Speed of Darkness

by Tracy Hickman

  1B/BOWERS: “There’s nothin’ out here, Smith-puun! We’re just burning circles in the air.”

  1A/SMITH-PUUN: “Be grateful, Bowers, ’cause if there was anything out here . . .”

  LC/BREANNE: “Keep the chatter off the command channel! Second Squad, you take the western side. Make your way between the condensers and circle around to the administration center!”

  MET: 00:04:27

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Roger. We’re on it. Sejak, you go with Mellish and check out the condensers. The rest of you come with me.”

  3A/JENSEN: “You all heard the lady, let’s move! Cutter, you follow Alley and Xiang up the main street here. Ekart, you’re with Melnikov and Bernelli. Go right down that road and then make your way north toward the . . .”

  1D/PEACHES: “Hey, Smith-puun! Did you see that?”

  1A/SMITH-PUUN: “You heard the lady, Windom. Cut the chatter . . .”

  1D/PEACHES: “Something’s moving down there!”

  1A/SMITH-PUUN: “Where?”

  1B/BOWERS: “There’s nothin’ moving, I tell ya!”

  MET: 00:04:28

  3D/MELLISH: “Sarge? Can we walk on this—this creepy stuff?”

  3A/JENSEN: “It’s called creep, Melnikov. Yeah, you can walk on it. It looks wet, but it’s probably harder than your power armor.”

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Keep moving those sensors around, ladies. The sooner we find this thing, the sooner we get back for chow.”

  1E/WINDOM: “Peaches is right, Corp, there’s something moving down there.”

  1B/BOWERS: “You’re seeing things, Windom!”

  1D/PEACHES: “No, I see it, too. Over by the com tower, in the shadows!”

  LC/BREANNE: “Let’s get this over with and get out. Marz, anything yet?

  MET: 00:04:29

  DS/VALKYRIE: “Not yet, Lieutenant . . . keep ’em moving.”

  2D/MELNIKOV: “Hey, I think I’m getting something here . . .”

  LC/BREANNE: “Melnikov . . . what is it?”

  2D/MELNIKOV: “Sarge, I think you need to take a look at this.”

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Where are you, Melnikov?”

  MET: 00:04:30

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Melnikov, say again. Where are you?”

  LC/BREANNE: “Littlefield, what’s going on?”

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Ekart, where’s Melnikov?”

  2G/EKART: “I’m not the kid’s baby-sitter, Sarge.”

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Ekart, answer me.”

  2G/EKART: “Look, he was behind me a minute ago!”

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Bernelli?”

  2C/BERNELLI: “He’s just around the corner, Sarge.”

  2A/LITTLEFIELD: “Can you see him?”

  2C/BERNELLI: “Well, he’s just . . . Hey, where did he go?”

  MET: 00:04:31

  LC/BREANNE: “Melnikov, report!”

  MET: 00:04:32

  LC/BREANNE: “Melnikov! Report!”

  CHAPTER 6

  RABBIT HOLE

  ARDO FELL. There was a timelessness about his fall, a descent into blackness that seemed never to end. His helmet slamming against the unseen sides of the dark shaft punctuated his freefall. His arms and legs wrenched and twisted with impact from time to time but were saved from serious damage by the automatic safety servos of the battle armor. Still he fell, farther and farther into the unknowable blackness beneath him.

  He landed with a shock, rubble cascading around him as he slammed facedown against the hard floor of the shaft. The suit had saved his life, reacting automatically to his descent, but now the broken and collapsing edges of the shaft overhead tumbled down around him, burying him deep in the bowels of a world that was not his own.

  Panic gripped him. He screamed: a scream that rattled weak and hollow in his own ears despite its rebounding within his helmet. He thrashed his arms and legs wildly against the debris, kicking at the dark objects rolling about him. He staggered to his feet, losing his balance in his haste and falling backward once more, his arms and legs flailing as he tried to find some purchase. His back slammed against the smooth wall behind him. There, his quivering legs beneath him at last, he stood leaning against the wall, gulping air and trying desperately to regain control of himself.

