At the Highways of Madness

by West, David J.

  The Russian negotiator barked, “Americans! You will cease this unlawful disruptions of Soviet space!”

  There was little chance of Driscoll being able to smash in the portal window. But this was an unnerving feeling that if the portal window failed and cracked, everyone inside would be dead in seconds. Fear made them leave their true and relative safety.

  “You leave us no choice Americans!” crackled the reply.

  “You got it,” Cormac said over the com-link to the Russians. It was the only response he had given their channel yet.

  “Watch for that lower airlock on the Soyuz below us.”

  Driscoll struck the portal window again, leaving a tiny white scrape but no real damage. He looked at what from his perspective seemed to be down at the Soyuz module.

  “Poyekhali!” snapped the radio.

  “What did that Russian say?”

  “He said, ‘Let’s go’.”

  What had been dark below, gave a shaft of light. The lower hatch had been opened.

  “They’re coming out!”

  “Keep steady. They’re cold bastards when they want to be.”

  The hatch beside Cormac suddenly popped open.

  Oxygen and water vapor blasted out into space.

  Cormac moved in to slash the Russian.

  A cosmonaut in an orange space suit stood just inside the airlock, a strange triple-barreled pistol in hand.

  Shocked that his opponent had a gun, Cormac lunged left.

  A mute projectile erupted from the gun barrel. Smoke and phantom blue flame leapt out.

  The bullet narrowly missed Cormac beside the hatch, only because the gunman had not been prepared to swing his weapon fast enough, nor had he braced himself for the impact it gave in zero gravity. The gun flung him backward against the airlock wall.

  Cormac maneuvered himself around and above the hatch, ready to strike like an asp when the gunman emerged.

  “Help!” Driscoll cried.

  Three cosmonauts came at him from all sides, wielding strange dual-use Soviet tools. One had a hammer with a crude spike on the backside. Doubtless a utilitarian instrument but deadly none the less.

  “There’s too many!”

  Driscoll batted away their strikes, barely fending off the attack, never capable of taking the real fight to them.

  “I can’t hold them off!”

  Waiting what seemed an eternity, Cormac tensed ready to strike the gunman.

  “Arrgh!”

  The gunman didn’t or wouldn’t exit the airlock.

  “Cormac! Help!”

  Cormac watched Driscoll take several more hits, though the labored presence of his voice over the radio said his suit had not been ruptured, yet.

  Fearful the gunman would appear the moment he moved, Cormac launched himself off the Salyut at full force and all possible speed. He kept one hand on his line and at the right moment tugged on the secure tether bringing his bulk as close to where he needed to be as possible.

  A painful grunt spat over the radio.

  Cormac raced not to aid Driscoll directly but to where the Russian’s tethers came across the bow of the Salyut.

  Stout refined rope, strong enough for mountain climbers and wrapped in a protective film held the cosmonaut’s in trusted thrall but it was no match for sharp meteoric steel.

  Rather than fight the cosmonaut’s, Cormac cut their lines before they realized he was there.

  Loose, the first cosmonaut struggled to grab a comrade. The other panicked and yanked on the line, only granting enough tension to ease Cormac’s slice through the tether. The cosmonaut’s line went slack and he floated mere inches beyond reach of the safety of the ship. He flapped his arms and legs wildly in futility.

  With a companion grasping onto his shoulder, the last of the three cosmonauts halted his attack on Driscoll to focus on Cormac.

  Cormac missed cutting the thirds tether, his gut told him to move.

  An arc light of blue flame and smoke erupted, narrowly missing Cormac.

  The ‘Jack-Hammer’ wheeled to see the gunman preparing for another shot.

  Griping his own tether, Cormac wrenched mightily and sweeping hard right, he clothes-lined the gunman.

  His finger on the trigger, the gunman shot again forcing himself back against the ship.

  Racing toward this most dangerous assailant, Cormac brought his knife to bear.

  The gun toting cosmonaut struggled for balance, tripping backward against the solar vanes of the Salyut. He prepared to shoot again and realized his mistake.

