The Void

by Greig Beck

  He used the shield to deflect one blow, but the Morg swiped at him with the other hand open and long claws extended, and the only thing that stopped the HAWC from being shredded was the armored suit he wore.

  Morag saw her chance, and scuttled across the floor to the gun. She snatched it up, and began fiddling with it, trying to determine how it worked.

  The Morg lurched closer. She pointed the gun and fired – nothing happened.

  “Shit!” She began frantically pressing buttons and spinning dials on the device, but nothing she did could get the gun to work.

  Alex was thrown to the ground and he quickly got to one knee as the Morg brought hammer-like blows down on top of him. He managed to keep the shield up over himself, but the thumps on the whirring disc began to make the shield distort and fragment in the air. The blows were so powerful, she even saw Alex start to sink down into the metal flooring of the shuttle.

  Morag ripped the weapon back up, and drew in a breath to calm herself and focus – there, a small near-hidden button beside the trigger. She pressed it, and immediately a tiny light went green.

  “Bingo.” She held up the gun, fired – and missed. There was no recoil, but a softball sized hole opened in the fuselage over the Mitch-Morg’s head. She tried to re-aim, but the frenzied movements began again, making it impossible to follow the pair, and she knew that if she hit the HAWC leader it’d be all over for them both.

  The Morg clasped its hands together into a club and brought them down with lightning speed. Alex used the shield to block the blow, but he was fatiguing, and this time only just managed to get the shield up over his head.

  The next blow was so hard that the shield finally dissipated, some sort of warning light lit up on the gauntlet he wore, and then the shield simply vanished.

  With a squeal of triumph, the Mitch-creature lunged at Alex, grabbing him by the still-raised arm, and began to swing him around like a rag doll, his body going from floor to ceiling and then wall in seconds. The entire craft rung from the impacts, and Alex’s body became looser with every hit.

  Morag knew no human being could sustain the amount of damage that was being inflicted on the man, and he must have multiple broken bones, if he could even survive. Alex Hunter was then lifted and thrown against the wall. The metal of the ship actually dented outwards, and when he fell, this time he stayed down.

  With Alex out of the way, now was her chance. She sucked in a huge breath, aimed …

  “Hey, motherfucker!”

  The thing rounded on her, and she fired. This time, she hit it. The thing’s eye cluster disappeared in a spray of shell, mottled flesh, and black blood.

  “Yeah!”

  Its mouth sagged open and the Morg staggered around drunkenly for a moment before collapsing.

  Morag stared, keeping the RG3 pointed at it for several seconds, before her head snapped around to Alex. He still lay unmoving against the inner wall of the Orlando. She dropped the gun and scrambled toward his broken body, lifting him and cradling his head and shoulders in her arms.

  “Alex.” She shook him gently. “Alex, please wake up.” She felt the bones poking out at unnatural angles beneath his suit and knew he was severely hurt. “Oh no.” She knew she’d never be able to carry or drag him back, and guessed she’d be out of air anyway, long before she even got half way.

  She pulled his upper body further onto her lap, sitting there, and beginning to rock back and forth. She shifted toward the opening in the craft that was turning black with the thick vapor hanging in dense sheets.

  Morag sighed. “Yeah, why don’t we just sit here for a while?”

  There was a popping sound, and then from under her hands there was a weird sliding sensation from within Alex’s body. She jerked her hands away. Looking down she saw one of the jutting bones sticking from his shoulder pull back into place with the sound of cracking wood.

  “What the hell?”

  Alex got hot, real hot. She felt the heat right through his suit, to the point of it becoming unbearable against her.

  “I don’t believe it,” she whispered as he groaned. These beings called HAWCs weren’t normal men and women. They were like the Morg, a species apart. They were brutal giants, titans, bred for war and conflict.

  He’s different, Sam Reid had said.

  Alex breathed in and out deeply, as if sleeping or in a coma.

