Starck's Lament (The Shadow Wars Book 11)

by S. A. Lusher

  As he took his next breath, he became aware of the absolutely wretched, horrible, disgusting stench of decaying bodies and rotting meat and exposed innards. Starting to gag, wondering how he hadn't noticed it at first, he quickly activated his suit's internal air supply, closing his vents, knowing that he could not go on this way. The smell was quickly filtered out of his suit and he took a few cautious breaths.

  Regaining control of himself, Eric edged out from behind the conduit and began making for the next one. Overhead, raw alien power sang and hummed with evil frequencies, channeling malevolent energies from some dimension of pure horror. He moved quickly, having no intention of being around for whatever apex this was building towards. He had an idea that they were fashioning some kind of portal, hadn't Sierra said that?

  What were they summoning?

  Eric managed to make it to the next pillar and plant the bomb without any trouble. As he prepared to make it to the final one, however, he heard the heavy thuds of footfalls nearby. Freezing in his shadowy niche, he waited as one of the creatures drew closer. Had he been discovered? Was he to meet his death here? The plodding footfalls drew closer, closer, closer...then, they were still. He heard a wet rummaging sound, sickening in its clarity. It went on for several seconds, then it ceased and the footfalls receded.

  It had been gathering more construction materials.

  Eric let out his breath in a long sigh, waited a few seconds more, then continued his journey. Almost done. He wanted out of here so bad. He was trembling all over now, feeling feverish and clammy at the same time, feeling like his blood was turning toxic in his veins. As he reached the midway point of his journey, he stopped, realizing something was blocking his path. With a revelation that sent his heart skittering madly in his chest, he saw that it was one of the lines, the awful thing forged of flesh and bone.

  A face stared up at him, twisted forever in agony.

  He realized, sickly, that it was Seth's face. For a second, he thought that he might break, that he might give himself entirely to his insanity, but then his control returned with an iron grip and he stepped over the face, not looking at it, instead focusing on his goal. It didn't seem possible, but he was almost out of here, almost done.

  Eric reached the final conduit.

  He set the bomb and activated the detonator. It was functional. All he had to do was push a button and then the base would go up in flames. No matter what, he would be able to at least stop them. Now that his task was complete, Eric set his mind on the last leg of his final run: escape. He slunk along through the shadows, eying the beasts. They seemed none the wiser to the change. He hoped whatever strange energy was being released wouldn't interfere with the bombs. As he slipped through the exit, he realized he was putting a lot of faith in luck.

  Well, sometimes that's just how it went.

  The door that led to the corridor he'd opted to avoid earlier was right in front of him, closed, just waiting for him. Deciding he needed to get a damned move on, he opened the door-

  -and stared up in pure horror at the bulky, dark form of one of the creatures filling it, facing him, seeing him.

  It began to reach for him. Eric yelled and dove towards it, trying to get in between it and the door frame. There was just enough room. He got through, hit the deckplates...and screamed again in horror as he felt one long-clawed hand close around his boot. There was no time to think, he was reduced to a singular option.

  Eric hit the detonator.

  He expected everything to disappear in a white flash, to feel the briefest instance of fiery death and then nothing at all forever. But that's not how it happened. Instead, there was a tremendous crash and a bright light. The pressure on his foot was released and he was thrown forcefully down the corridor. Eric cried out as he flew through the air, then grunted as he hit something hard and smashed into the floor. Coughing, trying to suck air back into his lungs, he struggled to regain his feet. The corridor was filled with smoke now and he could hear alarms ringing. Had it not worked? Clearly something had happened, but why was he still alive?

  Out of the smoke, he saw a huge figure stumbling towards him, then another, and another. Eric needed no further incentive.

  He ran.

  Eric ran for all he was worth, knowing that he had to escape at least this immediate situation. As he began sprinting down the corridor, away from the core, his radio crackled.

  “Eric, can you hear me?” It was Sierra.

  “I can,” he replied.

  “What happened?”

  “I had to blow the bombs but I don't think they worked. I placed them where you told me to,” he replied, hitting a wall, bouncing off and running onwards.

  “They did their job. The reactor core has entered meltdown. It cannot be stopped. You have ten minutes to escape,” Sierra replied.

  “Perfect,” Eric said.

  He ran on.

  The facility passed by him in a blur. He reacted on pure instinct, sprinting as fast as his body and his suit would allow, racing down the bleak, bloodied passageways of Theseus Station as it died all around him, seconds hammering by, a countdown to his death. Behind him, he heard the maddened screams of the creatures as they ran after him, no doubt furious for undoing all their hard work. He passed doors and bloodstains and flickering lights, he ran on, sprinting and jumping and bolting, pushing his body to its limit.

  And then, suddenly, he was there, at the hangar bay.

  Eric opened the door, smashing his fist on the close and lock button, if only to buy him a few precious, crucial seconds. He ran across the empty hangar bay, the base shaking noticeably around him, his lungs feeling as though they might burst. Racing through the door he'd left open that led to the airlock, Eric secured it behind him and then began the cycle. He ran as quickly as he could around to the driver's side door, threw it open, jumped in and slammed it shut.