  Cormac cut his tether.

  The cosmonaut’s momentum kept him going backward, off and away from the capsule. Floating freely away and off balance he attempted one more shot.

  The explosive gas rocketed from the triple-barreled gun sending the cosmonaut away at greater speed, while the bullet went past Cormac and was lost in the far-flung cosmos. The shooters body spun end over end until it too vanished in the void of darkness.

  The last cosmonaut still fighting, battered away at Driscoll. The Californian fended off the attack as best he could with an oversized wrench. But clearly dominating the confrontation, the Soviet loomed over the American, trying to smash his faceplate in.

  The second cosmonaut clung to the solar panel of the Soyuz like a man hanging on to a life raft in a raging storm. He seemed incapable of action, likely in shock from his near death in the emptiness of the infinite black sea behind him.

  “Captain Ross, you need to assist Major Driscoll,” crackled Ryman through the radio.

  “What do you think I’ve been doing?”

  “I cannot allow the Russian’s to sacrifice him.”

  “Sacrifice?” The ‘Jack-Hammer’ sped toward Driscoll and the cosmonaut’s.

  Turning to face him, the cosmonaut swung his hammer in swift yet exaggerated round-houses. “Stay back or will kill your comrade most brutal.”

  Cormac edged closer.

  “Think will you to leave this place ever? Murderer!” said the Russian. “Your bones never to orbit leave!”

  “You first Ivan.”

  “Warmongering dog! I fix you!”

  Cormac leaned back just out of impact of the hammers swing.

  Three times the cosmonaut attempted to strike, on the last swing Cormac rushed inside the extended reach and jammed his knife to the hilt into the cosmonaut’s ribs. He twisted and tore the blade out.

  Blood boiled, pluming swiftly through the puncture in a cloud of crimson steam.

  The cosmonaut screamed as even the saliva on his tongue boiled, returning to a gaseous state. His cries abruptly went silent though he remained alive a few more seconds as the oxygen fled from his suit. Eyelids sunk as eyeballs swelled outward, the face stretched and warped into a fearful mask of horror.

  Cormac sliced the tether and pushed the corpse away to drift in the eternal night.

  The first cosmonaut cut loose, slowly drifted farther away, kicking and screaming while the frightfully paralyzed one clung tenaciously to the solar vane.

  Cormac helped Driscoll stand as upright as they could comprehend. “You all right?”

  “Bruised but I’m not broken. What do we do about that one?”

  The cosmonaut shivered in fear, not even looking up at his captor’s.

  “Don’t know. I never killed one who wasn’t trying to kill me before. You want too?” He held his Bowie out, handle first.

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  Ryman’s voice broke the predicament. “Captain Ross. Major Driscoll. Is the station contained?”

  “No, sit tight. We have taken out the four cosmonauts who greeted us, but there is at least one more inside. We also have one, hanging on to the solar panel.”

  “Excellent, bind him and take him back inside the station once you have secured it.”

  “Yes sir . . . I mean Mr. Ryman.”

  Using the shaking cosmonaut’s own cut tether, Cormac and Driscoll bound up his arms tight enough that he cou
ld not use them. They tugged him toward the airlock and looked in.

  “Get in precious,” said Cormac, as he pushed the cosmonaut through the opening. They attached their own tether lines to a bar near the airlock so that they could easily retrieve them upon leaving the station.

  ***

  Inside the cramped airlock, they waited while the pressure equalized to a bare minimum.

  “What or who is inside waiting for us?”

  This particular cosmonaut apparently spoke no English and only watched their questions and nodded with a false sense of understanding.

  “No idea. But since they actually had a gun this time, let’s keep Brezhnev here, in front of us as we open the hatch.”

  “How did you learn to move so well in space?”

  “I treat it like diving without the water. I use all the momentum I can to go where I want. I don’t do anything I don’t need to. Plus the tether can be manipulated more than anyone ever understands. Kinda like a pendulum. The Red’s would be getting better at it, if I wasn’t killing them first.”