  Darkness surrounded him, complete and utter.

  Ardo shuddered, struggling against his quick and shallow breaths. “Take a deep breath, Ardo,” his mother said, concern in her eyes. “Don’t say anything until you’ve taken a deep breath.”

  He sucked in a shivering breath.

  “Melnikov to . . . Melnikov to . . . Cutter!” It took him a moment to remember the name. “Cutter . . . Come in, Cutter!”

  Only faint hissing sounded in his ears.

  Ardo took another hesitant deep breath.

  “Ekart? . . . Bernelli? Can you . . . can you read me? Come in, Ekart! Bernelli! I’ve fallen down a shaft at . . .”

  At where? The heads-up display of his visor was blank. The navigational display was flashing LOS, which meant it was no longer in contact with the navigational beacon back at the base. How far had he fallen, anyway? He remembered that he had been walking along on top of the creep, sweeping down the east side toward the tower.

  Ardo’s breath froze. The creep!

  Instinctively, he leveled the muzzle of his gauss rifle in front of him with his right hand. His left hand reached down behind him to feel along the wall at his back. The powered glove of the battlesuit slid smoothly along the ribbed, slick surface.

  “Damn!” he breathed, eyes suddenly wide with fear.

  Ardo gripped the gauss rifle with both hands, pushing himself away from the wall. He leaned slightly forward into the rifle as he had been trained to do. “Light! Full spectrum!”

  The helmet-mounted illuminators suddenly flashed brightly to life.

  The Zergling was at least ten meters down the spore colony tunnel that appeared immediately to Ardo’s left. The horrendous creature turned suddenly to face the light, just as Ardo got his bearings. The long, deep-ivory talons extending from each of its forearms snapped toward the terrified Marine. The Zergling’s vomit-brown head cowl reared back as it screeched hideously.

  Ardo had no time to think. Training. Instinct. He swiveled the weapon around as the display in his helmet switched automatically to attack mode.

  The Zergling lunged down the corridor, its massive hind legs with razor-spine edges propelling it at incredible speed directly toward the Marine.

  “Thou shalt not kill,” the voice whispered unheeded at the back of his mind.

  Ardo pulled the trigger, leaning into the rifle as he did.

  Steel-tipped infantry slugs tore from the muzzle of the gauss automatic rifle at thirty rounds per second. Fifteen sonic booms rattled in the air.

  Ardo released the trigger. Short bursts. Training.

  Fully half the initial burst had found its mark, ripping through the flesh of the Zergling, splattering the walls with the detritus. Greenish-black ichor poured from the gaping holes punched in the creature’s torso.

  The Zergling did not slow.

  Ten meters separated them now.

  Ardo pulled the trigger once more. Longer bursts, he thought automatically, his conscious, screaming mind pushed aside.

  The gauss rifle chattered again, the tracers registering in Ardo’s facial display, correcting his aim at the juggernaut of death and hatred clawing toward him. Pieces of the creature’s carapace broke away, slamming against the walls and clattering to the hard floor of the spore tunnel. Black blood spurted from the exposed arteries as the creature shook with each impact.

  Ardo released again.

  Five meters.

  The Zergling, frothing from its fanged mouth, reeled with the impacts but—impossibly—found its feet and lunged forward.

  Ardo, eyes wide with terror, jammed down on the trigger. The gauss rifle responded almost instantly, sending a stream of hot metal against and through his enemy. Still it pressed toward him against the steel-tipped h
ail slamming through it. Ardo’s training evaporated in that instant. A scream, raw and unconscious in its intensity, erupted from his throat. The animal within him took hold. The Confederacy ceased to exist. The Marines ceased to exist. There was just Ardo, his back against the wall, fighting for his life.

  One meter.

  Ardo’s eyes were fixed open, unblinking, as the hideous, alien face loomed closer still.

  The gauss rifle stopped chattering despite Ardo’s fanatical grip on the trigger. The magazine was empty.

