The Icarus Void

by CK Burch

  Gaines still hadn't replied. The bastard. He had to come in at some point, come in and let them both up. Well, Udeh at least. Kerrick was still making the creepy eyes at the ceiling, still as a rock. He couldn't even hear her breathing. Was she dead?

  The medbay doors slid open and two orderlies walked in. ″Everyone okay?″ they asked.

  ″Please get me out.″ Udeh kept his voice even somehow. That was good, a good sign. Maintaining control in the face of panic meant that his attack was passing little by little.

  One of the orderlies came in his direction, but the other one was staring at Kerrick. ″Holy shit. Jeffries, come here.″

  Jeffries, the one who'd been closest to Udeh, joined his companion over Kerrick's inert body. ″My god. Is she in a coma?″ Jeffries tapped a few buttons on the medbed console and looked at the other orderly. ″Aw, fuck. The damn thing isn't even registering a biosignature anymore. Pop it open, we need to move her to a different bed.″

  No, no, no, move me, move me damn it! No, stay calm, stay calm. They were going to help Kerrick, then help him. His turn was coming. He'd waited for a little while now, he could wait a little while longer.

  The first orderly leaned over and opened up the restraints on the medbed, but as soon as he'd released Kerrick's arms she reached up, grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled his neck into her mouth. Kerrick bit down hard without hesitation and severed the man's artery almost instantly. The orderly screamed and began waving his arms desperately, trying to bat Kerrick away, but his motions were impotent and his blood sprayed all over Kerrick's face and torso. He tried to pull away, tried to push away, but it was a fountain of blood from him, so much so that the man seemed to weaken right away. Udeh stared in horror.

  ″Let him go!″ Jeffries reached forward and tried to pry the other man out of Kerrick's mouth, but she surprised him by releasing her maw immediately and then clamping down on Jeffries's outstretched hand. He howled in pain and jerked his arm back hard, but her grip with her teeth was so strong that her body was pulled out of the bed with the movement and she fell to the floor, dragging Jeffries down with her.

  Udeh didn't panic. He didn't react from claustrophobia. He reacted from surprise and fear that he was next. ″GAINES! GAINES!″ he shouted, desperately fighting against the restraints over his chest and arms, but it did no good; they were sealed in place. Meanwhile, on the floor, Kerrick was continuing to use her fucking teeth to hold on to Jeffries's hand, looking like a mad dog refusing to let go. Jeffries was pale, shocked, close to fainting. Udeh watched as his eyes finally rolled back in his skull from blood loss, and he fell over.

  Kerrick got up from the floor and turned to look directly at Udeh. Holy god. So much blood had been sprayed over her face that it looked like warpaint. She brushed back a lock of hair that was clumped together with plasma, a knotted dirty dreadlock of blood. Her eyes were the worst: they were absolutely clear. There was no trace of madness, or bloodlust, or crazed direction within those eyes. They were calculating and focused, trained right on Udeh, and he did not like that one bit.

  She took a step towards him, but that was all. ″Do you want me to go home?″ she asked.

  Udeh blinked. He didn't understand.

  Kerrick flexed her knuckles and took another step forward. ″Do you want me to go home?″ she asked again, her voice calm and cool.

  Udeh tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. He quickly worked up some spit and asked, ″Do you want to go home? Is that what you want?″

  Her lips twitched and her neck tightened. ″No.″

  ″Then no. I don't want you to go home.″

  She relaxed. ″You're nice.″ Quickly, Kerrick walked into the back of the medbay, towards Gaines's office, and still Udeh did not move or try to speak. Her madness was the worst kind, the clear and calm kind, and he did not want to end up like the men on the floor. He had to think, had to wait. He wasn't sure what he was going to do.

  Kerrick came back a moment later, unchanged and nonplussed. ″He smells funny,″ she said. ″I don't like how he smells. And he's sleeping.″ She looked at Udeh, as if expecting a reply.

  ″Okay,″ Udeh said.

