“Well, it seems that Eddie has gotten himself into a little trouble, Ted,” Florian said.
“Then call the police,” Vargas said. “I’ll give you the phone number to the hotline.”
“No, this is an under-the-table kind of trouble,” Florian said. “And it’s quite serious.”
Vargas wrinkled his brow.
“You see, I need a little help, Ted,” Florian said, grinning. “I’ve given you all this money and all these resources. It’s time for you to do a little something for me.”
27
The darkness around the ship dissipated into a subtle, gradual light.
Everyone on the bridge groaned as the ship began to move in a slow, lilting rhythm through the light.
The ship fell back into an upright position, and Florian crashed to the floor.
He rubbed his head.
“Jesus,” he said.
The entire ship had taken on a shade of gray.
He blinked hard.
He looked down at his hands. They were a pale gray, unlike the usual beige tone of his skin.
Tatiana helped him up. Her skin was pale and gray, and fire red glasses were bright green. Her red lipstick was green, too, making her look sick.
“What’s up with your glasses?” Florian asked.
“I was going to say the same thing about you,” she said.
He looked down at his suit. Instead of white, it was black. His black tie was now white.
“The hell?”
Hux stirred and said something unintelligible.
Florian rushed to his side.
“Hux,” he said. “Hux, buddy, wake up.”
Hux opened his eyes.
“Where…the…hell…are…we going?” he asked.
Tatiana set him up and propped him against the wall.
“I’ll be all right,” Hux said.
“Good,” Florian said.
Hux pointed at the window.
Florian turned around. The light outside the ship was gray. Despite there being light, there were no stars, no planets—nothing but a gray void.
The ship moved, then stopped. Moved, then stopped.
“Where are we?” Tatiana asked.
“We’re alive,” Florian said, “That’s all that matters.”
The ship rocked again and drifted downward. A tremendous sucking sound encapsulated the bridge, and the ship was pulled forward into a swirling portal of light that temporarily blinded them.
When the light faded, Florian held onto a railing as the ship crashed on solid ground.
And then silence swept over the area.
“Looks like we’re on solid ground,” the skipper said.
Outside, the rocky landscape of a planet appeared. A giant boulder rolled by under a cloudless gray sky.
“There must be oxygen,” Tatiana said. “I hear howling wind.”
Florian listened, and heard wind screeching against the ship’s hull.
“Let’s go investigate,” he said.
Hux stood, and Florian helped him walk.
They walked through the airlock and opened the bay doors.
A rush of oxygen blew through the airlock.
They stepped onto broken, rocky soil. The ground looked as if it had been tilled, and was covered in rocks.
There was no sun in the sky.
No moon.
No stars.
Just a blanket of harsh, unending white and gray.
Florian cupped his hands to his eyes and looked around.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked.
“Looks like a planet of some kind,” Hux said, bending down to grab a handful of soil. “An Earthlike planet.”
Tatiana studied the soil.
“You don’t think—” she said.
“Maybe,” Florian said. “Maybe it’s Kepler. Maybe it’s not.”
“You mean the planet we saw those aliens swallow?” Hux asked.
Florian nodded.
In the sky, a wisp appeared. It was gray, like ink, and it fell through the sky like a downpour of rain. It was a long, jagged line, and as it descended through the sky, it spread, and other jagged lines broke off from it and fell like rain.
Florian, Hux and Tatiana stepped back at the sight of the falling lifeforms.
“I don’t like the look of those,” Tatiana said.
The gray masses reached them, dropping onto the ground with silence.
The long, jagged lines of gray masses surrounded the trio, giving them no room to escape. Red eyes appeared, blinking.
Florian, Tatiana and Hux stood back to back.
“Fucking aliens,” Florian said.
Two of the eyes elongated and blew up like a bubble. The gray mass underneath it swirled like fog and morphed into a seven-foot tall phantasm that looked like a silhouette of a human, except it had glowing red eyes, and hands and feet that looked like claws of shadow.
“Who are you?” Florian asked.
The dark figure said nothing.
Instead, light appeared inside its shadowy chest. The light looked like a bright, glowing inkblot.
“It’s trying to communicate,” Florian said.
He remembered his long stint with the Crystalith. The inkblots in the figure’s chest looked familiar. He activated his tablet and tried to find the Crystalith app on it. He hadn’t deleted it, thank God.
He pointed the tablet toward the figure, and cryptic words appeared on the screen that almost made Florian drop the tablet.
Man with the dark heart
Dark heart
Unexpected
Florian’s hand trembled on the tablet. He had no idea what to say back, or how to say it. A piano keyboard flashed on his screen and he picked two shrill notes and played them.
The inkblots rearranged themselves on the figure’s chest.
You are not the man we expected
The man that controls us
Florian, Tatiana, and Hux looked at each other.
The inkblots rearranged themselves.
You are the man with the dark heart
Prophecy
Decay
Madness
Florian found a few inkblots on his app and he pieced together a message: “Who are you?”
