The next landed at his feet, where it lunged, rocking back and forth trying to bite him. A good kick sent it sprawling against the far wall of the cavern. The other landed atop his chest, its face staring straight into his faceplate, its fangs scissoring near his neck. “I almost forgot how much I hate you ugly maggots.” Grabbing it by the head, he tore it from its body.
Such was the battle, he never noticed the ground shaking, vibrating beneath his feet.
Having reached the door, Martinez spun around. Standing beside Stratton, they were awestruck.
“Cole, get—get back here now!” yelled Martinez.
“I’m coming.” At that moment, a fourth spider jumped through an open gap in the flames and wrapped itself around Cole’s legs. Though Cole wore the regulation armor that could take a tank blast at fifty meters and still leave its wearer no worse for the wear, this spider seemed to understand the armor’s weakness. Its fangs bit deep between the layered plates into a virtually invisible seam just behind the knee. Cole screamed out in pain as the spider’s bite sent virus-laden enzymes into his bloodstream.
Even as he sent the spider sprawling, hitting it with the butt of his flamethrower and then finishing it off with a stream of plasma, the blood vessels in his eyes had already begun to grow and extend.
He had never personally witnessed the rage, but he had heard about it from others who had. His mind raced, trying to separate fact from fiction, fear from hope—he realized just how little he knew. However, there was one inescapable fact—the rage was always fatal.
The spot where the spider had bitten him already grew numb, unresponsive.
Before him, coming at him from all directions, were twenty or more spiders. With a quick glance at Stratton and Martinez, who stood in the doorway, his situation became instantly worse. They stared wide-mouthed at something high above him.
Looking up, Cole hobbled around to see a spider more than twenty meters tall. It was like the others in appearance, but ten times bigger. He staggered back a step, half in shock from the sheer size of the thing and half because of the painful venom in his right leg. “Gena, all systems to maximum,” he managed to say, just as the spider flipped him high into the air with a swipe of its front leg. Though his inertia dampener was at maximum, he landed hard against the glowing crystalline wall of webs. He fell to the ground far below. The spiders around him skittered away, making room for their queen.
Letting out a heavy sigh, he rolled over onto his back. Looking up, he saw that the spider was already on top of him. It reared back on its hind legs, and as if it were already declaring victory, let out a long, roaring, deafening shriek. Weakened portions of the crystalline cavern fell, unable to withstand the percussive noise.
Lunging, the spider grasped him between its fangs, tossing him into the air. It just as quickly caught him, almost as though it were playing with him. Even with the armor’s dampening field, the pressure the spider exerted registered over 630 kilos per square inch. Though he could barely breathe, he attacked the rock-hard fangs, throwing an endless flurry of heavy servo-assisted punches. Slowly the fangs showed signs of cracking, fracturing.
Martinez, helpless to assist Cole without endangering him further, stood in the doorway, incinerating all periphery spiders until his tank sputtered and the flame died.
Beginning to feel the damage of Cole’s blows, the spider spewed venom all over Cole, hoping to immobilize him.
“I’m not dead yet, you bitch!” he screamed.
“Gena, fire turrets!” Instantly, a pair of small shoulder turrets unfurled and unloaded sixty-four hundred rounds of armor-piercing, explosive-tipped micro-needles. The spider shrieked as the needles tore through its internal organs, blowing large exit holes out its backside.
The west end of the cavern blew outwards as hundreds of unobstructed micro-needles exited the shredding spider and struck the webbing beyond, opening a large hole.
The spiders that had been advancing on the web, along with thousands of shattered crystalline shards, were sucked up and swept away by the monstrous tornado that bore down on them. The display of raw energy within the tornado dwarfed the largest Kansas twister.
Thrashing in the throes of death, the spider dropped Cole from its grasp. It tottered above him, staggered, and then collapsed to the ground. With a few lingering twitches it released a last exhale of breath.
Throngs of spiders watching the battle stilled, seemingly shocked by what they had witnessed. As the death of their mother and queen settled in, an air of vengeance seemed to permeate the surroundings.