  ″I'm going to go take a walk.″ Kerrick looked around the medbay. She stepped over Jeffries and found a supply cabinet next to the bed she'd been in only a minute before, opened it, and removed a small plasma scalpel from the shelf. ″I'm going to take this just in case there are any bad men out there.″ She held it like a pen and looked at Udeh. ″You don't seem a like a bad man. I hope you have a nice nap. I'm going to take a walk.″

  ″Okay,″ Udeh said.

  Then Kerrick smiled and he wanted nothing more than for her to stop looking at him. The contrast of her blood over her face and her clean, white teeth flashing was terrifying. ″See you later!″ Her voice was high and girlish and young for a moment and then she skipped – she skipped – out of the medbay and the opaque doors closed behind her.

  Udeh rested his head back down on the medbed and closed his eyes. He did not know what the fuck he was going to do.

  ***

  ″Get out of there! Get the fuck out of there!″ Mac cut across the lowest part of the medical deck, then took a maintenance shaft down towards engineering. He was cutting it close; he had no idea where those fucking beasties were, and he didn't fucking care at this point. Right now he had to get down to engineering and try and secure the engines. If he could get down to them and reactivate the tesseract drive, then they could at least get the ship out of orbit and set up a distress beacon of some kind. The engines would be shot and unusable after that, which is what he'd been trying to avoid at all costs because the Icarus would just be a floating hunk of metal then, but fuck it, he didn't want to die burning in the chromosphere and he'd rather grind the fucking engines down to powder and live to fight another day. If he got to the engines.

  ″Chief, there's nothing down here! Not a single fucking thing! Are you sure about that?″ Clarke was talking to him over the comm, and the goddamn fool wasn't listening at all. Hadn't he heard the fucking quarantine signal go off? Stupid, stupid idiot. But he hadn't seen what Mac had seen, that hideous fucking wet fuck crawling through the vent. It was as big around as a man, maybe bigger, and the sound of its legs tap-tap-tap-tapping on the metal as it crawled had reopened a childhood fear. The sound of spiders clicking along the glass windows outside his bedroom. Oh the size of those fuckers. Mac hated bugs, arachnids most of all. That thing in the vent had looked nothing like an insect but it reminded him of one still, and he was not about to get close enough to one for another inspection.

  ″The captain said bridge sensors show those fucking things are headed for the engine bay! Get the crew off the engineering deck before the goddamn quarantine kicks in and its too late!″ He came to another junction and took it downward, towards engineering at last. There was one, no, two more junctions he needed to cross and then he would be right above the maintenance area, mere yards from the engine bay, and he would be able to restart them. If the beasties weren't in the bay already then there was a chance that he was going to beat them. He clicked his comm over to Burke on the bridge. ″Burke! Mac! You standing by on engine control?″

  ″Chief, we are just waiting on your word for operational status, and then we're punching it like you said.″

  ″Good! Five minutes! Be ready!″ He came to the vent he wanted, thank god, pushed it open and emerged into the maintenance area. He was on a catwalk above the main area of the bay. Down below he could see the maintenance bench where he'd conferred with Clarke and Hartman an hour ago. A couple of crew members looked up and waved, asked him what was going on, but he shouted at them to get the hell off the deck and kept running.

  He was crossing the engineering main area, when Clarke stepped in his way. ″Chief! Where's the goddamn fire? There's nothing here!″

  Above them, the quarantine alarm went off again. Mac mentally crossed himself. ″Get your fucking team off the deck, move, pronto! Don't take the ducts, use the
maintenance ladders in the lift shafts! I have to get the engines up!″ He tried to move on, but Clarke got in his way again. ″Goddammit Clarke, don't argue with me! We have to – ″

  All the lights in the engineering bay changed to the red quarantine illumination. They were here, somewhere, and a moment later he heard the first scream, behind and upwards. Both Mac and Clarke turned, and saw Hartman, holy Christ, Hartman was covered by one of the beasties up on the catwalk, its tentacles wrapping around his face, curling all the way around and fingering the back of his helmet. He was screaming and pushing at it, trying in vain to get the fucking thing off of him. ″Somebody help him!″ Clarke yelled, but then his jaw dropped open as the ceiling came to life: Jesus Christ, how many were there? They were coming through the ceiling ducts like cockroaches, crawling along the surface and dropping to the different levels of the deck below. Hartman's screams became higher pitched and muffled simultaneously. Everyone on the deck was jumping back from the spots where the crawlies were landing, in shock, unsure of what to do.

