by S. A. Lusher
“Let's go,” Greg replied, then blew the head off a nearby Drone and blasted a huge hole into the chest of a zombie.
They began shooting their way through the shifting crowd. Greg focused on putting down Dark Ops troops simply to try to keep them from gaining any sort of upper hand. Chaos was great. One of the bad guys winning was not. They kept pressing into the crush of combat. Greg emptied his shotgun, reloaded it, emptied it again. By the time they reached the terminal, he was running seriously low on shells.
“Cover me!” Campbell yelled.
“You sure you can do this?” Greg replied, struggling to be heard over the din of chaos.
“Yeah. They trained me on it. I think the idea was Williams or Starck would send me to do this while they escaped.”
He slung his rifle and set to work on the console.
Greg and Kyra turned and kept watch, shooting anyone or anything that got too close.
“You never told me what happened after I was captured,” Greg said.
“We tried to stop Graves, but he was too fast, too powerful. Knocked us all on our asses and took off. And of course there were all those damned Undead. A squad of Drones showed up and in all the chaos we managed to slip out. We tried to track Graves, but he was long gone by the time we managed to get somewhere safe. I'm sorry we couldn't get to you.”
“Me too, but don't worry about it.”
Greg blew the head off a Drone that was making for him. He looked around, worried now. Many Drones in the area seemed to be heading their way, he realized. Erebus must have figured out for certain what they were doing. Greg tucked his shotgun tight against his shoulder after reloading it again and took aim.
“Take out those Drones.”
They opened fire, making head-shots more often than not, watching pallid skulls vaporize into plumes of sparks, brains, and red or black blood. Greg emptied his shotgun again and fed the last of his shells into it.
“How long, Campbell?” he snapped.
“Done. We are fucking out of here,” Campbell called back.
His words were punctuated by him firing a few three-round bursts into the terminal he'd been working at. All around them, an alarm began to cycle long and loud. There was a brief pause in the combat at this sudden intrusion.
“This ship will self-destruct in twenty minutes. Please evacuate immediately,” said a voice that was far too calm for the message it had just delivered.
“Go,” Greg shouted.
“Not so fast,” came a mechanized voice from somewhere nearby.
Greg felt his guts freeze. His eyes immediately locked onto the origin of that voice: Graves. Or what had once been Graves. He was making his way towards them through the crowd, shoving aside anything that got in his way.
“I told you this wasn't over, Bishop.”
“Run!” Greg screamed.
They broke and bolted through the chaos. Graves screamed Greg's last name again and, Greg saw as he glanced briefly over his shoulder, gave chase. He moved remarkably fast, shoving aside Drones, zombies, and black-armored troopers alike.
“Where's the fucking hangar?” Greg cried as they left the engine room and sprinted through the chaos of the main corridor.
The number of men in black armor had definitely gone up since they'd last been there. Yes, Dark Ops was gaining the upper hand. Though, from the way they were beating a hasty retreat, it looked as though it had all been for naught. Overhead, the alarm continued to cycle, the voice continued to benignly count down.
Greg risked another glance over his shoulder. His eyes bulged and he felt cold terror shoot through him at what he saw: Graves was catching up. A Berserker got in his way. He punched it so hard that its chest collapsed and it crashed to the floor.
Greg stopped, spun, and dug in his heels, readying himself to stand and fight. There was no way they were going to outrun Graves.
“What are you doing?” Kyra cried, skidding to a halt.
“We can't outrun him,” Greg replied.
Campbell stopped, too. They had managed to clear the lengthy main corridor, coming to a halt inside a large antechamber that led to other areas of the ship. Graves kept running for them, murderous intent scrawled across his rigid, cybernetic face.
Greg raised his shotgun, aimed to the best of his ability and squeezed the trigger as Graves came within range. His hands trembled, so he managed to miss the thing's face and chest, but the slug shell did manage to connect with the behemoth's right shoulder. Sparks and blood shot out of it and Graves actually stumbled.
“Shoot him!” Greg screamed.
Kyra and Campbell opened fire. Campbell flipped his rifle to full auto and Kyra joined Greg in pumping several slugs into Graves' immense body. He walked towards them, absorbing the gunfire, his right arm hanging uselessly by his side. He reached for Greg with his left hand. Greg and the others fell back.
They gunfire stopped.
Graves still advanced.
“Shit,” Greg snapped.
He backed up further, rethinking his plan of standing and fighting, when Graves abruptly rushed forward in a burst of speed and snatched Greg up by the neck.
“This time,” he snarled, “you are not getting away.”
“Damn straight,” Greg wheezed.
He dropped his shotgun, snatched his pistol out of its holster, stuck the business end in Graves' mouth and emptied the clip. The top of Graves's head turned into so much spraying chunks of brains, blood and bone fragments. The lights in his eyes flickered, and went dead. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the grip on Greg's neck loosened.
After what felt like far too long, he was released, and Graves toppled over backwards. Greg fell to the ground, coughing violently.
“Easier than I thought it would be,” he managed, climbing to his feet.
“We need to go,” Campbell said.
“You okay?” Kyra asked.
Greg nodded, coughing some more. “Yeah, come on.”
They turned and ran, leaving Graves' inert body behind. They hurried out of the antechamber, down another corridor, and came to an elevator lobby. Greg hit the access button to the stairwell, saw nothing and hurried inside.
The voice informed them they had nine minutes until the ship was destroyed.
“Can we make it there in nine minutes?” Kyra asked.
“If we really haul ass,” Campbell replied.
“That doesn't inspire confidence,” Greg said.
Campbell sounded irritable. “It's not meant to. So let's hurry.”