The figure’s red eyes glowed brighter. All around it, the other gray masses formed into tall, gray shadows. All of their inkblots rearranged into a single, unifying message.
Purged
We are The Purged
We have returned.
The aliens broke their circle and began to walk through the rocky terrain, motioning Florian to follow.
“Should we follow?” Tatiana asked.
An alien behind them pushed them forward.
“We have no choice,” Florian said. He tapped a message on his tablet: “Where are we going?”
The aliens turned around and responded.
Man with the dark heart
Come
We will not kill you
Man with the dark heart
Come
If you want to know the darkness
Florian, Hux, and Tatiana looked at each other.
Then Florian charged forward.
“Flo, wait!” Tatiana asked.
Florian dug his hands in his pocket.
“Money, security, and power,” Florian said. “If that’s the darkness, then who needs light?”
He jogged behind the aliens deep into the barren, rocky landscape, and Hux and Tatiana followed.
Part IX
To the End of the Abyss
28
Florian, Tatiana and Hux observed the giant silver ball in the airlock of their ship.
Somehow, the Planet Eaters were inside.
They had crawled back into the ball without any fight.
Tatiana downloaded instructions on how to use them, but the instructions were cryptic and difficult to read.
Florian didn’t trust it.
“I don’t like this,” Florian said. “These aliens s
care me, and as much as I would love to control them, they’re better off in Zachary hands.”
“So what should we do?” Tatiana asked.
“We’ll setting a trap,” Florian said. “Auto-program the ship to fire at a police cruiser. They’ll shoot, and unleash the aliens. They’ll eat the moon.”
Florian paused, thinking.
“We’ve got to cover our tracks,” Florian said. “We left too many clues. The only way out is to destroy all the evidence. We’ll pray that we can find that damn access code. If we do, the moon goes away when the aliens eat it. If we don’t, the moon still goes away and we walk away clean. Maybe we can’t control the super soldier, but I can live with that. At least I tried.”
“All this for a super soldier, eh?” Hux asked.
“All these contingencies,” Tatiana said. “They’re getting to be a bit much to cover up a silly little meeting.”
He grabbed Hux and Tatiana by the shoulders.
“Stick with me and we’ll get through this.”
“Keep searching!” Florian cried.
Through his white mask, everything in the small, cozy house pod was a subtle shade of white.
The Puentes had a nice home.
Too bad he was wrecking it.
The police had Miloschenko’s body. But they never found a pendant.
Florian flipped over a couch.
He had found the house in shambles. The family must have fled in a hurry.
His staff was searching everything again. He house wasn’t any more of a mess than when they found it.
Hux and Tatiana threw down a hope chest filled with pearls, necklaces and rings.
Tatiana rifled through the furniture.
“Not here,” Tatiana said.
“Who knew we’d be going through all this trouble for a damned piece of jewelry?” Florian said.
“At least Ted created a distraction for the family,” Tatiana said. “It’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“It better be,” Florian said.
“No sign of it, boss,” Hux said.
They had been ransacking the house for an hour.
Still, no pendant.
“Damn it!” Florian cried. “This garbage man is really pissing me off.”
Florian snatched a picture off the wall.
It displayed a family.
Eddie Puente. A woman that looked like his wife, holding a young toddler. Two older people that must have been his parents. And, an elderly couple.
Florian looked at the photo more closely.
An elderly man in a wheelchair. In a cowboy hat.
He knew this man.
Where did he know this man?
“Oh, crap,” Florian said. “Crap!”
“What is it?” Tatiana asked.
“This kid is Benito Puente’s grandson. I know this family.”
“So?”
Florian remembered the battle in the space station. How he’d saved this family’s life.
And now, he was threatening to ruin it.
“What’s wrong?” Tatiana asked.
“Nothing,” Florian said, throwing the picture frame. “Nothing at all.”
“Boss, there’s a car coming!” Hux cried. He was standing at the window.
Florian cursed.
“Everyone, hide,” he said. “I’ll deal with little Eddie Puente myself.”
Florian retreated into the porch. A gun chest rested against the wall; the doors were open and a lone handcoil hung inside the chest.
He grabbed it and cocked it.
The family entered the house pod.
Their spirits were downtrodden as they looked all around the house and saw how much there was to clean up.
A woman with curly hair entered the porch, looking for something.
Florian sprang and grabbed her, holding the gun to her head.
“Quiet, wifey,” Florian said.
Alma Puente whimpered.
Slowly, Florian emerged from the porch.
Eddie Puente, who was in the kitchen, rustled through the refrigerator. When Eddie saw Florian, he turned pale and his eyes went to the gun.
“Eyes on me, Eddie,” Florian said. “Let’s talk about what’s going to go down.” He motioned for Eddie to sit on the couch.
Slowly, Eddie walked to the couch and sat next to his parents. His son, Dylan ran to him and jumped into his lap.
Alma began to cry. Florian shifted his hand into a chokehold.
“Shut up!” he yelled.
Alma whimpered.
“If you want me, take me,” Eddie said. “My wife has nothing to do with this.”
