The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three

by Mike Marlinski

Chapter Twenty Seven

  Unbeknownst to Marco, Simone had decided long before their journey to Moscow that their mission to the Shadow Colony would definitely be a one way trip. After making love to him, she waited for him to fall asleep, then left a black ear bud on the night stand for him to find. It was a two way radio. Simone was already wearing an identical one in her left ear. After giving him a soft kiss on the forehead, she headed into the bathroom and climbed up on the toilet seat. Above the toilet, was a gray, square shaped metal grate. It served as an entrance to the ventilation shaft, and upon removing the grate, she found that it seemed to lead in the direction of the mysterious spaceship.

  Ever since she saw its gleaming hull embedded in the Martian rock hours earlier, she knew that it held all the answers she was looking for. She also knew that although it was rumored to be quarantined because of unknown contaminates, the ventilation shaft seemed to amplify the sounds of people coming and going from the ship. The echo of the sounds of footsteps, electronic beeps and hums, and the slamming of metal against metal, as if a forklift were being operated, kept her awake long after Marco had drifted to sleep.

  “There must be a great power source in there,” she whispered to herself, as she stared intently into the hollow metal vent shaft. “Something incredible to keep them alive this long…Something so strong, could become quite a weapon.”

  Despite her reservations, Simone had already decided that the humans still alive in captivity on the site, were beyond saving. Eliminating them from the equation, left her with Severov and the Martians, whom she had no qualms with killing. Her only regret in her plan to blow up the entire complex, was Marco. But Marco knew the risks, just as well as she did. Knowing that was enough for her to justify proceeding with her plan without another thought.

  She crawled through twenty feet of narrow rusting steel that left a bitter metallic taste in her mouth, each time she inhaled. When she reached the end of the shaft, she found another metal grate, which gave her a direct view of the circular pad, on the side of the alien ship. Once she spotted it, she was startled, as it turned to liquid before her eyes. Ripples passed through it, as if it were a flowing stream. A moment later, Phaetos exited the ship through the pad, causing it to instantly revert back to its solid form.

  Simone waited several seconds for Phaetos to pass out of sight. Once she was certain no one else was nearby, she carefully removed the grate, set it beside her, then lowered herself to the ground. She knew that there was no time to be wasted. Two thousand more colonists were on their way to the complex to be “processed” by Phaetos and the others. She had no time to consider the risks of blindly entering the alien ship, without knowing who or what was waiting for her on the other side. The sound of approaching footsteps from the opposite end of the rocky tunnel, then forced her to dart through the ship’s entrance pad.

  Fortunately, she found herself alone in another dark corridor, surrounded by oddly shaped control pads and dimly lit green crystals, overhead. An open hatchway leading to the large spherical chamber in front of her, revealed a large holographic projection of she and Marco having sex, a few hours earlier. It seemed to be on a recorded loop. Disgusted, she chose a direction to take down the corridor, determined to locate some kind of reactor, or anything that could generate a catastrophic explosion.

  She had made a promise to Callum, who was killed to protect the secrets of the Shadow Colony, to stop Severov and save the colonists. The only way she knew how to keep that promise was to destroy everything the Martians had built, in order to save those who hadn’t arrived yet. This also involved taking her own life, but in her present state of mind that was the least of her concerns.

  A few moments later, she came to a tall divider that split the corridor in two. She could continue following the narrower of the corridors, if she stayed to the right. A much wider corridor extended out to her left. She was about to continue to the right, when she heard soft whimpering coming from the wider corridor. At first, she thought it was some kind of trick. But Simone had a feeling that if the aliens knew she were on board their ship, she would already be in their custody.

  As she quietly entered the wider corridor, she found a row of locked double doors with tiny glass windows on each side. The doors were labeled with markings that didn’t resemble any of the letter or number characters Simone was familiar with. “That’s not ancient human…” she thought.

  She followed the whimpering sound to a set of doors on her right. She peaked through the glass window to see a small, naked Asian woman. She was strapped to a black table; her legs forced apart by steel clamps. The woman was barely conscious and had a strange red growth on her forehead. Small green, red and brown warts covered her breasts and thighs. Simone looked for a way to enter the room, but saw that the security system required a retina scan from one of the Martians. When Simone’s gaze returned to the window, she noticed that the Asian woman had spotted her and was trying to tell her something. Simone had to focus on the woman’s lips to understand what she was saying. She was saying, “Kill me,” over and over again.

