by Jamie Sawyer
“We are inbound,” it intoned, over the general comms-net, updating Command.
Pariah—more commonly known to Jenkins’ Jackals as good ol’ P—took a more direct route down to the surface than the rest of the squad. P was the product of an aborted covert operations programme, run out of North Star Station by Science Division. Courtesy of the Black Spiral, P was also one of a kind: the Spiral terrorist organisation had been responsible for taking down North Star, and terminating Pariah’s creator.
Right now, P had an express ticket, straight down the pipe. It had been launched within seconds of our dropship, and penetrated the upper atmosphere at about the same time, but whereas the Alliance Army and Aerospace Force had attracted a lot of enemy attention, P—being a fish and all—had not. P’s pod slid right through the Krell’s defensive line. The xeno had selected a landing sight away from the main combat zone. That had slowed its arrival, although not by much.
P had never been to Nest Base Gamma before, or even Vektah Minor, but that was fine. The Krell’s memory didn’t work like that of a human. As the alien’s clawed feet made contact with the corrupted hull of the nest base, it just knew what to do, where to go. Deep-knowing filled the creature’s mind. Six limbs spread, embracing the diseased carcass of the base. It found an aperture that had the uncomfortable architecture of a sphincter and breached the facility.
We are in, it said.
The words sort of penetrated my head, like unwelcome visitors. We were still too far apart to use conventional communications, and P was several klicks distant of my position, so this… connection, or whatever the fuck it was, was the best that we could do.
The alien’s senses were both familiar and foreign to me. It smelt the air, tasting the rot. That atmosphere would be perilous to a native-strain Krell, but not to P. Possibly as a result of its detachment from the Krell Collective, P was immune to Harbinger.
The xeno used all sets of its claws to grab for handholds, quickly scuttling down the corridor. It followed a direction-sense that I couldn’t even begin to understand. It knew, without any equipment at all, where we were located. P could even sense the electrical output of the other assault teams, although their positions were equally distant to ours.
Watch yourself in there, I said, sensing the dark around the alien coming to life. We’re encountering heavy resistance.
We know, P answered me.
Pariah reached the first Krell. It had once been a tertiary-form, and although not as big as Pariah, its muscle mass was still significant, and I doubted whether mano a mano even a simulant in full Pathfinder armour would be capable of bringing the thing down. It bristled with spiked appendages and chitinous hide.
P stood its ground.
Don’t take risks! I yelled.
We do not take risks.
The tertiary-form paused…
Then shrank back into shadow. The rest of the Collective did just the same; heads bowed, limbs clutched against dying bodies. Like a pack of dogs, cowed by the alpha.
What the hell just happened?
They are afraid, P said. They know what we are here to do.
CHAPTER THREE
STRANGE FISH
And then the mind-link cut.
I was getting better at understanding the connection, that was for sure. When P had started doing this strange psychic bullshit, I’d found it overwhelming, which is not exactly a good place to be when you’re in the middle of a warzone. Now, it was more manageable. My bio-rhythms barely spiked as the link broke.
“Hold up!” I ordered. For the first time since we’d breached the nest, I could actually catch my breath.
A shadow separated from the rest.
Krell-shaped, but bigger. Different. More alien…
Pariah stomped down the corridor. Its enormous body almost filled the tunnel.
“Pariah-form reporting for duty,” came a monotone voice over the comms-net.
P deployed both barb-guns from its forearms. The weapons were biological extensions; bulky, pistol-like armaments that the alien could conceal within its own body when necessary. It raised the weapons, threat crackling around it like an aura.
“What’s happening?” Lopez asked, the shock apparent in her voice.
“I… I’m not sure,” I answered.
Feng lifted his rifle to fire on the retreating thralls, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“Cease fire, Feng.”
The Harbinger abandoned their assault. They slithered back into the walls, away from the path of our fire. We’d already taken down a lot of them—steaming piles of corpses were stacked up at each junction we’d passed—but that wasn’t what had disrupted the attack.