  She began to smile, but it immediately dropped when she heard the gentle liquid sound behind her. She spun in time to see the long sticky tendrils edging out of the asteroid fragment to gently touch on the Mitch-Morg creature again.

  “Oh, fuck no.” Her eyes went to the gun, and she cursed herself for dropping it.

  The tendrils felt along the body, found the head and then the massive hole in the sunken face. They stopped moving for a moment, before pulling back slightly. With a sound like pulling a foot from a sucking bog, the mass in the asteroid fragment started to lift itself free.

  To Morag’s horror, from inside the meteorite fragment a solid gelatinous mass that was all lumps, folds, and branching veins rose. Repulsively, it throbbed, like a heart, or – she grimaced behind her mask – a giant brain.

  The long tentacles had given up on the obliterated body of the Morg and began to reach toward her and Alex. She couldn’t see any eyes or sensory organs on the thing, but somehow it knew they were there. And she also knew that it saw them both. Her problem was the feelers were now between her and the gun.

  She started to shake the still-groggy Alex. “Come on, wake up. I need you.”

  Morag turned back, seeing the pulsating mass that had been a deep purple when it rose, was now glowing red on the side closest to them. The tendrils started to extend like long elastics toward them. She had seen what happened to Anne when they took hold of her, and she was damned sure it wasn’t going to touch her.

  She needed more time. Morag grabbed at Alex and started to yank him along the ground, feeling her back pop and complain as she jerked the extremely heavy man through the debris and slime.

  “Come …”

  – tug –

  “on …”

  – tug –

  “… you, heavy bastard.”

  He slid, only a few inches at a time, but she was managing to at least keep them away from the questing tendrils. She kept at it, until she heard a wet plop, and she looked up.

  “Shit.”

  The thing was gone from the meteorite fragment.

  Morag let Alex go and came upright. She spun about. The inside of the craft was in near darkness due to the spore mist coupled with the fading natural light, plus there were no windows other than the door that Alex had blown inward when he arrived.

  “Oh no, no, no.” She backed up a step, and then stopped to hold her breath and listen.

  There was no sound, nothing. A few drops of slime still came from the edge of the meteorite fragment, and there was a spattered pile of it underneath where the thing had obviously landed, but there was no trace. There wasn’t even a telltale slime trail.

  She licked her lips, but her tongue felt like a dry stick in her mouth. The upside of the thing being gone from the rock was the gun was still lying where she had left it and not blocked by the long ropey tendrils. She swallowed dryly. She could get it now.

  “Okay.” She looked down at Alex. His eyelids fluttered, as he slowly came to. “Okay.” She repeated to calm herself. She’d get the gun, and then she’d either drag Alex outside, or damn well wake him up one way or another.

  Morag looked toward the opening on the side of the craft – half a dozen steps at most – easy. Maybe the thing had already fled. She winced, not knowing what was worse, the thing maybe being outside waiting for them, or it still being inside here, hiding and waiting to strike.

  Stupid question – inside here with us was worse. She’d be like greased lightning, get the gun, and then get the fuck out. She’d taken out one Morg, and she could drill a hole right through the fucking blob thing too if it got in her w
ay. Morag looked down at Alex one last time.

  “Back soon, handsome.”

  She started toward the gun. One foot in front of the other, treading lightly, concentrating on listening. The gun was only six steps away, five, four, just three more and it’d be hers. She took another step and heard a droplet.

  She paused. She heard another – no – felt another. She held up her hand and looked down seeing a drop of slime fall onto her suit’s arm.

  “Oh, shit.” She looked up. The thing was on the ceiling – right over her.

  It dropped.

  CHAPTER 40

  The helicopter skidded sideways in the air for hundreds of feet as the normally unflappable pilot cursed everything from the wind to his superior officers for sending them out.

  In the cargo hold, senior airman Andy Gibson held on and snickered as they first tipped one way then the other. He felt the helicopter bank in the air, coming around in a huge loop, probably to try for another drop.

