by Jones, D G
“Hey, steady,” Skea yells as I jump the last few feet and almost knock her down.
“There’s a ship,” I gasp for air and have trouble making myself heard.
“A what?” Helst yells. He spits out the black tarry stuff and wipes his lips.
“There’s a ship, out there,” I insist.
“You’re joking,” they say.
“Yes, for fuck’s sake! It’s a fucking ship,” I shout. The two of them look as confused as I feel.
“Come on, let’s get to the control room,” Helst yells. He waves to Cora who comes to join us, and cautiously we thread our way through the gale.
“You got them all?”
“Clook is still up there with one of his friends. The rest are dead, save Meska.”
“You left her alive?” I am shocked.
“Only so you can gloat over her.”
We round the corner and there she is, crawling on the deck plates, her legs blown right off by the twin cannons. She is screaming into the wind and dragging her shattered body along, with no real clue where she is going. I casually step on the trailing sinews and flesh, but she is oblivious, tearing free and leaving pieces of flesh behind her. It crosses my mind to finish her off, but she is beyond help anyway so I leave her to suffer.
“Come on,” I mutter.
We creep up the steps, knowing Clook and his friend are the last ones, and as we reach the second flight, a burst of machine gun fire comes ripping through the dark. I duck down, immediately firing back, as does Cora, and holes rip through the door and I hear a scream. One of the big men tumbles forward, and he staggers, falling over the guard rail and crunching into the metal plates below.
“Don’t shoot!” It’s Clook's whining voice.
“Who’s in there with you?” Helst shouts.
“No one, I’m alone.”
“Out! Hands up!” Skea commands, and the door creaks open a little. We wait nervously. Suddenly a huge figure kicks the door open, but before he can even squeeze a shot, we carve him to pieces in a volley of shots. We were expecting something like that, knowing what a worm Clook is.
“Okay, now I’m alone. Look, there’s a ship out there!” he sniffs.
“Hands up and get out here, now!” Skea orders.
This time he appears with his hands in the air, trembling and shaking in the wind. His narrow face is a mask of absolute terror.
*
“No comms?” Helst asks. We are gathered in the control room. Clook is only alive, for now, because he may be useful to us.
“No, nothing,” Clook shakes his head. “It’s on an auto-dock cycle. It will be here in an hour or so.”
“So it will swing around and line up on its own?” Cora asks, and I can see Clook thinking very carefully on his answer.
“Yes… but obviously we have to fire the line.”
“Then we don’t need you anymore,” Skea gives a very dark smile.
“We have to cut the juice to the netting, otherwise we will not have enough fuel to power the line. Someone has got to balance the power demands,” Clook says. He reaches for a cigarette and guns level at him, just in case. “Easy, please…”
“Okay, you get to live for now,” skea growls, that same dark leer on her face.
“Thank you,” he grovels. He lights his cigarette with hands that cannot still themselves.
“So, we have no idea if anyone is on board?” I ask.
“No,” Clook says. “But at least we know it’s one ours, otherwise it wouldn’t be on the auto.” I grunt and nod. I don’t like having to stand next to this cretin, let alone work with him. “I’m going to power down for a while.”
“Already?” Helst raises an eyebrow.
“We got about three hours left, that’s without what we need to fire the line. As it is, we will only get one shot.”
“Great,” I mutter. “No pressure then.”
“No. And by then the place could be crawling with abominations,” Clook mumbles.
“With no guarantee there is anyone on the ship anyway,” Helst says softly.
“But hopefully there will be food at least,” Clook replies. “Real food, I mean.”
“It’s academic really. From what you’re saying the Platform is going to run out of juice in a few hours, and we don’t want to be there when it happens. Getting to the ship is our only chance,” says Helst, taking a cigarette from Clook’s packet.
“Fuck,” Cora mutters. That seems to be the word of choice for all of us right now.
