by Don Chase
The last insect flew between the two men and into the crowd of civilians. It grabbed a man who had dropped to his knees and lifted him off the ground. He screamed as the creature dragged him down the hallway. He yelped as he felt the thing jab him in the neck but was too busy thrashing to take notice. In a moment he went limp and the thing dropped him and circled around to the crowd. “NOW!” Jax yelled and both pilots let loose on the creature. It reared up once like a stallion before it dropped quickly to the ground twitching only once before it ceased all movement.
“Get them to the pods, two should be enough,” Jax said as Morris herded the people down the hallway. He stopped next to the body of the man that had been dragged by the creature and checked for a pulse, he found none. He looked at the body and saw a small hole on the side of the neck with a trickle of blood. Other than that the person looked fine. He shook his head and stood before jogging off to catch up to the others.
He caught up to Morris as he stood at the hatch to the life pod. He was loading the first group in. Morris caught his eye and he gave a short shake of his head. Morris’ features sunk. He felt responsible for the man’s death, Jax could tell just by his reaction. There was no time for consolation at the moment. They needed to make sure the rest of the civilians got off station first.
After a quick count Jax discovered they had fifteen people left. Eight would go in this first pod and seven in the second which was a bit further down the hall. “You finish up here and meet me at the next one down,” he said to Morris who gave him a nod.
Jax walked over to the hatch and read the instruction guide posted next to a keypad. He punched in the correct code and there was a woosh of air as the heavy hatch door swung open. “Alright people let’s move,” he said as he motioned for everyone to get in. “Everything you need to operate this thing is on the information panels on the walls, including the launch code, so just read them and everything should be fine. If I don’t hear this thing leave in under two minutes I’ll do it from the panel on this side.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” a younger lady asked as she stepped through and into the brightly lit life pod.
“No ma’am, we have our own rides out of here. We’ll be taking two of the fighters and stay with the pods for protection as long as we can… just in case.”
“In case of what?” she asked.
“After today lady, I truly have no idea,” Jax said with a soft smile before closing the hatch. He heard two dull thumps as the retainer clamps released the pod from the side of the station as Morris jogged up next to him.
“What now?” Morris asked.
“Now we get ourselves out of here.”
Chapter 9
The small thrusters kicked in and the life pod lurched as it released from the station docking bay. Talis slumped against the far wall of the cabin and breathed a sigh of relief. Corgan plopped down on the bench next to him and patted him on the shoulder with a smile. “We made it!” he said.
“Yeah, now all we need to do is float along and hope that someone actually responds to the distress signal I sent and that they get here before we starve or run out of air,” Talis said trying to return the smile.
“Is there any way to steer this thing?” Rihn asked as he looked through the storage compartment.
“There is minor navigational equipment and a communication array but nothing that will save us any faster than just floating along. It’s not like we can jump closer to Denbarton or anything. One of the bad things about being so far out,” Graunt said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Janelle since the hatch sealed on the pod. Something wasn’t right about her, she looked off. Her skin was pale and almost grey and her face drooped a bit. He had asked if she was feeling okay and she had snarled and grunted at him in response. She stood near the door and looked around as she turned her head he noticed the dried blood on the side of her neck and thought he may have discovered why she didn’t look so healthy. “You look hurt Janelle, you should sit down,” he said. She grunted toward him and stayed standing near the hatch.
“I should check the long range communications,” Talis said. The life pod was oblong and had plenty of room for the five of them to move around freely. The food and water were stored in compartments in the walls and floors. There was a small bathroom and two long padded benches along the walls of the cabin set directly beneath narrow plexisteel windows. Up front there was a larger window and the control console with one small seat in front of it.
“Hey, I think I see one of the shuttles!” Rihn said as he leaned closer to the window. Corgan gave a small whoop of joy and looked out the window next to him. Graunt joined Talis up front to get a better look.
“Yep that is one of our shuttles. Maybe we can figure out a way that they can tow us along. Are the comms working?” Graunt asked.
“They are online sir. I’ll start hailing them in just a minute,” Talis answered. The sharp scream cut off the last half of his sentence and was quickly followed by a gurgling sound. He swore as Graunt pulled his sidearm and turned to see what was going on.
He saw Corgan writhing on the floor of the pod trying to hold his throat closed while Janelle held Rihn a foot off the ground by his throat. “Drop him!” he yelled as she just stared at the station commander, studying him. She turned toward Graunt and nodded as she slowly lowered Rihn to the floor, then with inhuman speed her free hand shot up, grabbed Rihn by the face and snapped his head from side to side. There were two sickening cracks and Commander Rihn’s limp body dropped to the floor with a dull thud.
Janelle stared at the lifeless body before she turned her attention back to the horrified security chief. “Not worthy,” she croaked before she lunged toward him. His hands were shaking but she was so close he couldn’t help but hit her. In a flash her fingers were clawing at his forearms as he pulled the trigger over and over, hitting her square in the chest and face numerous times. She stumbled back and he continued to fire, instinctively stepping forward. She finally fell onto the padded floor and he stood over her, emptying his weapon into her head, pulling the trigger several times after the weapon stopped firing. “SEVEN BLOODY HELLS!” he screamed as he stumbled back and dropped onto the bench. His hands were trembling and he could feel his heartbeat pounding in his chest.