  “Things will change. They bring guns because of you and your knife.”

  Cormac shrugged, and turned to watch the gauges. “It’s finished. We can remove our helmets while we are inside. I hate having these things on this long. Too hot.”

  “It’s only been two hours.”

  Cormac shrugged again before unclasping the seal and pulling off the cumbersome apparatus.

  Driscoll spun the handle opening the airlock to the inside of the station.

  On the other side, a pale surprised face greeted them. It was the woman they had seen earlier. It took her a splintered moment to realize her comrade was not alone.

  “Sergei! What have you done to him?” she asked, brushing a lock of red hair out of her face.

  “Back off sister,” said Cormac, with a hand upraised. “Against the wall.”

  She looked to flee but knew as well as they did that it would be futile in the tight quarters of the station.

  “Is anyone else aboard the station?”

  “Nyet.”

  Her green eyes contained an angry defiant fire. Even with the space suit on, anyone would have known from the curves that it was a woman inside.

  Cormac paused a bit long before answering, “There better not be. Check it out Driscoll, real careful like. Make your way down and secure and lock that lower hatch. No surprises before his satanic majesty comes aboard.”

  “I heard that,” crackled Ryman.

  Driscoll gave a salute and went to an adjoining passage that would take him down into the rest of the station.

  The shivering cosmonaut Sergei mumbled, “Skazheete pozhluista . . ?”

  Cormac looked to the woman saying, “Tell him to shut up. And for the sake of my companions, only speak English from now on. Understand?”

  She nodded and whispered a hush to Sergei who seemed content to hang his head in shame and say nothing more. “He fears they will send him to the gulag for this failure.”

  “That’s tomorrows worry.”

  “Da.”

  “We have your station. I took care of your other men outside so there is nothing left for you to do except cooperate. Got that?” He made sure she could see the Bowie knife. On Earth, blood would still have been dripping off the blade, but here it had all boiled off. “I’m Captain Cormac Ross. What’s your name?”

  “You are only a Captain? I am Major Ludmilla Serakovna.”

  “Don’t get any ideas sister, I’m already taking orders from a civilian.”

  “Captain Cormac Ross? You are the ‘Rezuhin’, yes?”

  “You got it.”

  “You have killed many of my comrades, my friends.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You are here to take our station, to take our lives?”

  “If I was going to do that I wouldn’t still be talking to you.”

  “Did you say that to the men outside? The ones you cut loose to die?”

  “Orders. A fight is a fight. Can’t do any less.”

  “Any less? What you did is the worst fate possible.”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Your American pride makes you a cruel and unkind people.”

  Cormac stifled a laugh. “Nails aren’t made from good iron, nor are soldiers made from kind men. You’re a major, you should know that.”

  Driscoll’s voice crackled, “Station―station is all clear. Ryman can come aboard.”

  Cormac looked Ludmilla and Sergei over before responding. “You got that Ryman? You should be able to follow our tethers right to the airlock, decompress and come in.”

  “Roger that Captain Ross. I am coming over to the station.”

  Driscoll came floating up from a passage leading to the Soyuz, pulling himself along. His face was flushed and pale, sweat beaded across his forehead despite the overall cool inside temperature. “I looked out the window, thought at first I was seeing things. I am sure―I saw it.

  “What?”

  Driscoll rubbed his eyes. “We are moving at seventeen thousand miles an hour and the horizontal outlook is constantly changing but―”

  “But what?”

  “I thought I saw the stars blot out and then this ‘Leviathan’ moved toward us.”

  “Did you get hit in the head by those Red’s? Any broken bones?”

  “No, just bruises. I’m serious, I saw something. Something huge, yet almost intangible.”

  “Dementia?”

  “Knock it off. I know what I saw.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” Driscoll looked out the portal, scanning for anything beyond the stars. “It’s gone. But it was something real.”

  Cormac rolled his eyes and made a face. “Probably just one of the Ivan’s doing the backstroke through the Detritosphere.” He rummaged through the cosmonaut’s supply cabinet, tossing things he was not interested in into the air where they floated haphazardly.

