by S. A. Lusher
Of course, Greg knew that there was no such rule. In fact, if anything, it seemed to go the other way: if something could fuck up, it would, given enough time. He brooded over this as he hustled down a central corridor with Kyra, Campbell, and Linda. Mike had gone back to headquarters. They were currently making for an airlock.
Lynch had informed them that after going through all that trouble to get the power back on, the oxygen systems had failed, and since they still kind of needed oxygen to stay alive, Greg needed to lead a small team onto the dead surface and make repairs. It was to be expected that Augmented would be waiting for them, as it was obvious by now that the half-machine, half-flesh nightmares were intent on fucking over the survivors.
They came to the end of the corridor, turned, and made their way down another. Greg glanced back at Linda.
“Tell me you've got something better than basic pressure suits.”
Linda nodded. “Yeah, don't worry.”
“Where is this place, anyway?” Campbell asked.
“They hit an exterior piece of equipment that helps route oxygen flow. It's about a hundred meters away from the airlock we're going to,” Linda replied.
They reached the end of the second corridor and passed through a small antechamber, which led them to an abandoned locker room. Linda led them over to a row of large lockers and pried one of them open.
A small, but sturdy-looking suit resided within. Linda pulled it out, opened it up, and pulled it on.
“This is the same model suit the miners use. It's very durable and can stand up to explosions and gunfire, for the most part. It's a good idea not to try and test it. Go grab one, pull it on, we're heading out onto the surface.”
They split up, each of them taking a locker. Greg held up his suit and gave it a once over. It was like a bulky jumpsuit. The material felt thin, but at the same time very strong. He frowned; still studying the black-gray material, then shrugged and pulled it on. He found a helmet and pulled it into place.
While the others suited up, Greg activated the small screen mounted on his left wrist, and when the option arrived, booted up the suit-check function. A few seconds passed and confirmed that all systems were working, he had an hour of oxygen and his suit's integrity had stood up to a standard pressure check.
He attached the holster and pistol to his hip, slung the shotgun across his back and the rifle over his neck. After that, he packed down his pockets with extra magazines of ammo. Feeling about as good as he was going to about all this, he turned and studied the others. They looked ready as well. Greg fired up the radio and tested it.
“Okay,” he said after they'd confirmed the radios worked. “Let's get this over with.”
They turned and made their way into one of two working airlocks left in the structure. Greg went first, rifle ready, just in case anything decided to come and wait for them just outside the exterior door.
Once everyone was in, he cycled them through. The door opened. Nothing but gray rock and the infinity of space awaited their inspection. Greg cautiously peered out, first left, then right. Nothing, although the exterior lights all along the left side were out. Never a good sign. He flicked on the flashlight mounted on the end of his rifle.
“Come on,” he said quietly.
The four suited figures emerged from the airlock, which closed without sound behind them. Greg played his light across the surface and the exterior wall, hunting for traps or anything lying in wait for them. He could see nothing, but the light didn't seem to extend very far. Silently, he led the way.
The exterior was ominous in a way that only the dead vacuum of space could be. From the way that he could hear himself breathing to the way he couldn't hear his own feet, everything about an airless environment made Greg's skin crawl. Not to mention the fact that if his suit ruptured, that'd pretty much be it.
He hoped these suits were as strong as Linda promised.
“What was that?” Campbell asked, his voice a ghostly whispering come over the radio.
Greg froze. “What? Where?”
“Thought I saw something up ahead. Light glinting off metal.”
Greg frowned and focused hard. His flashlight was turned up to maximum power. Distantly, several dozen meters ahead, he thought he could see a little bit of movement. His light glinted off something.
“That's likely some Drones, get ready,” he said.
They moved forward, weapons drawn, shifting position so that they weren't all in a single file and could all get a clear shot on the Drones. As they came within half a dozen meters, the light finally revealed a collection of Drones hanging around the exterior wall. He got things started with a three-round burst that tore away half the skull of the nearest Drone. They leaped into action, racing along the surface towards the squad.
Greg and the others kept up a steady rate of fire, and within seconds the half a dozen Drones were on the ground, motionless in the dead of space.
“That was easy,” Campbell murmured.
“Too easy,” Greg replied uneasily.
He glanced up.
Something sailed with perfect silence and grace through the air. Two feet, one of them booted, the other made of metal, crashed into his chest. Greg grunted as he was thrown to the rocky ground. Around him, chaos boiled. He saw more dark shapes sailing to the ground. He saw the sparks of gunfire in the eternal darkness. The whole of his attention honed in on the thing straddling his chest. A knife came for his neck.
He abandoned the grip on his gun, grabbed the wrists of the hands that were bringing a knife ever closer to him and pressed. It was like pushing against a bulldozer. The muscles were driven by machinery, able to survive in an exposed vacuum and clearly lacked any sense of mercy or pain. Greg shouted for help, but couldn't tell if anyone heard him. The battle still raged. Twin orbs of neon, cycling through the primary colors, glared down at him.
The tip of the blade dipped relentlessly forward.