That accolade went to P. It was solely down to Pariah, and nothing else.
“These strigoi do not like you so much, fish head,” Novak said.
Strigoi: that was Novak’s word for the Harbinger-infected Krell.
“The infected Kindred do not appreciate our presence,” P said by way of explanation.
The alien had a crude augmentation grafted to its sternum; a battered metal voice-box that acted as an external speaker. In contrast to its physical appearance, P spoke in a flat robotic tone. The words were broadcast straight to our suits, over the general squad channel.
“Good to see you, P,” I said. I kicked at the corpse of a primary-form. “Things were getting a little hairy there.”
“We were delayed,” P said. “There is conflict across this sector.”
“We’re aware.”
The bank of bio-antennae that sprouted from P’s backplate bristled, twisted with a life of their own.
Lopez lowered her weapon. “You okay there, P?”
“This station is frightened of us,” said Pariah.
The alien had grown in stature and musculature since we had first liberated it from North Star Station. A short but dangerous period of confinement in an Asiatic Directorate prison had awakened something inside the alien; something powerful and dark and terrifying. The Collective had every right to be afraid. Although P had physically grown, that was just the half of it. Its mental expansion was where its real threat lay, and that was made all the more impressive because no one in Sci-Div even pretended to know what it was really capable of.
“I’m just damned glad that you’re a Jackal…” Lopez said.
“We are,” said P, dipping its head. It pointed to a marking on its bio-suit helmet, where flesh and carapace became one. A crude Jackal-head symbol had been chemically burnt into the plate. “Novak-other assisted.”
“Nice work,” Feng said. “Now you really are one of us.”
The Jackals advanced on P. It felt like we were falling within its protective aura.
“Will you look at that,” Lopez said. She indicated the wall.
Novak grunted. “Is fascinating, Senator.”
Lopez put a hand on her hip. “That’s not even technically accurate any more, Russian. Daddy is Secretary of Defence, not a Senator…”
But what Lopez had seen was interesting. Where Pariah walked, the station infection receded. The nest was threaded with a silver tracery; a by-product of the plague that had claimed the Collective. In Pariah’s shadow, the poison seemed to retreat. The alien held out a claw and watched as the stuff in the walls shifted, flowed.
“I didn’t know that you could do that,” I said.
“Neither did we,” said P. “Our powers… mature. The objective is this way.”
Deeper and deeper into the tunnels we went. There was no light here, and there was little activity around us. The sounds of conflict—of the wider strike-force’s progress—were distant and muffled.
“Comms are down,” Feng said. “We’re out of range.”
“Quit worrying about Zero, lover boy,” Lopez said.
P was somehow able to understand the layout of the base. The drones hadn’t penetrated this far, as though their limited machine intelligence was aware it was a bad idea. The Jackals, however, weren’t so smart.<
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“We are approaching the main nesting chambers,” said P. It took point, bounding from surface to surface, using the tunnel’s ribbed walls as handholds. For something so big, it sure could move fast.
“Hold up,” said Feng. “I… I think I see something.”
The tunnel opened into a chamber, and the sound of active machinery carried on the air. Not human machinery, but Krell tech. That sound was far more organic; an angry, heartbeat-like pulse that made the atmosphere vibrate. My ears felt like they were on the verge of popping, as though the pressure was about to drop.
The Jackals slowed a little, filing into the chamber. Trepidation crept across my skin, and the squad gasped across the comms. I heard Lopez swallowing, and could taste bile at the back of my own throat.
Capsules grew from columns of gristle that linked the floor and the ceiling. Like grapes on a vine, except that these grapes were huge, throbbing, and filled with bodies. Some pods were illuminated, while others had turned an inky dark. Inside, bodies were suspended in amber fluid, straining at the semi-translucent membranes that held them in place. I involuntarily shivered as I recognised not just Krell in those pods, but other humanoid shapes.