Behind Cole, the cavern’s already weakened structure disintegrated as chunks were ripped away by the charcoal-brown tornado. The earsplitting noise overwhelmed them, but even as the world the spiders had built was disappearing around them, their attentions remained solely focused on Cole. He lay on the ground before them, unable to escape. As one, they moved with lightning speed, swarming over him.
With a final glance at Stratton, Cole’s blood red eyes and an affirmative nod told him what he had to do.
Cole screamed—not the scream of a man in pain, but the gutsy scream of a man that refused to die easily.
Pulling Martinez inside, Stratton grabbed the door and slammed it shut, pinching the armored leg of a spider that had almost managed to make it inside. The leg shook and then went limp. The spider had bitten it off, freeing itself.
In direct contrast to the clamor of noises outside, with the door’s closure everything went eerily silent, leaving them with only the sound of their own breathing.
“Cole’s still out there,” shouted Martinez as he reached for the handle of the door.
Stratton shoved Martinez hard into the wall. “No, he’s not! He’s dead!” Their eyes locked, the faceplates of their helmets pressed together. “He was bitten! He has the rage. He’s not human anymore!” The image branded into Stratton’s mind was terrifying. He had not seen Cole get bitten, and it had taken him a moment to process the information. Cole was a close friend and the look in his eyes conveyed a flood of emotions. In a single glance, Cole had asked for compassion, for understanding, and yet, it was one of compulsion, of hunger—a look of rage.
The whites of Cole’s eyes were a solid mass of red corpuscles, his face a roadmap of veins that pulsed on the surface of his skin. His bared teeth were drenched in the blood of his own hemorrhaging gums.
A single drop of a spider’s venom stole much more than its victim’s life. It stole their humanity, their ability to think and reason. In the days that led up to their death, the only thing the victim had was a hungering for flesh and blood.
Martinez, tears filling his eyes, spun out of Stratton’s grip and walked into the far corner of the room where he fell to his knees.
***
“Gena, detonate my energy core!” shouted Cole. The words were inhuman, gnarled into something barely recognizable. There was no mistake. The Cole they knew had spoken them—his last gift for his team.
The team then heard Gena’s reply. “Voice print not recognized.”
“Why is he trying to blow us all up?” asked Martinez.
“He isn’t. He’s trying to save us,” said Stratton. “He just isn’t thinking clearly.”
The next sounds they heard were nothing more than growls and inhuman screams that sent shivers down their spines.
“Gena, disconnect Cole from the team’s comm feed,” ordered Stratton, silencing Cole’s garbled screams. “All right, everyone. We need to regroup! Martinez, Moore, we need to find the admiral. I don’t know why Paris, Tomlinson, and Hitch aren’t here, but they must have gone to look for him. Moore, grab the bag of replacement energy cores. Doc, get ready. I think you’re going to have a few patients.”
They found Tomlinson, holding Paris in his arms, both of them collapsed on the third landing down, barely alive. The footprints on the stairs implied that they had been on their way up when they had lost power. Their breaths were shallow, their faces white and showing signs of frostbite.<
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“Replace their energy cores. It’ll give them heat and oxygen while we keep searching for Hitch and the admiral.”
They found Hitch at the mid-point of the sixth flight of stairs—not breathing.
After replacing Hitch’s core Stratton said, “Get her and the others upstairs to the doc. I’ll go look for Steven. If I need help, I’ll call.” Grabbing the last spare core from Moore, he continued down the stairs.
Stepping out upon the main floor, he found the room’s large size to be daunting, its darkness impenetrable. He dared not walk far from the stairs for fear of losing his bearings. Four minutes later Stratton was forced to replace his own frozen energy core with the spare he had brought along. Getting no reply to his calls, he grew resigned to what the silence inferred. “Dammit, Steven, where the hell are you!”
As his replacement core grew low on power, he reluctantly turned around to leave. Though Steven had the physical size and strength of Paul Bunyan and the determination of a Rottweiler, Stratton knew for a certainty that his friend was dead. The temperature was unbearably cold. Given the condition of the ruptured coolant lines, it had been an impossible task.