*
She is listing on one side, looking like she has been holed under the waterline. It makes the shot harder, but it’s not impossible. But just to make it that much worse, the power has now failed to the net and the abominations are beginning to tear their way through. Everyone is clustered around the line fire except for Clook, who is hiding in the control room ‘monitoring the power’ he says.
The warship is one of ours – a D class ship – not huge, but powerful. It has the same electric netting as ours, only facing downwards like a skirt, and above it is the two-metre socket for the line. It looks tiny from here, and with everyone standing around like a guard of honour, I sweat, my hands greasy in my gloves, with the mad urge for a cigarette cutting into my lungs. Okay, I tell myself, just focus. The small target wavers up and down. Just ignore everything…
“You ready?” Helst yells above the wind.
“Yes,” I yell back. Fuck off! I think. I take a deep breath and try to ignore him. Then the guns begin to fire; all around me, they are firing.
“They’re on the deck,” Cora yells. I can feel my heart beating hammer blows on my ribs and I think of how much I don’t want to be doing this right now. I wish I was with them, shooting at the creatures. I grind my teeth shut, counting the seconds of the port’s travel up and down, calculating the distance.
“There’s two heading for the control room!” Helst yells. Shut it out, I tell myself. Shut it all out. Focus on the target; its motion, the arc of travel. I feel my trigger finger seize and my heart calm as the target is set and I fire. The ‘poonclaw races across the distance, true like a spear, the wire in tow and it hits the black port. Immediately I hit the mag switch and the claw disappears inside, the second takes forever, but the green light flickers on and its locked into place. Then the huge pipe begins to turn on the wheel, the wire dragging it across the gulf. Cora yells, but I hold my breath until the control panel shows green all the way; the pipe slips into the port and dock, beginning to pressurize with a familiar loud, burning hiss.
One shot. Dead on.
I jump from the claw cannon and join the firefight. There is a strange feeling, of satisfaction and pride mixed with horror at the squirming things all round us. Up on the gantry I see two of the creatures battering on the safety glass; inevitably it shatters and the loathsome things squirm their way inside and that is that for Clook. I’m not sure I really hear the terrible scream or perhaps it is just the wind, but his days are done.
It’s time to leave.
More of the creatures are clambering up on deck and I head to the line wavering up and down. As it pressurises, it becomes solid enough to walk in. I just have to wait for the hand lines to raise. Come on, fucker! I think to myself. They slowly lift and create a narrow pathway to the ship across the boiling ocean. I wave the others to join me. We really have to go right now: there are now maybe a dozen of the writhing creatures now, all closing in.
“Come on!” I yell at them. I step onto the piping, feeling it judder under my weight; still greased from the last maintenance it is slippery and I have to grab the hand wires to steady myself. I shout again, then begin to cross. It’s a hand-wire walk above an acid sea full of vicious, twisted monsters who will devour anything except each other. No pressure, I tell myself, and wonder if I am just trying to make myself feel better. The gunfire goes on, and I see the Platform below disappear, giving way to the churning relentless waters, fuck! Not looking down is better, so I focus on the port oppos
ite, my boots slipping on the grease, the wind trying to prise the hand wires from me, and out in the open, its hell as the wind rips hard and the spray burns at my eyes. The pipe shudders as someone else steps on, but I don’t look back. It’s maybe twenty metres, or thirty, I don’t know; it’s still a long way to safety, but I keep myself moving. There is another judder as someone else comes on board. I am leaving the Platform forever; there will be no way back from this, not after the pipe is discarded. I just hope it’s worth it. Halfway across, looking from side to side, the sea is endless on both dark horizons and it makes me feel a little sick to see it.
I keep going, the squall trying to take me, and my feet slip in the grease. It’s hard to breathe and my eyes are squeezed almost shut as I hold on for all I am. I feel the shudders through the pipe of those behind me, and then I sense the ship up close – an overpowering presence that shields me from the worst of the wind. I feel relief as it gets easier, and I make the last few metres almost at a run.
