“How are we going to get there?” said Cassandra. “If this ship is crawling with macrobes, we might run right into them.”
“Yes,” said March. “But I think you accidentally built a macrobe detector. The macrobes have rampaged through the ship and killed anyone who didn’t transform, and they’ll start turning on each other before too much longer. If we’re careful, we should be able to get to the engineering section and back with a new surge regulator for the Tiger. If we find any survivors on the way, we’ll take them with us.” He shook his head. “Then we’ll have to tell the Navy what happened here. The Alpine is a danger to anyone who comes across it. The meanest, smartest macrobes will survive the fighting, and they’ll kill anyone who boards the ship.”
“Do you think anyone survived?” said Cassandra.
“I don’t know,” said March. In truth, he doubted that anyone had survived. A majority of the humans aboard the ship would have been possessed and transformed, and the first thing the newly insane hybrids would have done would be to slaughter (and sometimes eat) anyone they could catch. “But if they did, we’ll bring them with us.” He gestured at the map. “We’ll have to double back past the airlock to the Tiger and head for the engineering section from there.”
Cassandra swallowed again. “What if they break into the Tiger?”
“They can’t,” said March. “Vigil will only let you or me into the ship, and the macrobes aren’t strong enough to break through the doors, and they’re too crazy to try something clever like a plasma torch. If need be, we can retreat there and dock with another airlock. The Eclipse should give us warning of any approaching macrobes, and we can hide or use the ship’s utility corridors to avoid them.”
“Okay.” Cassandra took a deep breath. “I suppose we don’t have any choice.”
“We don’t,” said March. They stepped back into the corridor that led to the airlocks. “If we take this towards the stern, that should lead us right to the engineering section and the hyperdrive room. Follow me, and keep an eye on the Eclipse readings.”
Cassandra nodded, and they started down the corridor.
March led the way, plasma pistol in his right hand, his eyes scanning for any sign of threats. Cassandra followed him, alternating between looking at her phone and watching the corridor. March wondered if the macrobe they had killed had any way of communicating with the others. No one knew for certain, but some theories claimed that a group of macrobes would establish a hive mind, similar to the cybernetic horror the Final Consciousness inflicted upon its members. March didn’t know if that was true or not, and he didn’t want to find out.
Cassandra jerked to a stop, her eyes going wide.
“What is it?” said March.
“Quantum distortions,” said Cassandra. “A lot of them. About fifty meters that...”
Sixty meters further down the corridor, one of the cargo bay doors slid open, and nightmares spilled out.
Some of the creatures looked like the thing that March had killed in the repair shop. Others looked like giant twisted centipedes or great heaving slugs that left trails of slime upon the deck. Yet all of them were covered in those glowing, tumorous growths, and all of them had a human torso, arms, and head jutting from somewhere on their misshapen bodies, a mocking reminder of the men and women that they had once been. All of them had gleeful, hungry expression on their faces, and had clawed hands and pincers and barbed tentacles.
A score of the macrobes rushed down the corridor towards them, moving with inhuman speed.
“Run!” shouted March.
Chapter 5: Survivors
March sprinted down the corridor in the direction of the bow, his boots clanging against the deck, and right away he noticed a serious problem.
He was a lot faster than Cassandra.
She was doing her best, and she was almost keeping up with him. But the years of indifference to her body were exacting their price now. Already she was wheezing like a bellows, sweat standing out on her forehead. March might have been able to outrun the macrobes over a short distance, but there was no way that Cassandra could manage it.
Time for a new plan.
He whirled, his pistol snapping up, and started shooting.
He winged one of the macrobes, burning a line down its armored carapace, and his second shot was absorbed by the tumorous growths of another. His third shot was better, and it blasted through a forehead, sending the scorpion-like macrobe crashing to the deck. The creature flipped over, causing some of the others to trip, and the charge of nightmares slowed.
March snatched a grenade from his bandoleer, keyed the timer to seven seconds, and flung it. It hit the deck, bounced once or twice, and came to a stop about twenty meters from the macrobes.
“What are you doing?” said Cassandra.
“This way,” said March, and he grabbed her arm and steered her towards the nearest cargo bay door. The doors opened, revealing a large room stacked to the roof with cases of toilet paper. Pity, he had hoped for something heavier. The toilet paper wouldn’t slow the macrobes at all.