“This is a communion chamber,” intoned P.
“Just when I thought that this place couldn’t get any grosser…” Lopez whispered.
“Every day is a school day,” Feng added.
Pariah rolled its head back and forth, with obvious caution, evaluating. There were bio-signs everywhere on my scanner now, but I noticed that most were immobile.
“The things in these pods,” I said, my fingers tightening around the stock of my rifle, “are alive.”
“Correct,” P said. “This chamber allows interface with the Deep.”
“The more I hear about this ‘Deep’,” Feng said, “the less I like it.”
“There is nothing to dislike or like,” P argued. “The Deep is.”
According to P, the Deep was a communication technology that allowed the Collective to transmit thoughts, emotions and directions. It represented the Krell’s intelligence pool, the singular consciousness of an entire species—a concept beyond true human understanding.
One of P’s barb-guns retracted into its wrist with an uncomfortable snap of bone. The xeno caressed the outer canopy of the nearest pod. The action was almost tender.
“The bio-capsules allow the others to…” P paused, considering the right word to use, “swim in the Deep.”
“Drown, more like it,” Feng commented.
Novak drew a mono-knife from a sheath across his chest. The blade instantly activated, glowing bright blue.
“Stay back, Novak!” I hissed. “We don’t understand what we’re dealing with here!”
Although he obviously didn’t, he answered, “I know what am doing.”
“Stand down, trooper.”
I grabbed Novak’s arm, but it was no use. He was bigger than me, in or out of a simulant, and his eyes had taken on a sort of manic gloss. He slit one of the fleshy pods. There was a wet shucking sound as the knife went in, and then the hiss of pressurised atmosphere escaping.
“Is for intelligence,” Novak said, as though that was some kind of answer.
“What do you mean ‘intelligence’?” Lopez said. “You’ll summon more Krell here!”
Novak ignored Lopez’s protest, and worked his knife down the pod, expertly slitting the organic membrane. A sickly amber fluid—vile afterbirth, tinged with chunks of flesh—gushed out. The pod’s occupant slid free.
“Jesus Christo, Novak!” Lopez squealed.
Novak wasn’t so squeamish, and he didn’t show the slightest sign of revulsion. He caught the atrophied body with one hand. The thing was, or rather had been, human. Almost skeletal now, the figure was shrunken, having lost muscle mass. P cocked its head with something like curiosity. The alien didn’t seem bothered by the fact that Novak was desecrating the communion chamber.
“This other was traitor,” it said, referring to the man from the pod.
“He—it—is Black Spiral,” I said.
Novak nodded, almost absently, as he inspected the body. The figure wore a survival suit; a Black Spiral badge sprayed across the torso panelling.
“Disciples,” Feng muttered grimly. “That’s what they call themselves.”
Organic machinery had partially integrated with the agent’s body, and living tendrils anchored his limbs and chest to the capsule. Novak held the body by the scruff of its suit, and inspected it.
“What are you looking for, Novak?” Lopez said, her voice jittery. “We don’t have time for this.”
I knew exactly what Novak was looking for: gang tattoos, clan markings, anything that might indicate that the convert was a Russian ganger. Most specifically, Novak was looking for Major Mish Vasnev, or one of her followers.
But this Disciple was not what Novak was seeking. The man’s skin was saggy, melted by the corrosive fluid that filled the machine, but carried no ganger markings.
“Never mind,” Novak muttered. “Is not important. I just—”
The body came alive. It lurched forward, skeletal fingers grazing Novak’s chest, doing nothing more than smear dark fluid across his armour plates. Mottled flesh sloughed off bone. Lopez let out a pitched scream, then managed to stifle it, embarrassed by her own reaction.
“Please, k-kill me!” the figure croaked. The sound of his voice was horrifying; the gush of air through a twisted larynx. His eyes—sightless, near pits—rolled back in his skull.
