felt like he'd already had enough of these things to last a lifetime. And yet...ea
ch time he eliminated one, he felt a sort of rush.

  They were hard to kill. Easily the hardest thing he'd ever had to kill in his life. But now four of them were dead, two by his hand. One indirectly, he supposed. What did that mean about him? That he liked killing them? Eric had been forced to kill during the war. He'd hated it. It had been a necessary task, but there had definitely been something in him that seemed to relish it, and it only grew more powerful each time he'd had to do it. He'd experienced a lot during that time and he felt like he was still sorting through it.

  “Here we are,” Eric muttered as he found the infirmary.

  He could be introspective later. Right now, he had a life to save. Hopefully. The infirmary was banged up but vacant. Eric got Seth over to one of the intact examination tables. The man was largely incoherent by now. Working as quickly as he could, he laid the large security specialist out on the table, laying his arms out at his sides.

  “You still with me Seth?” he asked as he booted up the table.

  “Yeah...” Seth murmured. It sounded to Eric more like a kind of automatic response to a question than a coherent statement.

  “Okay, okay...running the scan now. We'll see what we can do for you...Seth?” The scan was showing no heart rate. Eric felt his whole body go cold. “Seth?” As much as he didn't want to, as much as he was afraid to, he looked up from the screen and rested his gaze on Seth. The man's eyes were partially open, his face still. He no longer drew breath. A slow, flat tone began to fill the air as the pulse monitor flat-lined.

  It continued buzzing for several seconds before Eric slowly reached down and killed the scan. He continued staring at Seth for another long moment before finally reaching out and closing his eyes. He carefully took each of his hands and folded them on his chest.

  “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I...”

  He wanted to say more, but what more was there to say to the dead?

  His legs suddenly felt weak. He suddenly felt weak. Slowly, Eric crossed the room. Sitting down heavily in the nearest chair, he wondered what to do next. There were things that needed doing. Autumn had to be found, but he was beginning to suspect that she must have died on the Liberation, leaving him the last person alive on this miserable rock floating through space. Maybe he was in Hell. Maybe he'd died in his sleep and woke up into this reality where everyone he knew died and he was trapped with demons in space...

  Eric's radio crackled to life suddenly. He jerked up.

  “Eric? Are you there? Is anyone out there?” It was Autumn.

  “Autumn!? Oh my god...where are you? Are you okay? What happened?!”

  “Eric, calm down. I'm fine. I made it off the Liberation before it blew. What happened? Did you do that? Did you kill it?”

  “It killed itself in the engine room, that's what caused the ship to blow.”

  “Talk about bad luck...well, at least it's dead. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you sooner. My suit and my radio were damaged in the explosion. I've been dodging these things, trying to find some survival gear and weapons...where have you been?”

  “I found Seth and we had to make some emergency repairs to keep the station online but...he just died. Just now. One of those things got to him.”

  “Fuck...I'm sorry, Eric...” She was silent for a second. “I guess it's just the two of us now...we need to get out of here.”

  “How? The Liberation is gone.”

  “I don't know but I figure our best bet is to check the hangars. If we can find a jump ship or a cargo cruiser or something we can at least break orbit, be safe from these fucking things. Where are you right now?”

  “In an infirmary near the thermal bay.”

  “I'm not sure where that is...ugh, okay. Can you get back to the hangar where we originally came in through?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Great. I'll meet you there and then we can start figuring out this plan.”

  “All right...it's good to hear from you.”

  “You too. Please be careful, honey.”

  “I will. You as well. See you soon.”

  “See you.”

  She signed off. Eric felt a new purpose beginning to fill him. He stood up and walked over to Seth. “Sorry, but I'm sure you understand,” he said quietly as he patted the man down for weapons. He'd managed to hang onto his heavy machine gun through all this chaos. Eric abandoned his SMG in favor of it, hoping it would help him out should he run into any more of the horrors stalking the corridors of Theseus Station.

  With a renewed sense of hope, Eric set off.

  CHAPTER 07

  –No Escape–

  The installation seemed to be slowly coming to life.