“I told you I wanted the body, Eddie,” Florian said. “I wanted the goddamn body. But you went and ratted to the cops. Now the body is gone.”
He dragged the handcoil across Alma’s temple.
“And now,” Florian said, inching a test tube with yellow liquid out of his suit pocket, “it’s time to replace the body I lost with another.”
“Leave my wife alone!” Eddie shouted.
Florian laughed.
“This is what happens when you try to be a hero, Eddie,” he said.
“What do you want?” Eddie asked. “Money? Revenge? Or—”
Florian shushed him long and loud.
“I’m the one who will be asking questions.”
Hux cleared his throat.
“Boss, we’re running out of time.”
“We’re in need of a ship,” Florian said.
“If it’s a ship you want,” Delfino Puente said, “we have another garbage ship. You want it, it’s yours.”
“Thank you, my good man,” Florian said. “But here’s the thing: you don’t have to offer it. I was going to take it anyway.” He glanced at Eddie. “But what I really want is the pendant. Where is it?”
“Pendant?” Eddie asked.
“The dead body had a pendant. A golden pendant. What did you do with it?”
“Ask the cops,” Eddie said. “They have the body. I never saw any pendant.”
Florian shot the handcoil at the living room window, shattering it.
“Where is the damned pendant?” Florian asked.
“I don’t know!” Eddie said.
“Do you have any idea how much work it is going to take me if I don’t have that access code?” Florian asked. “This is a tax on my time, my energy and my patience—to be outdone by a garbage man! I’m going to ask you again, and if you don’t tell me, you’re not going to like what I’m going to do next. Where. Is. The. God. Damned. Pendant.”
“I swear to God I don’t know.”
“Where is it, Eddie.”
“I told you, I don’t know!”
“Okay,” Florian said. “All right. I guess I am going to have to start over.”
Florian laughed at Eddie’s body as it lay unconscious on the floor of the family garbage plant.
Benito Puente, in a wheelchair, looked at Florian with wild eyes.
Florian overturned the wheelchair and Benito fell onto the floor.
“You’re…scum,” Benito said.
Florian ignored him.
“Worry about your grandson,” Florian said.
His staff held Eddie’s family at gunpoint and led them onboard the family garbage ship.
As the bay doors closed and the ship rose into the sky, zooming toward space, Florian pointed his handcoil at Eddie’s wife, whose hands were bound with rope. Her mouth was gagged.
“Your husband threw away his family for trying to be a hero,” Florian said. “You should have nagged him more and maybe he wouldn’t have been such an idiot.”
Tears welled in Alma Puente’s eyes.
Florian laughed as he, Hux and Tatiana left the family tied up in the airlock.
“Why are we taking them?” Tatiana asked.
“We might need them,” Florian said. “After all, they’re refugees from Zachary.”
“Aren’t they more valuable alive than dead?” Hux asked.
&
nbsp; “See, you two need to learn how to stay a few steps ahead,” Florian said. “Miloschenko’s body will set off a firestorm with the empire. They’re going to shut us out. Maybe even be skeptical of us. But let’s say we approach them with a fig leaf. Wouldn’t the Zachary Empire love to process this family for the media? Oh, how they’d lose their heads.”
“But Benito is the real enemy,” Hux said.
“Their deaths would break him,” Florian said. “That’s what the empire wants, not death. It will send a strong message to anyone else that wants to rise up against them.”
“That’s wrong,” Tatiana said.
“Then I don’t want to be right,” Florian said.
“We’re almost out of the atmosphere,” the skipper said. “but we have a problem, sir.”
The skipper pointed to the bridge window. Outside, in the wide expanse where Refugio’s atmosphere met the stars, red eyes glowed in the darkness.
“Holy—” Florian said. “The plan didn’t work. We’re too late.”
“I told you we shouldn’t have lingered on Refugio,” Tatiana said. “The aliens were unleashed sooner that we thought.”
“They’re coming too fast for us to jump into hyperspace,” the skipper said.
Florian gulped.
“Fire at them!” he cried.
The ship’s guns activated and fired a barrage of shots into the Planet Eaters, but they absorbed the shots, unharmed.
“Jump into hyperspace anyway!” Florian said. “If we have to burn them to dust, so be it!”
The skipper activated the warp core.
But the cloud was advancing too quickly.
“Crap,” Florian said. “Crap, crap, crap.”
“Brace yourselves,” the skipper said.
And then the wave of Planet Eaters swarmed the ship, wrapping it in darkness.
A giant, circular mouth appeared within the darkness. It was jawless, and it made a sucking sound,
MAWRHG…
MAWRHG…
The ship rocked and the impact threw Florian against the wall. He hit his head.
MAWRHG…
The lips wrapped around the hull of the ship, flipping it into a vertical position.
Florian grabbed onto a nearby rail as the ship rotated.
“Aaaaaaah!”
A staff member flew past Florian and crashed into the bridge window.
Orbital Decay (Galaxy Mavericks Book 7) Page 12