Greg put all his strength into pushing back and managed to bring the blade to a standstill. It took the entirety of his effort. If he could just get his pistol out, he could shoot the thing in the fact, but even as it was, he wouldn't be able to keep it at bay for much longer. Suddenly, the pressure was released and the body flew off him.
The Drone had been shot in the head. Greg scrambled to his feet, bringing his rifle into play, and looked around.
“Don't worry, we got it,” Kyra said. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Greg replied. “Just great.”
He surveyed the scene of carnage and destruction. Another half dozen Drones lay dead and broken across the rocky ground. Linda made her way to a large piece of equipment that jutted out of the wall. Greg let her get to work, listening to her mutter to herself over the comms network, and gazed out over the surface of the moon. Kyra came to stand next to him while Campbell poked at the bodies they'd produced.
“These things are creepy,” he muttered.
“You okay?” Kyra asked.
“Yeah, I'm all right. Just a little scared. Those things are strong,” Greg replied.
They stood there together in silence for a long moment. Greg felt comforted by Kyra's presence, even though they were both in suits. He began wondering about their future. Provided they made it out of here and he wasn't somehow permanently infected, where would their relationship go? It was a tough question. Would she put up with his bullshit? Would he put up with hers? So far, she didn't seem to have any serious flaws, but he hadn't exactly had the time to sit down and really examine her. What was her great downfall?
At least he knew his: his memory. It made him boring. He had no stories to tell, at least none that didn't relate to zombies, secret government agencies, and artificial intelligences. He did remember that communication was fairly important in a relationship. You had to be able to communicate on a day-to-day basis.
He sighed, this was something to worry about later. If Kyra decided to leave him or, hell, if maybe he decided to leave her, then, well, he'd cros
s that bridge when he came to it. For now, he just had to worry about being alive.
“Shit,” Linda said suddenly, jarring him from his silent contemplation. “There's a part I need to repair.”
Greg glanced back. Linda broke away from the wall and looked around. She pointed and he followed her finger. Not too far away, he spied a small shed.
“What's that?” Greg asked.
“Storage shed for parts. Come on.” They trekked towards the shed. “They tried to make repairs a little more convenient. There's a bunch of spare parts for the oxygen systems in there, so that we didn't have to go back inside and hunt for spare parts, then come back out.”
They honed in on the shack. Greg felt a strange sense of unease settle over him. He glanced around, but could see nothing.
“Hold up.” He halted they came within range.
The others came to a stop. He stared at the shed for a long moment, frowning, then made a slow circuit around the exterior of the small building. There was nothing, but, after a moment, he realized there were no windows.
“How do you get in? Is there an airlock?” he asked, rejoining the others.
“No, it's just a regular door,” Linda replied.
“Stay here, cover me.”
He walked over to the shack, stared at the door, then, after a long, uncomfortable moment, slid up against the wall and hit the open button.
The door opened.
Nothing came out. He peered cautiously inside. There was no light. Carefully, he played his beam across the interior.
“Oh fuck me!” Greg yelled.
Something roughly the size of a truck exploded out the front door, tearing away the frame in a silent symphony of sparks and rending metal. Greg backed up, firing as he beheld a new terror.
Well, not new, not exactly.
Erebus had gotten its hands on a Berserker, and decided to play hell with the thing. What stood before Greg was a titanic beast of flesh and metal. Its chest was covered with wire-mesh. Circuitry ran down its arms and legs. Both eyes had been cut out, and replaced with glowing, neon implants. They glared an angry crimson. Steel, serrated claws had been grafted onto the end of its fingers. The Berserker turned and stared at Greg.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered.
It came for him.
He emptied his magazine, backed away from it, slapped a fresh one in, and switched to full auto. The bullets didn't seem to be doing much. The others opened fire as well, doing as much damage as possible.
Greg made a broad arc, trying to regroup with the others. The Berserker suddenly shot forward and backhanded him. He flew backwards a few meters and landed lighter than he would have otherwise, due to the lesser gravity of the moon, on the ground. He grunted and rolled several times. He ended up a groaning mass of pain. Panic ripped through him as he thought his suit might have gotten punctured. Greg scrambled to his feet. A few seconds passed as his equilibrium righted.
He couldn't feel the air rushing out or cold death seeping in.
He was okay. Greg saw the Berserker had its back to him, advancing on the others, who were retreating and firing frantically at it. This thing needed to die, now. A plan flickered through his head. Before he could think better of it, Greg sprinted forward. He pulled out his pistol and, as he drew close, jumped.
The artificial gravity didn't extend beyond the facility. He jumped much higher than he would have in normal gravity and landed on the Berserker's back. Working quickly, he brought the pistol around and up, stuffing the barrel into the thing's mouth. He squeezed the trigger, once, twice, over and over again until the gun was empty.
The top of its head exploded, spraying his visor with black gore.
The Berserker stood for a long moment, and then toppled over. Greg laughed as he pulled himself to his feet and reloaded his pistol.
“You have really got a knack for this,” Campbell said.
Greg shrugged. “I keep getting practice.”