I cower in the portal. Jammed above the pipe is the emergency entrance and the line control, and I turn to see where everyone is. Skea is almost here, Helst is halfway across and Cora far behind. She is firing at the creatures, walking backwards along the pipe. It’s insane! She will be snatched over in an instant, if the things don’t reach her first. I open up the emergency controls, locating the door and the emergency jettison.
Skea clambers up beside me and for a second is panting hard for breath, scrubbing the sea-spray from her eyes.
“You okay?” I yell.
“Yeah,” she nods. I hit the ‘open’ release and she begins turning the wheel until it clicks and opens. She climbs in, leaving me to dump the line. Seeing Helst is almost here, it crosses my mind to do it now, but I can’t, not while Cora is out there and still has a slim chance. Maybe Helst senses my thoughts because he runs the last few metres and reaches the portal. Without a word, he enters the ship and I am left to watch Cora fighting her way. Come on, I urge her on silently. She is not even halfway here, and the things are trying to negotiate the slippery surface of the line: one tumbles down into the water below but two more seem to have better grip and are chasing her down. I lean back, trying to aim at them, but her huddled form is blocking the shot. There is nothing I can do but wait to see if she makes it. It’s a horrible feeling, just standing there, watching, feeling the past bite and stir up again,, and she begins to panic, trying to run, but it’s hopeless. Her boots are slipping, the wind tearing at her, and right behind her, one of the things is gaining ground. I yell to her but it is no use: the wind rips her right from the line and takes her away, flying for a second then down and down into the dark boiling waters. Fuck, I think to myself. I can’t even see where she hit. She is already under, and below the creatures wait, eager to devour her.
I jettison the line quickly. The explosive bolts are loud; they thunder through the ship, almost throwing me aside. The pipe whips away, taking the two abominations with it. There is no way back now, and seeing the Platform swarming with creatures, it was the only option. With one last look down into the water, I edge my way to the door and seek shelter from the storm.
*
I could tell the second I entered there was nothing living on the ship. The stink of death and corpses hangs thickly everywhere. We gave a cursory search and found nothing but decomposing crew members, and in truth, none of us were that surprised. We wandered around shouting for anyone, but it soon became clear no one was coming to greet us. After finding the first dead man, we knew, so we made our way up to the bridge. Helst checked on the fuel supplies, and there isn’t a great deal left – certainly not enough to get us anywhere. The good news though is that it’s not sinking – at least not immediately anyway. Most of the damage is sealed off by emergency bulkheads, but there is still flooding on the three lower decks. There was some attempt to pump her out, but the crew didn’t live long enough to fix it.
We watched the video logs left by the captain, and now with horrible certainty we know that the final war took place. It was a strange, quiet moment as we heard him recording at 2.30am ship time that total war was unleashed. Continent 2 had fired first, and everything went to fuck with a full on chemical and storm fire conflict. In the space of two hours, all life in the world was decimated, incinerated and thrown into the air as ash. This ship, LKH77, was ordered to attack all enemy vessels, but was hit before it had a chance to get seriously involved. And then, crippled in the water, the fuckers unleashed chem bombs, the crew doing their best to outrun an attack flotilla, but had no chance. It took a week for everyone to die; they set an auto course to us in hope of rescue but died a long time before getting here. The air scrubbers just couldn’t clean the air fast enough. Though Helst says the ship is now decontaminated, the process still going even though the crew had long since expired.
We sat there for several hours in the captain’s room watching the logs, still raw from losing Cora, only to discover the world was indeed finished. It was a horrible realisation to know everything was over. We knew in our hearts weeks ago, but to have it confirmed and made real, that was tough on all of us. We argued a lot of what to do, whether to try and make it home or to just stay where we were, but in the end, there is nothing to head back to anyway. Helst just wanted to get clear of the Platform; Skea wanted to try for home, and me, I didn’t care either way. In the end, Helst won her over, so he piloted the ship on a southward course and then shut down the engines, letting her drift. The fuel is more important for the electric webs, he argued. They would be down in days if we sailed too long, so best to conserve it and keep the stinking creatures at bay. The Platform has now vanished on the horizon. I watched it diminish and shrink as we pulled away, and then was lost, swallowed in the dark, just a tiny speck that soon became nothing.