  ″For Christ's sake run!″ Mac screamed. They were just sitting there, oh fuck they were sitting ducks. Mac grabbed Clarke and spun him around. ″You have to override the quarantine seals! Only use the maintenance shafts! Go!″ He pushed Clarke away and turned for the engine bay.

  Behind him, more and more screams turned into a choir of chaos as he ran down the length of the deck. Mac had a morbidly funny thought, how he'd never tried running in a HES before, but now that he was running for his life it felt absurdly natural. He wanted to go back, save his crew, but he couldn't; he had to get the engines fully online or the whole of the ship and not just engineering would be dead shortly.

  ″Chief!″ Clarke, via comm. ″The quarantine seal won't open! I can't access the maintenance bay!″

  ″Keep trying, hack the damn thing!″ Mac switched over to Burke's frequency as he entered the engine bay and sealed the door shut behind him. ″Burke! Override the quarantine in engineering! Get my people out of there!″

  ″Chief, I don't have that clearance,″ Burke said. Her voice wavered; was she lying?

  ″Goddammit, Burke, open that fucking seal!″ Mac looked around: the conduit bridge between the two operating control rooms was still broken, blocked off. That was okay. If he bounced across the bay first, reactivated the fusion core on the port side, and then bounced back he wouldn't have to worry about heat temp in crossing. Mac stepped through the junction and waited impatiently as it depressurized. It took forever.

  ″CHIEF!″ Clarke. ″OH FUCK! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!″

  Mac closed his eyes and counted to ten. He couldn't help them. He had to focus. He couldn't fucking help them.

  The chamber finished the cycle and he leapt into the zero grav of the engine bay. He didn't bother engaging his magboots, he simply kicked himself in the direction of the port control room and flew beneath the massive engine cylinders. Clarke was screaming orders in the background to people, to grab tools and fend off the creatures. Mac switched to Burke again.

  ″Burke,″ he said as he landed on the port side. ″Please. Open up the quarantine.″

  ″I can't,″ Burke said. She sounded like she was crying. She knew what was going on. ″I don't – I don't have the clearance. Chief...″

  ″Fuck!″ Mac slipped into the port junction, waiting on the goddamn thing to repressurize. ″Clarke! Talk to me!″

  ″MOTHERFUCKERS! FUCK! FUUUUUCK!″

  ″Clarke! Listen! The bridge can't override the quarantine! You have to hack it! Clarke!″

  ″FUCK! FUCK!″

  Gravity restored. Mac was in the port control room now, beginning the hypercube startup cycle. Two minutes. Sweet Jesus, two whole minutes. Were those things right behind him still? Or were they confined to engineering only? And why were they flocking to engineering in the first place? What the fuck did they want?

  Mac tried to swallow; his whole throat was dry. ″Clarke,″ he said. There was no response. No background noise. No pickup. ″Clarke!″ he said again. Nothing. He tried Jessups's frequency, then Cartier's. Nothing. No one was answering.

  The hypercube initialization finished.

  ″Okay,″ he whispered. He had to assume that his team was gone. They'd been sealed in, and they were dead. All of them dead. That meant that he was going to be next. No way out of engineering, unless he could hack the override himself and make his way out of the bay unnoticed. But that had to wait. First was finishing engine startup. He moved to the grav junction and froze.

  There were half a dozen beasties floating about in the bay, quietly hovering in the zero g environment.

  Shit.

  Cautiously, he stepped into the junction and activated the depressurization. They were just floating there, still as stones. They should have been moving, floating in one direction or another, but they were motionless. To his left, through the wall he could feel and hear the tesseract rumble to startup mode, felt the warmth of it. The patch job on the heatshielding wasn't as good over here, but that didn't matter. All they had to do was burn the core long enough to get out of the chromosphere and then shut the engines down, which could be done from the bridge. But reactivating them had to be done down here.

  The depressurization finished. He waited a moment.