He kept his empty pistol pointed at Jannelle’s body as best he could. It jumped a bit due to his shaking hands and ragged breathing. “Check Corgan,” he ordered Talis who was already on his way over to his friend.
Talis stood over his friend with his hand over his mouth. Corgan’s eyes were vacant and the blood had stopped spurting out of the giant gash in his neck. After a moment he stooped down and checked numerous times for a pulse but found nothing. “He’s gone,” he said as he sat heavily on the bench next to the security chief who was reloading his weapon. “What the Hells happened?”
“I think she was one of them,” Graunt answered, his pistol dangling. He was very tired now. The adrenaline had ebbed and his breathing had started to return to normal.
“You mean one of those brute things? She didn’t look anything like them though.”
“I don’t know how, all I know is she was acting weird from the moment she came into the control center and just after she killed Rihn she said he ‘Wasn’t worthy’.”
“Now what do we do, are we just gonna be trapped in here with the bodies until someone hopefully rescues us?”
“Damn I really hope not. Get on the comms and start talking to those shuttles, make sure you warn them that there may be some of them on board with them as well.”
“You really think so?” Talis asked as he slid into the seat at the console. “At this point I have no idea, no idea at all.”
Five levels below the hangar deck, Marcus and the others exited the stairwell after checking to make sure they were empty. “How are we going to get up to the hangar deck now?” Stella asked as they stood in the wide hallway.
“We should not be out in the open like this,” Olivia said.
“So what now, we just hide here and hope they don’t find us?” Burten asked. He was pale and sweaty. He didn’t handle fear well and right now he was terrified.
“No, we need to get up to the hangar to evacuate,” Stella said.
“How do you propose we do that? You heard the explosions too, there might not be anyone up at the hangar anymore for all we know,” Burten argued.
“Well if there isn’t then we’ll make our way to the life pods then,” Stella said, her voice rising a bit as she became more agitated.
Olivia leaned against a desk while Marcus hopped up and sat next to her as they both watched the two argue. Grady stood by the door with his arms crossed and his right hand stroking his beard. He appeared to not be paying any attention to the heated conversation at all.
“If you’d just be quiet we could hide right here until help shows up,” Burten continued.
“I am not going to just sit here to be captured, killed or even worse because you’re afraid to go outside!” Stella yelled.
“Well until something better comes along I think it’s a great idea,” Burten said with a huff.
“I’ve got it,” Grady said.
“What?” Burten asked.
“I said I’ve got it,” Grady repeated.
“What is it?” Olivia asked.
Grady tapped on the keypad next to the door and it slid open. He peeked outside and stepped out into the hallway, “Come with me darlin’ and I’ll show you. Oh yeah and the rest of you too,” he said with a grin.
They followed along behind Grady as he led them down the hallway. Marcus kept checking over his shoulder to make sure they were still alone. At the far end of the hall Grady stopped and tapped on another keypad and darted inside. The rest followed and Marcus smiled as his friends idea started to make sense.
“Okay, now what?” Burten asked. The room was smaller than the office they had just been in and it seemed to be empty except for some sparsely covered shelves in the corner.
“This is a maintenance closet,” Marcus said as he clapped Grady on the shoulder. “Good call.”
“I thought so,” Grady agreed.
“Why was this a ‘good call’?” Stella asked.
“Because of this,” Grady said. He tapped the small green arrow pointing down at seemingly nothing, pressed his hand firmly against it and smiled when he heard a click. The panel was not a panel but a hinged door and when it swung open they could all clearly see the maintenance tunnel running behind it.
“I have to say that was a pretty brilliant idea Grady,” Olivia said.
“I’m pretty disappointed that neither one of you thought of it first,” he said.
“Yeah we really should have,” Marcus agreed.
“Okay everyone, in you go. Let’s get inside before someone stumbles in here by accident.”
There was enough room in the tunnel so that their shoulders didn’t rub against the side but it wasn’t much wider. They would have to travel single file until they got to a junction point, which Marcus said would open up a bit. The floor was lined with small beads of LED light so they weren’t completely blind. “Can we get to the hangar deck this way?” Stella asked as they walked along.
“With these tunnels we can get anywhere in the station,” Grady answered.
Jax and Morris quickly made their way across the lobby and down the flights of stairs that led back to the hangar level. “Not to sound like a pessimist, but do you think the hangar is still clear?” Morris asked as they stood on the landing outside the heavy steel door.
“Probably not, but I really don’t want to have to go find a life pod,” Jax answered as he eased the door open and peeked around the edge to get a look at the lobby outside the hangar. “It looks clear.”
Pushing the door open, he stepped into the lobby. It was empty now except for the body next to the door he had just come through. He waved Morris forward over his shoulder and darted across the lobby to the first of two hangar doors. Morris pulled up next to the older pilot. Jax gave him a silent nod and Morris moved across to the other side of the wide outer door. Jax punched his code into the keypad and the door slid open. Both men had their rifles raised as they quickly checked the room and slid inside, the door quietly sliding shut behind them. “Well that was easy,” Jax said.