At least there is real food. There is a good variety of things, but it’s funny really, I find myself missing the stews made up by Illen in his last days, when the meat was human. I guess that is wrong but I don’t really care. There was no way we wanted to cook up the crew from here, and so we dumped them over the side; some ended up in the webbing and fried, while others just fell apart on the journey down. We have made the ship our own for now. This wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it’s better than being dead, I suppose. I stand up on the deck. The ship takes some getting used to – the rolling and movement makes me feel a little sick at times; at least most of the time the Platform was reasonably stable. I watch the water, the endless tide in turmoil, and think of the world now in ruins, thanks to us. I understand a bit better now why Helst says he is going to kill himself – even the small pleasures of food and cigarettes can’t hold back the desire to escape.
*
“You think he’s got this right?” Skea askes as we wade, up to our knees in acid water. We are down in the lower levels, Helst having discovered another leak.
“He showed me the read outs, looks like something has failed somewhere,” I reply. If we can find where it’s coming from, we might be able to fix it, or at least pump it out, otherwise it will slowly keep creeping its way up and eventually sink us.
We have been here a week now, just drifting, adjusting. At least we all now have separate quarters and can sleep in reasonable comfort. But the trouble is, according to Skea at least, if you sit alone too long you end up thinking too much, so we end up hanging around together most of the time. Me, I am not that bothered, but she seems to be. I am used to the well-worn tread of my own thoughts, and back to where they lead. It is a journey I have made countless times; I know every metre of the road and every dark corner of the track. And every time it leads back to City Block Gamma. For all the time I’ve spent there in my head, I may as well have stayed.
“I miss Jem. And Cora,” she says, as we go on wading through the icy-cold acidic sea water. I just shrug. Missing them will not change anything, I think to myself, they’ll still be dead. I sweep the torch beam over the racking and corridors, looking for some clue as to where we holed, but so
far I can find nothing. My feet feel like solid ice blocks and it’s hard to keep going. Why Helst couldn’t help, I don’t know. Perhaps he is turning into Clook. Perhaps he is going to start hiding away and handing out orders. It doesn’t matter, I suppose. He is just as dangerous now to me as he has ever been, and I keep my door locked at night, just in case he wants to pay a nocturnal visit.
We trudge on. I pause to light up a cigarette and hear Skea up ahead. I am still thinking of Helst when I hear her shout. I wade towards her, the torch beam bouncing in tight circles through the shadows. She is at one of the interior doors and can’t shift the wheel.
“Help me open this thing, will you?” she grunts. I grab hold and try to move it. My wet hands slip over it and I have to try and wipe them down on my sides. After the second try, it moves, and I open it, a flow of black pouring knee-height from the seals.
“There you go,” I mutter.
“I-“
I never hear the rest of it as a writhing tendril limb comes from the dark, its scythe-like claw slashing across her throat. She sprawls back as I slam the door, locking the wheel into place. The abomination’s limb severs and it falls, twitching spasmodically in the sea water. The fucking things have found a way in.
Skea is trying to scream, her hand over her throat as gushes of hot blood pour through her fingers. I grab her and drag her through the dark, to the bulkhead, sealing off the section as she gasps and twitches on the floor. Fuck! I try to help but the wound is too deep, through the artery, and she is going down fast. It didn’t even occur to us that the bastard things would have worked their way this far up. There is nothing I can do but watch. Again. The story of my whole life in one sentence. Her eyes are wide as she coughs up mouthfuls of blood. I try pressing on the gaping cut, but I know she only has a few seconds left. This was not meant to be. It should be Helst lying here breathing his last choked-up breaths.