They ascended a few stories, and came to an identical lobby. The fighting had mostly died down, Greg saw as they continued sprinting through the titanic metal tomb the Anubis had become. Dark Ops and the Augmented were retreating. The Undead were indifferent to this development, opting to hound their fleeing enemies instead. Nine minutes became eight, then seven. By the time they actually hit a hangar, they had two minutes left.
“There,” Campbell screamed, pointing to a single jump ship still resting in its cradle.
A small squad of Dark Ops survivors raced for it as well.
“Kill them!” Greg roared.
He raised his pistol and fired as he ran for the ship. He took one of them in the knee. The man screamed and fell to the ground. He was down, so Greg immediately turned his attention to the next target. Beside him, Kyra and Campbell picked off targets. Greg squeezed the trigger and took another man through the neck.
The last trooper went down. Most of them had survived and were now lying on the ground, firing potshots as Greg and the others. It was enough for Greg. He hurried up the ramp and around to the back of the ship. Opening the ramp, he peered into the interior. Nothing within. He got inside, then turned to Campbell.
“Get this thing going.”
“Oh, now you're gonna trust me?”
“You're the only one that can fly this fucking thing!” Greg screamed.
Campbell seemed to agree with this assessment and hurried off to the cockpit. As soon as Kyra w
as onboard, Greg closed the back ramp and collapsed into one of the seats as Campbell sped through the warmup procedures.
“Here we go,” Campbell called back to them.
The ship rumbled as Kyra sat down next to Greg. He simply held onto her and waited. He didn't want to think anymore, didn't want to do anything. He was too tired. Out the window, he saw the ship cycling through the airlock. All around them, a tremendous rumble began to shake everything. The engines must be going, Greg realized.
He tensed, expecting death, but the ship managed to clear the airlock. It burst out into the dead of space. Slowly, Greg lurched to his feet. He walked to the back and stared out the window built into the cargo ramp.
Behind them, the Anubis came apart. Flames rippled along its length. Explosions flared in the darkness, tearing the hull apart and sputtering out as the oxygen that supported them was sucked into space. Kyra joined him by the window. They continued to speed away from the Anubis. So did several other vessels, jump ships, escape pods and troop transports, like rats from a sinking ship. The explosions continued tearing the ship apart, ultimately reaching a massive climax where the entire thing disappeared in a brief, though brilliant, ball of flame.
When the flames died away, all that was left was a huge field of debris, flying away in all directions.
“Holy shit,” Greg whispered. “I can't believe we pulled that off.”
“Yeah. We must be pretty good,” Kyra replied.
They both stood there for a long moment, watching the drifting metal fragments.
“Campbell,” Greg said after a few minutes. “Get in touch with Powell and Cage.”
“Way ahead of you, apparently...they're contacting us right now,” Campbell called back from the cockpit.
Greg and Kyra turned and made their way into the cockpit. Greg grabbed the radio and activated it.
“What's going on?” he asked.
“It's all gone to hell,” Powell replied.
“What do mean?” Greg felt fear stab at him.
“The Drones, they attacked the ship.” Here, Powell hesitated. “Cage stayed behind.”
“What?”
“He stayed behind to hold them off so that I could get the bomb onto a ship and escape. Listen, the situation has become untenable. Only four of the initial ships are still around, all the others went critical and blew up. None of the others have functional engines anymore. We need to get to the last place in this system that might still have a ship with an FTL drive. Those mining colonies on that moon. And we need to do it fast.”
“Powell, what about Cage? About Erebus and Dark Ops? What about-”
“Greg, you're not hearing me. This situation is no longer tenable. We're running out of time,” Powell replied, his voice monotone.
Kyra grabbed the radio. “What the fuck are you talking about, Powell?”
“Dark Ops panicked, just like they did before, with Dis. They've set the local star to go supernova. This entire system is going to be destroyed in forty eight hours.”
Dark Nexus Fiction is a self-publishing studio dedicated to bringing a wide variety of reasonably-priced content to the Amazon Kindle at a brisk pace.
S. A. Lusher has been writing consistently for nearly a decade now and is a great lover of horror fiction. He provides content, editing, formatting and uploading.
http://www.facebook.com/authorsalusher
http://twitter.com/s_a_lusher
[email protected]
M. Knepper has been writing for even longer and operates primary on the far side of 'experimental fiction'. He provides content, editing and cover art.
http://www.facebook.com/author.m.knepper
http://twitter.com/m_knepper
Regular updates for Dark Nexus Fiction can be found at:
http://the-proximal.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/dark.nexus.fiction
[email protected]
Soundtracks for some of our fiction, created by M. Knepper, can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/darknexusmedia
http://darkexe.bandcamp.com/
S. A. Lusher and M. Knepper also run a cover design service, Zenith Cover Design. Looking for professional-quality, reasonably-priced cover art? We offered pre-made covers for 25$ and take commissions for 30$-50$. Contact us at:
http://www.facebook.com/Zenith.Cover.Design
[email protected]
Table of Contents
written by–S. A. Lusher–
Dedicated to my mother, Sheila Moreland,
Chapter 01–Welcome Back–
Chapter 02–Dreary Days–
Chapter 03–Breakout–
Chapter 04–Ataxia–
Chapter 05–Reunion Tour–
Chapter 06–Pressure–
Chapter 07–Undead Rising–
Chapter 08–Detour–
Chapter 09–Lockout–
Chapter 10–Revelation–
Chapter 11–Exiting Humanity–
Chapter 12–Setting Up Shop–
Chapter 13–Bits & Pieces–
Chapter 14–Back Into Hell–
Chapter 15–Blood & Steel–
Chapter 16–Final Run–
Chapter 17–Beyond Sanity–