  It was a creepy, ominous feeling that filled Eric with a sluggish, cold dread. He held onto the heavy machine gun that he'd salvaged from Seth's corpse and wondered if he'd made the right decision. Should he just abandon it? It was probably the correct choice. If he ran into one of those things, the best option seemed to be just to run. He'd gotten lucky so far. Well...lucky only in the sense that he wasn't dead and he was still physically intact aside from some bumps and bruises. But how long would that last? How long could he hope to survive?

  Eric wasn't exactly a warrior.

  Sure, he was a combat engineer and he'd seen more than his fair share of combat. But he'd wanted to leave all that shit behind when he'd left the military. Murder was ugly, nasty business. If he was being honest with himself though, he wasn't entirely sure he considered putting one of these things down as murder. They were...creatures. Not creatures in the sense of animals, protecting their territory or hunting for food.

  No, they were something different.

  There was a kind of awful intelligence to them. In a way, it'd be a lot easier to pass these...he loathed to call them demons but he could think of no other name, these things off as animals. He remembered Seth's name for them: Bandersnatch. But that had been Seth's name. For some weird reason, Eric felt uncomfortable using it, even inside his own mind...

  He came to the end of the corridor he'd been slinking along as stealthily and silently as possible and peered cautiously around the corner. Nothing but another dreary, bloody stretch of scratched-up metal deckplates and bulkheads. He'd been cast into an industrial wasteland, populated by nightmarish alien creatures. He wasn't too far from the hangars they'd first entered. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Eric made his way around the corner and began traversing another hallway, hurrying to his destination.

  As much distance as his mind put between his time spent murdering fellow humans and what he was doing here, Eric couldn't help but notice that there were too many similarities for comfort. The apprehension, the terror, the certainty that death was waiting around every corner and the sure knowledge that pretty much the only thing keeping him alive was nothing more than luck wrapped in a thin layer of skill and caution. Mostly you were just throwing dice every time you took a chance, or flipping a coin.

  You could keep living, or you could just as easily die and lose it all.

  Eric was still uncertain about whether or not he wanted to continue living. Although he had a history of being a generally gloomy person, he'd never been actually suicidal. If anything, he'd been afraid to die. Combat had changed him, but it wasn't that simple. It did different things to different people. He'd known one guy who'd lost it and had gone on to kill himself. He knew other guys who were just fine and went back to their lives when it was over. He knew still others who couldn't go back, who became addicted to what some called 'the life'.

  If he had to come up with an answer to this particular conundrum, he would say that being on a battlefield with death possibly and constantly a heartbeat away...tended to clear your mind. It brought your life into a perfect, harsh focus and suddenly, you were shown what truly mattered to you. For some, their families back home or the life they left behind was the only thing that mattered, so they had no problem going back when it was done. Some had made the harsh discovery that nothing before
their time in the military mattered as much as the military lifestyle did to them now, so they stayed, unable to 'go back to sleep', as some of them called it.

  Eric had been shown his own light.

  It was, in a way, his damnation.

  He'd discovered that the life he had before didn't really mean much to him. The people in it, the things he did, hobbies and interests...they were all pale ghosts next to his current life. But it wasn't the drills, the sense of belonging, the satisfaction of fixing something just in the nick of time or the combat that did it for him.

  No, he'd discovered one thing and one thing alone gave him a purpose: saving lives. Rescuing people. And there had sure been enough opportunities during the Systems Wars to save people. And yet...that was also his downfall. For every person he saved, it seemed like two more ended up dying. And, eventually, he was alone...

  Just like he was becoming alone here, now.

  So, did he want to live?

  He supposed he wanted to live only so long as he could save people, and right now, the only person left to save was Autumn, presumably. He found it hard to imagine that anyone else was alive on this miserable heap of an installation. If they were though...well, he'd have to find them. He'd have to. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was true: the only thing that compelled him to keep going was to help other people. Some part of him knew that it wasn't the healthiest way to live, but...well, another part of him rationalized that there were far worse ways to live your life, far worse obsessions to have.

  Eric's train of thought mercifully derailed as he heard a noise from somewhere up ahead. It didn't sound like one of the creatures but...it was too difficult to be certain given how little he knew about the damned things. He hurried along the corridor he was in, got up to the corner and peered slowly around it. Relief flooded him as he spied a human figure. Autumn. He stepped out around the corner, letting out a short whistle.

  Autumn reflexively pointed her gun at him, then relaxed. They hurried to meet in the center of the lengthy passageway.