  Andy had little to do but hang on and make sure the crate was secure. He looked again at the large solid box, about six square feet. He had no idea what was in there, and it was well above his pay and security grade to even bother asking. All he did know was that his one and only job was to hook it up to a chute, and push it out the enormous rear door when he was given the green light. What happened to it after that was someone else’s problem.

  Even though he wore earphones, he could still hear the banshee scream of the wind against the metal skin of the helo. Then they yawed hard again in the air.

  “Jesus Christ, man,” Andy spat and grabbed at the rope mesh inside the chopper’s rear.

  Scoffel, the pilot, cursed again, and then sounded like he spoke through gritted teeth. “No way it can be done from this height. I’m gonna have to call time on this one.”

  “Knew it,” Andy muttered on hearing Scoffel’s words – he’d expected as much. They had been ordered to stay at least a thousand feet up from the drop zone, and try to launch a package with a chute onto a target only couple of miles wide, with wind busting through at around eighty miles per hour. Andy knew his pilot was good, but no one, at no time, was going to be able put the package down on the mountaintop. The crate would freaking end up in Mother Russia.

  He shook his head and continued reading from a tablet he held in the cavernous interior. He heard the pilot request an “RB” – return to base – and was waiting on the reply.

  It came. “Roger that.” The pilot sounded understandably relieved.

  “Knew it,” Gibson repeated and sighed. He had nothing to do now but chill out. He looked up at the crate. “Sorry, going home.”

  The explosion of wood was loud enough to smash past his earphones, and looking up he caught the last of the flying splinters coming at his face. He just had time to raise an arm to cover his eyes, and just as well, as he felt the shattered wood come at him like bullets.

  In his ears, the pilot’s voice sounded confused and angry, as though Andy had decided to hold a barn dance in the chopper’s hold. But Andy’s first thought was to question exactly what it was that HQ had kept in the crate that had detonated.

  But when he dropped his arm and the debris settled he thought he had just gone insane. His mouth dropped open, and all he could do was stare.

  CHAPTER 41

  Andy Gibson pointed, his mouth working for several seconds, before a word would finally come.

  “Loo … look!”

  The wooden crate had been obliterated. But what stood in its place made him think he had been hit in the head and was now hallucinating. A slim, silver figure stood in the center of the mound of broken wood, and it seemed to be listening for a moment or two. It then turned its head toward him and stared, he guessed, because it was hard to tell as there was no face, other than a slight red glow where two eyes should have been.

  “What the hell is going on back there?” Scoffel’s yelling shook Andy.

  “It’s wearing a suit.” He still pointed.

  Then the figure moved, fast. Andy threw his arms up, but it ignored him completely, instead heading toward the side door of the helicopter. Andy knew the doors could not be unlocked manually unless the pilot flipped the release from the cockpit, but the figure placed a hand either side of the doorframe.

  “Hey.” Andy half rose to his feet.

  The figure continued to ignore him and impossibly, started to pull the doors apart with the sound of screeching steel, followed by an alarm from the cockpit.

  “Hey, don’t do that!”

  Andy braced himself as air began to rush in, creating a freezing mini tornado in the back of the chopper.

  “Airman Gibson, what the hell is happening back there?” The maelstrom entering the chopper drowned out Scoffel’s furious voice, and Andy backed up then, easing away from the silver being even though it acted like he didn’t exist. But what did scare the shit out of him even more was that they were at least a thousand feet above the mountaintop, and an open door without tethering meant a slight tilt on the craft and someone had better learn to fly real quick.

  “Shut that door, airman!” Scoffel spluttered. “Shut that fucking door, right now!”

  Andy sat down and held on tighter than he had ever held on in his life and watched the strange silver creature stare out of the open door for a few more moments, before facing him again. He could have sworn it nodded once, before turning back, and simply diving out.

  “Jesus Christ.” Andy felt his stomach flip, either from a surge of adrenaline or relief.

  “What the hell is happening?” Scoffel’s voice was so high it sounded like he had been sucking on helium.