  The smooth, mottled brown of the Zergling face smashed against Ardo’s faceplate. Ardo could not look away. He peered into the black, soul-less eyes just inches from his face. His hands mindlessly shook the assault rifle, hoping against reason that it would somehow, impossibly, start up again.

  Ardo could not stop screaming.

  Slowly, the face of the Zergling slid down the faceplate, its torso bumping against Ardo’s arms.

  Ardo scrambled backward, the boots of his battlesuit slipping slightly as he kicked himself back away from the shattered remains of the revolting creature. Ardo shakily ejected the magazine from the assault rifle. He banged the new magazine against his head to clear any sand, more out of instinct than any real need, before he slammed it home in the rifle and primed the weapon once more.

  The Zergling lay at his feet. Nearly half of the carapace had been shot away. Ardo could see one of its arms had been severed and blown back to rest on the ground farther down the spore corridor. A widening pool of black was spreading across the corridor floor beneath it.

  It still breathed.

  “All creatures of our God and King,” his mother sang. “Lift up your voice and hear us sing . . .”

  Ardo began to shake uncontrollably.

  He was twelve in Sunday school class. “But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption . . .” Beasts were interesting to a twelve-year-old. . . .

  The Zergling twitched before him. The beast’s dull, black eye stared back at him.

  “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life . . .”

  Ardo could not breathe.

  Panicked, he suddenly dropped his rifle. His hands clawed at the faceplate release. It resisted for a moment, and then slid sideways with a definitive click. He slammed the visor open as he fell down on all fours.

  His breakfast gushed in a cascade against the floor of the spore tunnel. His arms supported him but continued to shake uncontrollably. Again, he heaved; then again.

  It was not until then that he noticed the stench in the shaft other than his own. He belched twice and knew he was dry. He wiped his hand on his now-soiled battle armor before he reached up and snapped the visor shut against the smell.

  Finally, spent and weak, he tried to push himself back up. He found that he could not stand. So he sat with his back against the wall of the shaft and drew his armored knees up to his chest.

  “Thou shalt not kill . . .”

  The Zergling stopped twitching. He watched it die in front of him and wondered how he could have taken a life—life that only God could grant.

  Ardo had killed.

  “Thou shalt not kill. . . .”

  The Marine began to weep quietly, rocking back and forth as he squatted at the bottom of the shaft.

  He had killed. He had never killed before. He had been trained, conditioned, drilled, and simulated more ways and times than he could ever recall. But until this moment, he had never truly deprived anything of its life.

  His mother had taught him it was a sin to kill. His father had taught him to respect all life, as life was a gift from God. Where were his parents now? Where was their faith now? Where was their hope? Dead with them on a distant world called Bountiful. Destroyed by these same mindless demons from hell, he told himself. Yet the words sounded hollow to him, excuses for the truth, as his father used to say to him.

  “. . . and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

  Ardo drew his knees up tighter. He could not seem to think.

  The display on the inside of his visor began to flash insistently. The motion sensors had picked up activity in the blackness of the spore tunnel that stretched before him, but Ardo’s mind seemed frozen, unable to grasp its importance.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Ardo mumbled through his tears. “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to . . .”

  The headset began to crackle in his ears.

  “An eye for an eye . . . a tooth for a tooth . . .”

  Ardo hugged his knees tighter.

  “. . . down . . . Sarge! . . . this hole!” The crackling began to form words. Ardo barely heard them, as if they were from a conversation a great distance away.

  The faceplate display locked onto the motion. The readout began updating: sixty meters and closing.

  “. . . this shaft.” Suddenly the sound came clear into Ardo’s ears. He vaguely recognized the voice as Bernelli’s. “Shit! Must be a hundred feet down. Hey, Melnikov! You still . . .”

  Ardo blinked and took a shuddering breath.

  Multiple contacts appeared on his visor display. Their number was steadily increasing.

  “. . . down an old well shaft, Sarge,” the voice continued to crackle in his ears. “The creep must have covered it over and he fell through. I think I can see him but he ain’t answerin’ me.”

  Forty meters and closing.

  Mom was gone. Dad was gone. Melani was gone. I’m the only one left to remember them, Ardo realized.