“So we just go into the hangar blindly?” Morris asked.
“Well unless you learned how to see through metal I’m not sure what our other options are,” Jax answered.
“I do, hold on,” Morris snapped his fingers and trotted toward a door at the other end of the room. “Comptroller’s office,” he said as he pulled the door open. His heart sank as he saw the first body still sitting at their desk. Her head had been shoved through the monitor of her computer terminal. A quick scan of the destroyed room told him there were three bodies inside. The brute or brutes that found them had done a number on everyone and everything in there. He closed the door with a sigh and leaned against it for a moment before returning to Jax at the other end.
“Well they were definitely in there, which is bad because we have no way to see into the hangar now.”
“Guess we should just get to it then,” Jax said as he punched in his code. He stopped before pressing the last number. “You go low and I’ll go high,” he said. He took a deep breath and finished the entry code.
The two men darted inside, weapons at the ready as the door slid open. Scanning left to right, they soon saw that they were alone in the massive bay. Jax jogged straight ahead, his rifle still held up at eye level, toward his fighter which was closest to the door they had just come through. Morris took off to the far side of the hangar with his rifle slung behind him. His fighter was parked closer to the equipment/locker room that had direct hangar access. “Let’s do the quickest preflight checks ever and get the seven hells out of here,” he heard Jax say as he got to his ship.
Even knowing that they could be discovered at any moment, the two men worked through their preflight checks with surgical precision. They had both been pilots for years and the procedure had been drilled into their heads long ago. They had learned early on that space was a very unforgiving mistress and missing any one of the things on the preflight check list could lead to a very sudden demise. Fuel hoses and charging lines had to be disconnected, seals and plexi steel had to be given a once over to make sure they were air tight. The whole ritual took only a couple of minutes and Morris was rushing through it as fast as he could when he heard the first thud coming from across the hangar.
The two locked eyes for a moment before instinctively returning to their respective ships. The pounding on the inner door continued and Morris’ heart began to race as he pushed himself. He ran to the far side of his ship to remove the fuel line when he heard a terrible screeching noise. The ship blocked his view of the hangar door so he ducked into a crouch next to the rear landing strut to see what was happening. His eyes went wide as he saw that the brutes had forced the inner door open, seemingly with their bare hands.
As he looked on stunned, three brutes charged into the hangar straight toward Jax. Morris heard his friend yell and open fire with a short burst. The first brute took the rounds at close range and continued to plow ahead, swatting the rifle out of Jaxs’ hands. Jax answered with amazing speed for a man of his age and pulled his pistol and unladed it straight up into the soft underside of the chin of the first brute as he lunged toward the old pilot.
Morris found himself inching backwards from his ship until his back was up against the far wall of the hangar bay. He pulled his rifle around and raised it just as the first brute caught a face full of rounds from his friend. The huge creature fell into Jax as it died and pinned him against the hull of his ship. In a moment the second brute was grabbing at Jax. Morris couldn’t chanc
e a shot because the brute had leaned in and was roaring into Jax’s face as he tried to pull him free by his shoulders.
Morris caught the opening to the locker room alcove in his peripheral and slid over into it for a better angle and more cover. He slid himself back until he was against the door as fast as he could and raised his weapon to help his friend. He choked back a scream as he looked up to see he was already too late. The brute had pulled Jax free and was repeatedly bashing the pilots face against the side of his ship as he held him in the air by the back of the head. Morris began to panic and looked around, he reached up and slapped the control pad on the door. It silently slid open and he dove inside staying as low as he could.
He heard the door close and jumped to his feet. He sprinted through the locker room and into the shower/bathroom area. He didn’t remember another door out of this area but he hoped he had just missed it. He ran to the back wall past the end of the stalls and looked around, searching for anything. All he saw was white walls with writing and symbols on them, the open tiled floor of the shower area and the bathroom stalls. For a moment he thought about running back into the locker room itself and decided against it after two steps. He didn’t know if they were coming or how long he had before they came in if they weren’t already.
Looking at the door of the far stall he decided to hide inside with his feet off the ground and rifle ready. He was sure it wouldn’t save him if they found him but at least he’d go out fighting. He put his hand on the swinging door of the stall and a downward facing green arrow on the wall beside it caught his eye. He looked directly across from the symbol to the far side of the room and saw no correlating arrow. Sliding into the space between the wall of the stall and the back of the room he stood directly beneath the arrow and looked up at it. Following the arrow downward with his eyes he found no fire extinguisher or anything else for that matter. Puzzled he shrugged and touched the wall, it felt the same as any of the other walls. He knocked lightly at it and jumped back a bit when it sounded hollow. He put his ear against it and knocked again, it was definitely hollow. He paused when he thought he may have heard something behind him and froze. After listening for a full five count he turned his attention again to the wall. He pushed at it with both hands and there was a soft click and the wall popped open slightly. Morris almost cried out in joy as he pulled the door open and stepped inside closing it tightly behind him. He made his way down the dimly lit, narrow corridor until he was well away from the door. He let out a deep breath and slid down the wall to weep in silence for the loss of his old friend.