  “Is the rover airtight?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Sierra replied.

  He saw that it was already turned on. As he reached for the wheel, Sierra said, “I'll drive.”

  The rover edged forward, getting as close to the exterior door as possible while the airlock continued its cycle.

  “How long?” Eric moaned, collapsing bonelessly into the seat.

  “It will be close,” Sierra replied.

  From the passenger's seat, Luna meowed morosely.

  The exterior door opened up. As soon as there was proper clearance, Sierra shot the rover forward. It hit the service road and peeled out, driving away from the facility at maximum speed. Eric simply sat there, feeling paralyzed, almost unable to breathe as he waited for either death or salvation. The rover jolted as it went off the paved road and onto the surface. It swerved left, then right, then left again as Sierra avoided large rocky outcroppings.

  Eric reached over to steady Luna's cage and she began meowing repeatedly, the sound loud and worrying.

  “It'll be okay, Luna,” he said, hoping he wasn't lying to the poor cat.

  The rover continued to jerk around and drive on. Eric glanced into the distance. He could see the facility and, mercifully, no creatures coming after them. As he returned his attention to the front, Sierra pulled the rover around in a tight arc, turning to the left. He saw what she was doing: the rover made it behind a huge rise of rock.

  Almost at the same time, a tremendous explosion jolted the whole area. The rover skidded to a halt and rocked violently for several seconds, trembling as the reactor core went critical. Eric waited, knowing that this was it, make-or-break, life or death. Slowly, the trembling subsided and all was still and silent.

  “Did we make it?” he asked softly.

  “Yes. We made it,” Sierra replied after a moment. “At least, we made it out of the facility and the blast radius.”

  Eric let out his breath in a long sigh. Slowly, he reached up and disengaged his helmet, then set it down in the back of the rover. For a long moment, he simply sat there and stared out through the front windows at the desolat
e surface of the asteroid.

  Luna meowed suddenly, pulling him from his silent reverie.

  He chuckled softly, reached over and opened the cage. Luna hesitated for a moment, then poked her head out. She looked around the interior of the rover, then, ducking down low, her ears flat, she quickly crossed between the two chairs and got into Eric's lap. Curling up into a tight ball, she hid her face away into her fur. She began purring loudly. Eric reached down and started to stroke her. Some people might wonder why she was purring, but he knew the truth about cats. It was true that they purred when they were happy, but they also purred when they were very afraid or in pain. They did it to soothe themselves.

  “We did it,” Eric whispered softly.

  “We did it,” Sierra agreed. “Thank you, again, for rescuing me.”

  “You're welcome, Sierra,” Eric murmured.

  They both drifted into a long silence after that. Sierra brought the rover's engine to its lowest power setting, to save whatever energy they had. They didn't know how long they'd be there. Eric looked out over the landscape once more, staring at the rocky wastelands, now mostly darkened, the only light coming from the stars overhead, shining down blithely on him, unaware of the trials he had just faced.

  He was in a good place, now.

  Well, as good as could be expected.

  As the silent minutes ticked out, Eric let himself think of Autumn and the others, his friends. Those who hadn't made it.

  He began to cry, and to grieve.

  EPILOGUE

  “Eric, you have a visitor,” Sierra said quietly.

  Eric frowned, wondering who could be visiting him. It was still early. As he stared at the door of his cabin, considering the situation, his mind drifted back over the past seven days. After escaping the facility with Sierra and Luna, he'd been prepared for a lot of things. Prepared to die of starvation or dehydration, prepared to die of the cold if the power failed, prepared to wait it out to the bitter end. But, it seemed that he'd caught a lucky break.

  A ship arrived within twelve hours, a cargo hauler that happened to be heading for the station, unaware that anything was wrong. When they had found Eric, they'd rescued him...and then they'd detained him. Even in his burned out state, he knew what it looked like. He was the lone survivor of the entire installation that had been destroyed. He'd tried explaining the situation to the crew of the cargo ship, but they seemed to think he was crazy. Even more luckily, before anything unfortunate could happen, another S & R ship showed up.

  Eric happened to know the captain of that particular crew, as they'd worked on a mission together a few months ago, and the captain officially took him into custody. Once onboard, he and Luna had been treated for any and all injuries, then, he and Sierra had been subject to a full debriefing. Sierra had managed to snag a great deal of information relating to the creatures on the infoclip she was stored on. On top of that, Eric's suit, which had camera built into the helmet that had been running the entire time, had recorded its own huge compilation of raw data.

  Between the two of them, they convinced the Search & Rescue crew. They weren't entirely sure what to do with him or who to pass him off to, so he stayed with them for an additional day while they made some calls and ran extensive scans on the asteroid and the region around it. They found absolutely no traces of life, nor any remnants of the inter-dimensional energy signature, much to Eric's immense relief.

  Finally, the captain managed to get in touch with a contact he'd made in Spec Ops, who seemed like the right kind of people to handle something like this. They got two ships out there pronto, one of them taking over the investigation and another ferrying Eric, Sierra and Luna back towards civilized space. They debriefed him and Sierra all over again, then brought the three of them back to a military space station.