That sealed it for Novak. The accent wasn’t identifiable, at least not to me, but he wasn’t Russian.
“My pleasure,” said Novak.
There was a wet crack as the man’s neck broke. Novak dropped the corpse—left it hanging in the organic webbing—and moved on to the next capsule.
“Goddamn it, Novak!” Lopez said. “We’re not here for this!”
“We are killing Spiral,” Novak justified.
Novak set to it, slitting open the other pods, inspecting each of the occupants. Pariah watched the bizarre scene.
“The Spiral-others have been here for many years,” P deduced. “They came here to spread the rot.”
“How do you know any of this?” Feng asked, from his post near the chamber entrance. “You’ve been saying a lot of shit lately, P, which you don’t have any right to know. Is this more of your Deep-knowing?”
“Not this time,” P said. “We base this conclusion on available evidence.”
P scraped a foot on the floor. That was spongy and flesh-lined, but something metallic was embedded into the deck beneath the nearest pod. A canister lay there, covered in gunk and webbing.
“The Spiral-others brought the rot here,” P said. “They released the Harbinger virus, but they were captured. They were integrated into the Deep, but by then it was too late. Harbinger had reached the knowing-pool. It spread, infecting the planet. Eventually, the rest of the Red Claw Collective was also infected.”
I crouched down, inspecting the canister. I wasn’t quite sure why I was doing it, but I pulled it free. It was as long as my forearm, and heavy. The cap was missing.
“Shit. So it’s that easy, huh?”
P nodded. “The Collective likely did not understand that they were infected until it was too late. By the time they had captured and integrated these specimens, the Deep was already contaminated.”
“So someone pissed in their pool,” I muttered. “Thus the hive falls. I wonder what Zero would make of this.”
I ran my shoulder-lamps across the length of the canister. Something bothered me about it. Markings had been stencilled on the side, but those were now faded, the text illegible. Where had the Spiral got this tech from? The canister had been inside the nest for as long as the infected prisoners, and the metal was corroded. I popped a medical-probe from my wrist-comp and ran it over the canister’s end. The readings were rough and ready, and subject to the usual caveats that came with any field analysis, but they were
enough for my purposes. The canister was swarming with Harbinger cells, with “viral plaque assays”. Yeah, I didn’t know what that meant, either, but Zero used the phrase and it now flashed on my HUD. The viral load was very high.
Although the Spiral’s plan to infect the Krell had been so simple that it was almost insulting, it had plainly worked. Scenes like this—infected prisoners, integrated with the Deep—had been reported throughout infection sites. None of those raids, however, had found actual hardware.
“Is finished,” said Novak. “I am done.”
Novak’s voice pulled me out of my reverie. I stood and snapped the canister to my backpack. It was possible intelligence that we could investigate later, if there was a later.
“You’re fucking gross, Novak,” Lopez complained.
Novak sort of shrugged his shoulders, and the expression behind his face-plate was a mixture of anger and disappointment. His armour was stained with fluid now, and I saw that he had opened several pods. He had dragged bodies from inside each and murdered them with the same cold precision.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I asked.
“No,” said Novak.
Was Novak ever going to find what he was looking for? He wanted revenge. He wanted retribution. But those things depended on Novak discovering the whereabouts of his family’s killer. The idea that he might find Mish Vasnev, or some evidence of her location, in the bowels of the nest base was almost fanciful. Sure, there was some intel that suggested the Sons—and Vasnev in particular—were working with the Spiral, but it wasn’t verified. A Russian crime syndicate like that operated by Vasnev tended to be fluid as water: likely to run through your hands just as soon as you’ve grasped it.
“It is more than they deserve,” Novak muttered. “This is not—”
“This way,” P interrupted.
The xeno paused in front of a section of wall that looked different. With a swipe of its claw, the bulkhead collapsed—folded in on itself, receded into the wall.
“How’d you do that?” Lopez said.