  Ludmilla, listening intently to Driscoll asked, “Was it toward the Gagarin quadrant?”

  Driscoll shook his head. “I don’t know where that is, but it was that way.” He pointed up above the Earth and toward the left of the station.

  She nodded. “We have been taking readings on strange energy above the poles. I have wondered what could be causing the radical fluctuations.”

  Cormac laughed. “They brought a bottle of vodka and some Cubans. I’m keeping ‘em.”

  “It was big, black as tar. I didn’t like how I felt seeing it,” said Driscoll, before turning to watch the deep gloom. “It was soul crushing. Made me question my faith.”

  “My father spoke of elder things when I was a girl. Malevolent beings that watch our world. They hunger and look with disdain upon mere mortals who dwell in the light.”

  “Why would God allow such a thing?”

  Ludmilla looked as if she wanted to respond, but couldn’t.

  “You sap.”

  Cormac lit one of the Cuban’s. The zero-G flame hung low and close on the match head like a blue swimmers cap instead of flaring orange as it would have on Earth. “You are playing right into her Commie hands. Of course, Moscow Milla is gonna tell you there is a bogey man out there. Act like the operator you are and don’t fall for her tricks.”

  “Why are you smoking?”

  “For science? Why else do you think they brought them up here?”

  “Ryman hasn’t given us the go ahead to do whatever we want. There could be sensitive equipment and what about our air supply?”

  “Not my air. Besides the Red’s brought it. It shouldn’t be wasted,” he said, opening the vodka.

  “Keep your wits about you. I am sure I saw something out there.”

  “Muh-huh,” gurgled Cormac, as he guzzled a large burning mouthful.

  Ludmilla gave an audible sigh. “That was for celebration of successful station completion.”

  “Then why isn’t it gone?”

  “We were not yet complete.”

  “And the Cuban
’s?”

  “Commander Arkady had them. I do not think he intended to use them. I think he was to give them as gifts that have been to space.”

  “Yeah, that’s rich,” said Cormac, blowing plumes throughout the cabin.

  Driscoll intervened, “We still have a mission to do. I’d rather not have to put my helmet and air back on. Not to mention whatever is out there.”

  “Drop it will ya?” Cormac took another pull on the Kalishnakov vodka before putting the cap back on. “We all see weird things out there. Ice, rocks, capsule fragments. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Ludmilla took the vodka from a surprised Cormac saying, “It is true. Something is out there. You may check the data yourselves.” She took a swift swallow herself.

  “I may?” Though Cormac could speak and read Russian, he could not fathom the Soviet scientific equipment Ludmilla directed him toward. “No thanks, I didn’t bring my decoder ring.”

  “You are a very bitter man. Who did this to you? A woman, yes?” she said taking a second pull.

  Cormac ignored her and clicked his radio. “Ryman, you in the airlock yet?”

  A long static crackle materialized into Ryman’s voice. “I am just taking in the majesty of night. This is as close as I have ever been to the True Greater Dark. I can almost touch the void.”

  “Yeah. You’d better get in here, Driscoll is having as many flights of fancy as you are.”

  “You have no conception of the very gravity of the situation Captain Ross.”

  “Gravity? It’s Zero-G, Ryman. Get in here and maybe we can sort things out and get going on the mission.”

  “Patient as ever Captain Ross, always the dutiful soldier. I am reaching the airlock.”

  “Good. Make sure you have that outer hatch fully locked. Then press the button with the Cyrillic flat-topped A.”

  “Yes, I am about to climb in. It is more difficult than I would have thought. My hands are sore―I―Damn you! No!”

  “What is it? Ryman?”

  Unintelligible groaning echoed over the intercom.

  “What do we do?” asked Driscoll.

  “Is he inside the airlock?” Cormac directed the question at Ludmilla.

  She shook her head. “He has not opened the hatch. It is safe. When you open one side, the other cannot be opened.”