The trek back up the stairs was arduous, and his heavy heart made it feel longer than it was. It would be his responsibility to tell Steven’s wife and children what had happened. His heart broke for them.
Entering the room upstairs, Stratton found the team hard at work on Hitch. Martinez had removed her armor and torn her cotton undergarment open down the middle. Victor punched a long needle into her heart. A moment later, Victor called, “Clear!” Placing the paddles atop her bare chest, he shocked her heart. “Come-on, don’t you quit on me, Hitch. Don’t quit!”
Stratton set his helmet down on the floor as the others had done, giving the doctor light. Stratton then said three quick prayers, one for Cole, one for Hitch, and one for Steven.
Even as the fourth jolt of electricity raced through Hitch, Stratton looked around the room at the team. Paris sat next to Tomlinson and they held hands. They met Stratton’s gaze and gave him a small nod, a silent thank you for rescuing them. In their eyes, Stratton saw the sorrow they felt over the loss of their friend and commander.
“Dammit, Hitch, come-on!” A brief second after the fifth snap of the paddles sounded, they all heard a small beep. “We got her—for the moment anyway. We need to get her back to Sea Base, Stratt. She needs the regenerator,” said Victor.
“I’m afraid we aren’t going anywhere, Doc. The storm is on top of us,” reminded Stratton. “Robbie can’t bring the Dolphin down in these conditions.”
“Without Sea Base’s regenerator, she doesn’t have very long. Her vitals are barely registering. It’s going to be hard enough just keeping her alive on the ride home,” said Victor.
Stratton threw a glance at the others in the room, his mind trying to find a solution. Maybe Cole was right!
“Robbie, you still in the area?” said Stratton.
“I’m still here!”
“Get ready to pick us up!”
“Apologies, sir, but there’s no way I can land down there! Wind speed is 310 knots. Transports aren’t built for that kind of turbulence. Not to mention, last I saw, there was a swarm of spiders all over you guys.”
“There won’t be any wind—or spiders! I’m going to detonate Cole’s energy core. Get clear of the blast area. Return the first moment you deem it safe to pick us up.”
“The core will blow our asses into a million pieces,” said Martinez.
Ignoring Martinez, Stratton ran his fingers over the heavy security door. He remembered the scratches of the spiders’ assault upon the door, the building. It had barely been marred. Retrieving the scanner out of Tomlinson’s pack, he scanned the building’s material composition.
Similar to their armor, the door and walls were composed of the same variety of rare metals; however, it also had 12 percent of a foreign, unknown compound. Whatever the ingredient was, he knew it was the reason why the spiders had not been able to breach the building. Moreover, after seeing the depth to which Tynabo had gone to protect his work, it didn’t surprise him.
“Transport clear,” said Robbie.
“Doc, get Hitch suited and prepped to move. We’re taking her home!”
“As a ghost. We’re all going to be vaporized,” said Martinez.
“This isn’t a college debating class, Martinez. I’m the ranking officer. So stow it! At the very least, we’ll take all the creepy-crawlies with us. Everyone, get your helmets on. Take cover in the corners. When it’s over, help the doc move Hitch to the transport. Martinez, increase the size of your dampening field to cover the doc. Shield him with your armor.” Victor was the only one in the group not wearing armor.
The team took cover in the corners of the room as Stratton had suggested. Verifying that they were ready, Stratton then gave Gena the command code to overload the core in Cole’s armor.
Outside the building, above the boisterous rumbles of the storm and the clacking of the spiders, the shrill shriek of Cole’s overloading fusion reactor grew louder.
Inside, they waited anxiously knowing what was coming, but not sure of their own outcome.
Suddenly, the silence in the room was broken by the sound of a sheet of paper being ripped. Their gaze was drawn to the hallway entry. Before them stood Ashlyn—Steven draped atop her back. She was fully nude, her skin glistening white from a layer of light frost.