The doors clanged shut behind them, and about two seconds later the grenade went off.
March felt the explosion in the deck beneath his boots and heard the roar of the detonation echoing through the corridor, following the macrobes’ scream of rage. He didn’t know how many of them he had killed or wounded, but he knew it wouldn’t be nearly enough.
“Next corridor,” said March. “Quick!”
Cassandra tried to answer, gulped down another breath, and only nodded.
March went through the doors and into the interior cargo corridor, pistol held ready before him. Nothing moved in the corridor, and he looked up and down and across the ceiling. They were alone for the moment, but towards the stern, he saw the gleam of ghostly blue light. An instant later he heard the rattling click of claws, or perhaps pincers, against the deck and walls.
“There’s more of them down there,” said Cassandra, glancing at her phone. “Maybe another half a dozen.”
“Yeah.” March jogged down the corridor, Cassandra stumbling after him. Just a little further, he thought. “Here.”
Between two cargo bay doors was a narrow access door, and March seized it with his left hand and wrenched it open. Beyond the door was a ladder, an access route between decks that allowed technicians to check the pipes and the machinery between the decks.
“They won’t be able to fit in there,” said Cassandra.
“That’s the plan,” said March, urging her through the opening. He squeezed in after her and closed the door behind him. Most of the macrobes shouldn’t be able to fit inside, but some of them likely could compress their interior structures like a rodent squeezing through a narrow space.
Best not to linger to find out.
“Guess it’s just as well I lifted all those weights,” said Cassandra. “Good practice for climbing the ladder.”
An alarming thought occurred to March. “Can you climb the ladder?”
“With those things chasing us?” said Cassandra. “I’ll run right up the wall.”
March nodded and started climbing, Cassandra right behind him. Climbing a ladder while holding a pistol was always something of a challenge, but his left arm had a strong enough grip that he could manage it.
They climbed up to the next deck, but the Eclipse detected multiple quantum distortions behind the door. The sign next to the door said that this deck held kitchen service areas, no doubt to prepare mountains of food for the ship’s buffet lines, and March doubted that deck had any access to the engineering areas.
The next deck held economy-class passenger cabins, and Cassandra thought there weren’t any quantum distortions within a hundred meters. By then they started hearing banging and clanging from the door on the cargo deck. The macrobes that had survived the grenade were hammering at the door, trying to get into the access shaft. March didn’t think they could get through the door, and even if they did, he didn’t think they could fit in
to the shaft.
But he didn’t want to find out if he was wrong.
“Here,” said March, triggering the access door to the economy deck. It slid open with a soft hiss. “Hopefully, we can head towards the stern and take one of the lifts to the engineering section.”
“Can macrobes use lifts?” said Cassandra.
“Probably,” said March. “The smarter ones can remember how to use them.” He glanced up and down the corridor. It might have been economy class, but it looked far more luxurious than the cargo areas of the ship. A blue carpet covered the floor, and the walls had been painted a neutral off-white color. The doors to the individual cabins had been fitted with plastic molding cleverly designed to look like actual wood. “Or they might try climbing up the lift shafts.”
The deck looked quite pleasant. Except March could smell blood in the air.
“Any macrobes?” said March.
“None nearby,” said Cassandra.
“All right.” March stepped into the corridor and looked up and down, but didn’t see any macrobes. He did, however, spot some spatters of blood at a corner a dozen meters away. “Brace yourself.”
“Why?”
“I think we’re about to see something unpleasant.”
March led the way, gun ready, and went around the corner.
“Oh, God!” said Cassandra.
A man in the white uniform of a Royal Calaskaran Starlines steward sat slumped against the wall. At least, the uniform had started out white. Now it was absolutely drenched in congealing blood, and there were only a few white spots left on the sleeves and trousers. The steward had been ripped open from throat to crotch, and ribs jutted from the ruin of his chest.
“Macrobe did this,” said March. “Ripped him open and started eating.” The lungs, heart, and intestinal tract were all missing. “Least it would have been quick from the massive blood loss.”
Those final few seconds, though, would have been filled with horror and agony.
“Oh, God,” said Cassandra again, one hand going to her mouth. “That is obscene.”