  Andy grinned a little madly. “Ah, Scoffel, buddy, looks like our payload just decided to deliver itself.” He touched his lips as he suddenly realized they were icing up. “Better tell HQ we might have a problem.”

  CHAPTER 42

  The scream jolted Alex to full consciousness. From the floor of the space shuttle he spun one way, then the next, and found Morag, her upper body covered in some sort of bag-like creature with hundreds of thrashing, thread-like arms that pulled and jabbed at her suit trying to force its way in.

  He leaped for her, grabbing the thing, but found it hard to grasp as it was boneless and slid from his hands with a revolting greasiness that made it impossible to grip.

  Morag screamed and danced, her panic was becoming all-encompassing as she ran at the side of the craft to bang her head and the thing into the steel wall.

  “Stay still.” He followed, punching a hand hard down into the mass, rupturing its surface and then seizing something that felt like muscle strands inside the thing. He dragged it back, and obviously sensing a threat, the creature let go of the woman and began to grip his arms instead. It started to work its way up toward his face visor.

  “Get back,” Alex yelled, as he drew away from Morag.

  He threw the thing with all his strength and it smashed into the wall, but it immediately bounced back, moving at unbelievable speed, using its thrashing tentacles as limbs. It shot around the inside of the craft’s walls, heading back toward what it must have thought was easier prey – Morag.

  She shrieked and dove for the discarded RG3. She snatched it up, spun and fired without aiming. The woman’s teeth were gritted as she punched large holes in the floor, walls and ceiling.

  Alex leaped out of the way as Morag continued to fire and miss, as the thing dodged and weaved, and went from the floor to wall to roof faster than the eye could follow and much faster than Morag could aim and shoot.

  It paused in a corner for a moment, pulsating a flaring red, every atom of its being displaying a hot fury. But its inactivity was enough; Morag fired, and this time hit it.

  The shot blew away some of the tentacles, but the others simply grabbed them and drew them back into the mass. It scuttled behind some debris, and she continued to spit projectiles into the area. After a few seconds, a large hole began to open in the shuttle wall.

  “Cease fir
ing.” Alex slowly rose, waving her down.

  He could sense pain, anger, and frustration coming off the thing in waves. It was hurt, but still dangerous.

  Then he heard it again – the sound, the thrumming buzz that was now almost sing-song in its cadence. Alex frowned.

  “Oh Jesus.” He spun to Morag. “The sound, the humming … I think it’s calling.”

  “Huh? What, to us?” Morag spun back to the thing. “Well I’m not buying.”

  “No, to the others. The Morg,” Alex responded.

  “Shit. Then we kill it now, and get out the hell of here.” She hefted the gun.

  Alex felt a gentle probe to his mind, and he turned to focus on the thing. He pushed in and could feel it then, feel the weird intellect that was so alien to anything he had ever encountered in his life. He drove deeper, and saw its plans, saw its desires and its hungers, and then he saw its home world, a place of towering trunks that dripped slime and wriggled with life. There was no sky, just billowing clouds of spore-laden gases.

  He winced – a tiny spot of pain began as more was revealed. He saw things that defied description; they flew overhead on membrane wings, walked on sharp dagger-like legs or on column-thick stumps, and some burrowed through the muck. There were those that were tiny, or some the size of dogs that were more like bony-plated sea creatures, and some were enormous and trumpeted like elephants from mouths that had moving parts and hanging tentacle feelers.

  But Alex knew their secret; they were all slaves, all somehow linked and subservient to the hive mind that belonged to the thing in the asteroid fragment. This was the horror that had come from the void, and either arrived here by accident or design. It had done this to countless worlds. And now it wanted them.

  The pain struck him then; the spike to the mind, the cleaver, the axe, the ice pick all in one. Alex threw hands up to either side of his head, and couldn’t help the scream that tore from his lips. He pounded at the helmet he wore trying to drive it out, as if there were blaring sirens in his skull.