Seeing her standing there, Stratt recalled Dr. Takamura’s prophetic words about Pandora. “It is said that when she returns, she would rise from the earth, her hands raised above her head in epiphany, and that she would be the giver of gifts unto men.”
It was not until Ashlyn took another step forward when they again heard the sound of ripping paper. At once, they understood the source of the noise. In the hallway behind her lay a trail of bloodied footprints—in each, clumps of her own pulpy flesh frozen to the ice. She had made the trek, knowing that with each step, she would have to endure the pain of pulling her foot free, ripping away ever-deeper layers of flesh and muscle tissue.
So extraordinary was the sight of Ashlyn with Steven upon her back that it was hard to accept it as reality, and for a scant few seconds it kept them from moving to help her.
As Ashlyn bent to set Steven down, her strength failed her. Stratt, who had risen first, arrived just as Ashlyn collapsed unconscious to the floor—Tomlinson right behind him.
At that same moment, thirty-five meters up the street, Cole’s fusion reactor exploded.
Forty klicks out, hovering high in the atmosphere, Robbie watched the blast. Everything within two kilometers vaporized instantly. Beyond that, millions of projectiles created by the blast shredded even distant buildings on the outskirts of Denver. The once bustling city was now and forever gone. What little was left crumbled before the eight hundred kilometer per hour blast wave.
Robbie watched in awe as a mushroom cloud rose into the stratosphere. Starving trails of fire chased the fleeing oxygen, clinging in vain to a last breath of life.
As Stratton had assumed, the blast blew the tornado and the storm front apart, ripping the heart out of it.
To the team, even through the sound-dampening walls it sounded like the world was ending in an ear shattering blast.
A violent tremor shook the building. The ceiling panels and overhead lights fell. The cabinets, chairs, and desks in the room turned into volatile projectiles, ricocheting off the walls and smashing into each other, fragmentizing everything.
Paris watched as a heavy desk was thrown across the room, where it bashed the two frozen bodies of Tynabo and his wife, dashing them into hundreds of tiny pieces.
Huddled in a corner, Paris’ eyes went wide as a hand with only a single, extended middle finger landed inches from her. Inside, she chuckled, wondering if the gods were trying to tell her, “You’re screwed!” Her quirky smile quelled quickly as half an eyeball and a frozen piece of toothed jawbone fell beside it, making her wa
nt to retch.
The same splintering desk then rebounded, slamming into Moore, breaking his hip.
Moore screamed, chastising himself as he realized he had forgotten to turn on his suit’s dampening field. Paris reached out to help but missed as he flailed away from her. Trying a second time, she grabbed his outstretched hand, pulling him into the corner with her. With the ferocious tug, Moore again screamed out as his wrist snapped.
Stratton, thrown against the far wall, landed on his back, face up. With the ceiling panels gone, the light from his helmet settled upon a heavy, solid-metal girder swaying precariously above Ashlyn, its weld joint broken. In the blink of an eye, with his suit’s servo assist, he launched himself through the air. In one quick motion, he grasped Ashlyn around the waist as he flew over her, carrying her like a limp rag-doll into the far corner. The jagged steel point of the beam came crashing down, spearing the just vacated flooring where Ashlyn had been lying. Stratton ordered Gena to enlarge the circumference of his suit’s dampening field, encapsulating her, his body shielding her.
Tomlinson had gone to Steven, encapsulating him within his own shield, covering him.
It was near another minute before the worst of the shaking subsided. The room was a snow-covered, littered battlefield.
Martinez and Victor, extricating themselves from beneath a heavy pile of snow that had found its way into their corner, were the first to move. Victor may have been a fearful man, but he was a good doctor. Retrieving a heated, thermal blanket from his duffle bag of supplies, he brought it to Ashlyn and spread it on the icy ground. Stratton then gently laid her atop it and folded it over her. While scanning her vitals he said, “Martinez, Moore, get Steven’s suit off. Get him ready for the paddles; I’ll be there in a sec.”
Ashlyn Chronicles 1: 2287 A.D. Page 6