  From there, the man who'd interviewed him, a stern-faced, middle-aged guy named Ingram, told him that he had to consult with a few people to determine the best course of action. Eric knew that was military speak for 'sit down, shut up and wait while we determine whether or not we want to throw you in prison'. He didn't have any fight left in him and they were at least nice enough to put him up in temporary quarters, so he complied.

  They also let Luna and Sierra stay with him.

  He'd been here for a few days now, recovering, sleeping through most of it. His muscles still ached and he had terrible nightmares, but he was safe and Luna tended to sleep against his legs, which helped him feel better. He had made it out alive. And now it was the dawn of the eighth day since his escape from Theseus Station. He'd awoken, had some breakfast and had just finished getting dressed after a long shower.

  Maybe they'd decided what to do with him.

  Eric moved over to the door and opened it up. He was surprised to see someone new standing in the doorway, he'd been expecting Ingram. Instead, this man was much older. He had a shaved head, a scrim of white stubble staining his jawline and very sharp green eyes. He wore a simple black jumpsuit with no insignia, but he was definitely military, he held himself with ramrod precision despite his advanced age and had a pistol on his hip.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice very rough and gravelly. “My name is William Hawkins. May I come in?” he asked.

  “Uh...sure,” Eric replied, stepping back out of the way.

  The man named Hawkins stepped inside.

  “So...uh...what's this about?” Eric asked, going and sitting down.

  “I'll cut to the chase,” Hawkins replied, fixing him with his intense gaze. “I read up on your actions on Theseus Station. It made for very impressive reading. I'm the head of a...unique and relatively new branch of the government. We're small, we only have one ship and a couple of dozen crew, but we're growing, and we have a very special assignment.”

  “And what would that be?” Eric asked.

  “We hunt down and eliminate alien, paranormal or otherwise supernatural threats and phenomena,” Hawkins replied.

  Eric studied the man. He was deadly serious, not a trace of humor. There was no way he was joking, and obviously he must have very high clearance to get onto a military space station and see a detainee like Eric. On top of that, the man exuded command and authority and, above all else, authenticity.

  “Are you offering me a job?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yes. You are clearly a survivor. You made it through that mess when everyone else around you didn't. You took on an utterly alien, unknown, unknowable situation, and you triumphed. You have a military background, you're still in good shape, you're quick-witted and can think on your feet, you'd be perfect for this job.”

  “I did have help,” Eric replied. “My teammates, Sierra.”

  “That doesn't make the success any less impressive.”

  Eric frowned, considering it for a long moment. He knew he should be shocked or surprised or something, but after everything that had happened, even with a week of recovery, his emotions still felt numb and dislocated.

  “I'm not the most mentally stable of people,” he admitted.

  “We have therapists onboard and access to all manner of chemically-balancing drugs,” Hawkins replied.

  Eric sighed. “What would I actually be doing if I signed up for this? What kind of sacrifices would I have to make?”

  “It won't be easy, but you'll have special clearance to get whatever you need and to wherever you need. You'll have downtime between missions. You'll have a crew of dedicated professionals and seasoned veterans that you'll be able to rely on. You likely won't have to worry about money again. You will, however, have to live on my ship. Vacations are definitely an option, but, of course, you won't be able to tell anyone about this. And, of course, you'll have to face down new and unique threats and figure out how to deal with them. Even with your instincts and survival abilities, you could die, and die horribly, during any one of these missions.”

  Eric considered it for a moment.

  “What do you think, Sierra?” he asked.

  “I think this
sounds like a good idea,” Sierra replied.

  Eric snorted. “I'll go on one condition.”

  “What's that?” Hawkins asked.

  “I get to bring my cat and Sierra.”

  Hawkins smiled and stuck out his hand. “Mister Starck, you have yourself a deal.”

  Eric took the grizzled old man's hand and shook it.

  DEATHLESS

  CHAPTER 01

  They were coming for him and there was very little time.

  This was all that Greg could remember. His head felt dreamy and light, like he was walking through an almost invisible haze. He was dislocated from the world around him, confused and disoriented, but the looming sense of shapeless, nameless threat would not abate. So he ran. He ran down a corroded corridor of rusted metal and dim lighting. His boots echoed hollowly as he ran for his life.

  It was the loneliest sound he'd ever heard.

  There were no doors in this immense steel tunnel, no ventilation grates, no windows. Nowhere to to hide, nowhere to escape to. He could not stop, either. It wasn't an option. So the only recourse left to him was to run.

  And he did.

  For what felt like ages, his boots hit the metal, pounding dully as propelled himself onwards, feeling as though he were gaining no distance on the unnamed, unnameable thing that was chasing after him with the relentless compunction of death itself. He did not know where he was, (though it was disturbingly familiar,) nor his objectives or what was at stake, (though he suspected it was his own life,) only that he must run.

  It seemed to go on forever.

  Then, abruptly, a transition. Greg spied a looming wall ahead of him, an end to the passageway. An open door awaited him.

  He sprinted through it without hesitation, then spun, trying to find a way to close it. He glimpsed back the way he'd come, down that endless rusty hall and saw...nothing. There was nothing there, nothing chasing him.