After making sure he was okay, the group got back to work. Linda managed to salvage the part in question from the shed and installed it. They hurried back to the airlock, eager to be free of the airless environment. However, as they cycled through the airlock, Linda dropped another bit of bad news on them.
“What?” Greg asked, taking his helmet off. He liked the suit, but the helmet was annoying. He put it back in the locker.
“Downstairs, back in the tunnels, is where the filtration system for the oxygen is. They recycle the oxygen we breathe. They were damaged as well. We need to replace them, but it should be a pretty easy process,” Linda explained.
Greg sighed. If it wasn't one thing, it was another.
“How were they damaged? They're all the way underground,” he said as they found a maintenance hatch and began crawling back down.
“Sabotage by the Augmented, obviously. So be ready,” Linda replied.
They came to another small storage room and moved out into the main tunnel beyond. Further down the way, Greg could see Burne and his men, protecting the backup generators. At least they were secure.
They had to go the other direction, though.
“Be careful in this area,” Linda said as she led them towards the oxygen filtration systems.
“What? More careful than we have been?” Campbell replied.
Linda rolled her eyes. “Yes. This area isn't exactly stable. The ground, I mean.”
Great, Greg thought miserably, another thing to worry about. They kept going, pressing deeper into the tunnel. Greg strained his ears against the silence, listening for signs of bad guys, but could hear nothing. Visions of Speed Demons and Rippers filled his mind's eye, but he looked ahead of and behind the group and saw nothing.
They reached the room that held the oxygen filtration system, what Linda referred to as the 'scrubbers'. They cleared it, found it suspiciously empty, and then guarded Linda while she went to work. Greg hung out by the doorway, in between the room and the tunnel, and wondered about how they were going to do get around all this.
How could they be expected to make any real progress when the Augmented, Dark Ops and the Undead kept fucking with everything?
Greg frowned as he thought he saw something further down the way. He blinked, stared, but it was gone. He frowned and kept focusing, trying to sense any movement along his peripheral vision, keeping his eyes perfectly still.
A sound, a soft creepy noise, echoed down to him.
He left the doorway and walked a few meters down the tunnel, listening, trying to figure out what the hell he was seeing and hearing.
“Greg, where are you going?” Kyra asked.
He glanced back. She stood in the doorway, looking apprehensive.
“Just thought I heard-”
The ground abruptly gave way beneath him. Before he could do anything, he was sliding down into a pitch-black hole.
He screamed, heard Kyra yell his name, then his head slammed against something hard and unyielding and he was out, again.
Chapter 09
–The Dark–
Greg gasped awake.
Sensations, half-formed memories and emotions flooded his mind in a sensory overload.
Terror. Wet. Dark. Decayed flesh. Black blood. Steel. Gunfire.
He coughed raggedly. Nothing. He could see nothing. Could smell nothing. For a long moment, Greg was struck by the powerful conviction that he was dead, and that this was purgatory. Or was it hell?
Then another thought wormed it way into his head. He had no memories, how did he remember hell, or purgatory for that matter? It was strange the things he remembered. Scenes from movies, common cultural themes. Sounds, smells, sensations. Yet, he couldn't recall whether or not his parents were still alive. What they looked like. Where he'd grown up. Even something as simple and fundamental as his own name would have escaped him if he hadn't had his nametag still barely attached in that ruined troop transport.
Another sensation worked its way in, and this one seemed to root him a little more firmly to r
eality.
He was cold.
“Am I dead?”
His voice echoed, sad, lonely, and isolated. Greg had the notion that he was in a cave of some sort. He didn't know how long he laid there in the absolute pitch-black darkness, cold and wet. It might have been a minute, it might have been four hours.
Slowly, his thoughts reassembled themselves.
His memories were swept up off his mental floors and sorted back into their proper places. What was once a confusing jumble of sensations, messily telegraphed from a pained body to a dazed mind, slowly became something more organized.
Greg lay in the dark, half-submerged in a pool of icy water. He wore a suit of some kind, a mining pressure suit, he remembered, but it had obviously broken in some places, because the water was leaking in.
The darkness, he realized, was not as absolute as he had once feared. A dim, dull gray light called his attention as his eyes adjusted. He coughed and listened to the noise echo. He was in some kind of large cave.
The last thing he remembered was Kyra...seeing something strange...and then falling.
Then nothing.
It seemed to take another age, but Greg tried to move his limbs. His leg hurt a great deal, and so did his chest and head. Everything else had taken on a dull kind of throbbing. Water sloshed gently as he gathered himself up.
“Hello?” he asked the darkness, if only because the silence was getting to him.
All he had for company was the lonely call of his own voice. Greg sighed and sat up. The water sloshed and a bolt of white-hot agony shot through his leg, crackled around in his chest and finally terminated in his skull.
Greg groaned and simply sat there for another long, dark interval of time. He wasn't dead, he decided. He was in too much pain to be dead. Death would be a kind release from this misery. Finally, the nagging notion that he had to get his ass moving forced Greg to pull his legs up under him and, groping blindly in the darkness to rise to his feet.