  Thirty-five meters and closing.

  He looked up. He could see the lights from Bernelli’s suit flashing in the distance above.

  Someone has to live.

  “I’m here,” he called up as he reached quickly down and retrieved his gauss rifle from the debris-covered floor. He quickly pulled the grapple from his belt and slid it down the muzzle of the rifle. “Stand back; grapple’s coming up.”

  “Hey, man, we thought we’d lost you!”

  “Not today,” he called back.

  Thirty meters and closing.

  He fired the grapple straight up the shaft. The monofilament line whipped upward, spooling out from the automated winch in the back of his power armor.

  He looked back down the shaft just as he activated the lift. A cold smile formed on his tear-streaked face as his feet quickly cleared the floor of the spore tunnel.

  “Not today.”

  CHAPTER 7

  SPIT AND POLISH

  CUTTER’S ENORMOUS FISTS REACHED DOWN AND dragged Ardo up out of the hole, combat armor and all. He had barely cleared the lip of the cave-in before three of his squad began firing down into the hole he had just vacated. “Sarge!” Alley cried out, a little more excitement in his voice than he would have liked. “They’re coming up. Shit! There’s no end to ’em!”

  “Don’t just stand there, damn it! Fire at will!” Littlefield shouted through the command channel.

  “Hoggin’ it all, were you, punk?” the islander growled through his faceplate pressed against Ardo’s own. “Thought you might just be the hero of the hour takin’ ’em on all by yourself?”

  “Back off, Cutter,” Littlefield said sharply. “The lieutenant wants a word with this kid right now. Alley! You keep up the suppressing fire. Ekart, Xiang, start fragging this hole right now! Bernelli, you set a charge. When you’ve finished with them, I don’t want the Zerg even thinking of putting a hole here again! Soon as you can, get your butts over to the Admin Office. Keep an eye out. If there’s one spore hole there’s bound to be more and I don’t want any of them tappin’ me on the shoulder. Clear?”

  The squad nodded their consent as they rained death down the hole at their feet.

  “Cutter, keep an eye on these whelps and get them back to me in one piece.�
�

  “Damn it, Sarge!” Cutter protested. “I haven’t killed a thing all day!”

  Littlefield seemed to consider the Firebat Marine for a moment. There was sadness in his eyes but his voice was solid and clear. “You’ll have plenty lined up for you before the day’s out, Cutter. I’ll need those men. Get them back to me, clear?”

  “Clear, sir,” Cutter sniffed. “Glass-clear.”

  Littlefield turned to Ardo. “On the quick, Marine! Let’s go!”

  Sergeant Littlefield wasted no time and had bounded several steps ahead of Ardo before the younger Marine caught on. Littlefield ran through the alleys of Oasis while Ardo tried desperately to keep up. The creep was still underfoot. Ardo expected at any moment to crash once more through the brittle crust and tumble into a worse situation than before. Much as he feared that, there was something deep inside him that feared disobeying the sergeant’s orders even more.

  The tactical channel did not give him a clear picture of what was going on, but what he understood did not sound good.

  “Holy shit, man! They’re not stoppin’!”

  “Keep fraggin’ ’em, man!”

  “I am, man! I’m nearly out . . .”

  “Stand back, you ladies! Time to light me some Zerg!”

  Cutter, Ardo thought as he ducked down another alley, trying desperately to keep up with Littlefield.

  Oasis had been a small outpost. There was little to offer here other than the work, which the wells and multiple pumping stations provided. Homes were largely of the modular variety, each showing the very temporary nature of their construction. The central district of the settlement had a small number of shops, which served the locals.

  At least, they used to serve the locals. The creep had extended itself down the length of the central section of the town. There must be a bloom around here somewhere, Ardo thought, but he was having trouble keeping up with Littlefield through the maze of haphazardly placed buildings and had little time to think about it.

  “. . . it’s shifting, Sergeant! The creep is starting to move!”

  “Well, find the bloom. We find that and we can take it all out.”

  “I’ve been looking. It just ain’t here.”