  Tentacles waved about, searching for something. There was light and heat in the bay, and the heat would become too intense for him to handle soon enough. It wouldn't burn through the suit, but he'd cook like a crab. Those beasties would vaporize, too. Which meant that if he could cross the bay fast enough, cautiously enough, he could get past them and startup the other engine and fry the fuckers.

  He opened the junction into the bay and activated his boots. One step at time, he inched his way forward, keeping his eyes trained on the crawlers floating, wriggling now, searching for something with their limbs. Could they sense the heat? The change in the environment? A realization came to him: had they come down here for the heat? That had to be it. The creatures were coming to the heat of the engines. Sweet fuck. He was turning them back on and really making some heat. If he got the engines fully online, they would swarm into here, not that the floaters were doing any –

  In the air, they began turning themselves around, so their tentacles were facing away from the engines, and then their bodies rippled and pulsed and they clapped the tentacles together, pushing them backwards towards the engines. As some of them came closer, their bodies expanded and contracted and they slowed down and came to a halt. They were exhaling. Jesus Christ they knew how to do this. This was nothing new to them. Mac almost couldn't take his eyes off of the floaters, but then he saw movement in his peripheral vision: more of them, coming through the duct high above the bay. Christ. He started forward again, and when he saw that they were paying him no attention, just going for the engine heat, he ran as fast as he could to the starboard junction and got inside.

  They were floating themselves around the port engine and beginning to cling to it, like barnacles. Some of them were changing color from oily black to a bloody orange, but that was fine. Let them soak up what was there. Once the hypercubes on both engines were fully active, they would get more than a little heat coming their way.

  Gravity restored and he stepped inside the control chamber. He jumped when Captain Markov's voice came through his helmet. ″Mac! Are you okay? What's happening?″

  ″Christ,″ he muttered. ″I'm in the engine bay. The beasties are swarming in here, I think they're going after the engine heat. I'm bringing the starboard side online, and then we'll have enough thrust to break us free of the Sun's orbit.″

  ″What about after? Will we be able to fly out of here, anywhere?″

  ″I'm sorry sir,″ Mac replied. ″It'll be lifeboats and shuttles only. We'll have to set up a beacon and take our chances.″ He stopped as he thought of his crew. ″There should be plenty of room, though.″

  Markov sounded like he got the unfortunate gist. ″Engineering?″ he asked.

  ″I don't kn
ow.″ Mac ran his fingers over the controls and activated the startup cycle. ″I don't know. I can't contact anyone. It sounded like a bloodbath.″

  ″Mac. I'm sorry.″

  Mac took a deep breath and watched as the power levels on the starboard side rose. ″We'll have time to be sorry later. Are you at the bridge?″

  ″I'm on my way to medical,″ he responded. ″We'll need supplies.″

  ″Right,″ Mac said. He suddenly felt very tired. Worn out and thin. He didn't want to continue moving on the way he had been for the last few hours. So much work, so much effort into rebuilding these goddamn engines, patching up the ship...so much work for nothing. He wondered if there was anyone in the maintenance bay behind him left alive. Probably didn't matter at this point. These things were lethal.

  Outside in the engine bay, the beasties had latched on to both thrusters now. Jesus, how many of the fucking things were there? He couldn't count; they were stacked in layers like scales. ″Captain,″ he said, ″the engines are up and running. I'm going to contact Burke on the bridge. The creatures seem to be collecting themselves on the engines, going towards the heat. Hopefully they'll fry a little bit when we pull out of orbit.″

  ″Right.″

  ″Sir. There are a lot of these fucking things. A lot. There's at least a score of them down here.″

  Markov paused. ″That's a hell of a lot more than I saw in the cargo bay. They must be still coming out of the artifact.″

  ″Well, I hope they get exactly what they came out here for.″ He switched over to Burke. ″Burke! Engines are fully online! If we're going to pull out of orbit, now's the goddamn time to do it!″

  ″Roger! Firing thrusters!″

  Mac watched gleefully as the engines rumbled and roared to life, and every single last one of those beasts on the thruster nacelles burned hot and bright, orange and then yellow and then white-hot. There were tinges of blue in the center of each.