  Simone’s eyes widened and tears streamed down her face, as she forced herself to look away and continue her search for the ship’s power source. As she passed by other locked doors and windows, she found herself looking in on dozens of women, all appearing to be in their mid-twenties; most of whom, had deformities similar to that of the Asian woman at the beginning of the hall and were also restrained in the same manner.

  As she reached the end of the cell block, the deafening sounds of women screaming, drew her to a large glass window on the wall in front of her. She had just passed by the last cell and entered the next corridor. Instead of turning left or right, she looked both ways, to make sure she was still alone and headed straight for the wall ahead.

  Simone crouched down below the bottom of the window, to remain out of sight. She then slowly raised her head, to see what was happening on the other side. It was then that she had her first glimpse at the true face of the Incomplete. There were seven women strapped to rolling tables with their legs forced open, placed in a row, in front of a tall gray creature that more closely resembled a member of the Incomplete of old. Not every survivor of their several billion year hibernation, responded to the introduction of human genetic materials, as quickly as others had.

  Simone saw this first hand when she came to that window, and saw that the woman were giving birth to infants, which hardly resembled normal human babies. Their slimy gray skin, chilling black eyes and dozens of tiny black nostrils that separated their desolate eye slits, gave Simone the sudden urge to vomit.

  The seven women had given birth in unison and were not hooked up to any medical equipment whatsoever. Three other similar looking creatures joined the first alien medical officer present. The aliens wore long, dark blue aprons made of rubber, which became covered in the slimy discharge of the infants and the blood of their mothers. The creatures collected their newborn offspring and left the room, leaving another, more human looking member of the Incomplete, with the task of rolling the seven unconscious women to a steal door panel, at the far end of the compartment. The creature used a small remote in its slimy hand, to open the panel, revealing a wall of flames inside. It was a giant incinerator. The alien then tossed the seven women into the incinerator and closed it, without another thought.

  After everything she had just witnessed, Simone was having a difficult time controlling her breathing. She was hyperventilating and could hear her panicky breaths echoing off the walls around her.

  “What the fuck are they?” she whispered, as she crawled along the corridor to the end of the window, then got back to her feet and walked quickly to the end of the hall, where she finally found what she had been looking for.

  She had come to a massive, dome shaped hangar. A giant web of thin wiring and thick electrical conduits hung over her head, which was attached to a series of large metal rings that formed a sphere, when connected. Through the thin spaces i
n between the rings, Simone could see a brilliant green ball of energy, which she assumed was the facility’s main power source. Positioned more closely to the sphere, was a circle of smaller spaceships, resembling poorly maintained, rusted versions of the Apollo space capsules. Other smaller pod like vessels, were also part of the circle of twisted metal and wire connections. It seemed that the aliens had also resorted to using whatever smaller ships they had on board their mother-ship, to aid in the powering of the entire Shadow Colony facility.

  Killing the power to the entire colony would terminate the life support systems and end the suffering of the human captives. But Simone knew she couldn’t risk any alien survivors, and was still determined to find a way to convert the energy source she had uncovered into an explosive weapon. After glancing over her surroundings a few more times, she determined that the answer was most likely in the weapons systems of the smaller ships, surrounding the energy sphere.

  Meanwhile, Marco was seated on the bed and was still being held at gun point by Severov’s alien foot soldiers. Phaetos had recently entered the room and was preparing an injection for him, while Severov was tearing through their clothes, searching for a clue as to Simone’s whereabouts. “Of all the places to not have any cameras,” Winston muttered to Phaetos.

  “Electronics don’t work so well, so close to ship,” Phaetos rasped, while ignoring the true reason for the lack of surveillance cameras around its ship. “Well then, we should’ve held them somewhere else!” Winston yelled.

  Phaetos brought a very long needle over to Marco and jabbed him in the neck with it. Phaetos then pressed down firmly on the plunger, emptying the entire vial of liquid attached to it. While they waited for the drug to have its desired effect, Winston finally spotted the black ear bud that Simone had left behind on the floor beneath the nightstand. “He’s been talking to her with this!” Winston exclaimed, as he presented it to Phaetos. “And he will continue to do so,” said Phaetos. “When drug takes effect, he will do and say what we want him to.”