“Yes,” said March. He took her forearm and eased her further down the corridor, stepping over the massive wet stain on the carpet.
“I’m really glad I didn’t eat breakfast,” said Cassandra in a soft voice.
“The first time you see someone die like that is the hardest,” said March.
He had been...five, six, was that it? Someone had been arrested for stealing food rations at the labor camp, and the Machinist soldiers had beaten the man to death with their bare hands. With their enhanced strength, the man’s death had been neither quick nor clean.
“Do you ever get used to this kind of thing?” said Cassandra.
March had, more or less.
“Most people don’t,” said March. “Hopefully we can get off the Alpine before we see too much more.”
March glanced at the cabin doors as they passed, wondering if he should stop to check them. If the crew had told the passengers to take shelter in their cabins, there might be survivors within them. Yet the passengers might have transformed, and could even now be lurking behind the closed doors. For that matter, March was unsure of the limitations of Cassandra’s Eclipse device. It might have glitches she didn’t know about yet, or it might be unable to detect a sleeping macrobe. In her agitated state, Cassandra might read the numbers on her phone wrong and accidentally send them into a group of macrobes.
No, better to avoid unnecessary risks. March had an artifact of the Great Elder Ones in his hold, a device that could detect the Wraiths’ mind-controlling effects, and the genius scientist who had built the device. His chief responsibility was to get them all safely to Calaskar.
Though if the opportunity to help any survivors presented itself, March would take it at once.
A double door at the end of the corridor slid open at their approach, and they stepped into a lounge area. It looked like the lobby of a nice hotel. There was a desk at one wall adorned with the sign GUEST SERVICES, and overstuffed chairs and couches stood in circles. A row of massive screens hung from another wall, showing the ship’s onboard entertainment. One display showed an attractive woman waxing enthusiastic about the variety of foods on the ship’s buffet. A second showed an advertisement for the ship’s shopping promenade, and a third showed a children’s cartoon involving talking animals in a magic forest or something.
There were stuffed animals and plastic trucks scattered below the display with the cartoon. March saw Cassandra staring at the scattered toys, her eyes wide. For her sake, March really hoped they weren’t about to find any dead children.
Come to think of it, he didn’t want to see that either.
“Anything nearby?” said March.
Cassandra checked her phone. “No. Uh...that big group of macrobes from the cargo corridor is still following us. I don’t think they’ve figured out how to get up to this deck, though. And there are at least a couple dozen macrobes on this deck, though I think they’re more towards the bow.”
March nodded. “We’ll head for the top deck.” He pointed towards three lift doors on the far side of the lounge. “A ship like this, the shopping promenade and the recreational areas will fill the top deck. We’ll walk along the ship’s dorsal spine, take a lift down to the engineering section, and help ourselves to a new surge regulator.”
Cassandra nodded again, watching her phone, and March led the way to one of the lift doors. To judge from the lights on the panels, all three lift cars were on this deck. He picked the door on the left, hit the call button, and stepped back, pistol raised.
That turned out to be a good idea.
The door slid open, revealing a macrobe.
This one had once been a woman. Whoever she had been, she now looked like an enormous centipede, the bulk of her body coiled behind her in the lift, the razor-edged legs leaving scratches in the gleaming metal of the lift car. The human torso jutting from the head of the centipede wore the shredded remnants of a white steward’s jacket, and long claws jutted from her fingers. Glowing blue tumors dotted both the brownish-gold body of the giant centipede and what was left of the human torso.
The creature was motionless, save for a steady heaving of its flanks as it breathed.
Asleep. The creature was asleep.
The thought just had time to cross March’s startled mind when the macrobe’s face snapped up, the blue-glowing eyes opening wide. The woman’s face must have been lovely once, but now it was twisted with the glowing blue tumors, and further distorted with the maddened, hungry expression the macrobes all shared.
March squeezed off a shot at the macrobe, but the creature was too quick. His plasma bolt missed her head and burned a hole in her armored carapace, and that only seemed to make her angry. The macrobe surged forward like an avalanche of stabbing legs, and her jaw unhinged, yawning larger than her entire head as black fangs erupted from her gums.
She was going to bite off March’s head.
He reacted at once, punching with his left hand. The macrobe’s jaws hammered with terrific force on his left forearm, and he heard Cassandra scream. Had the creature bitten his right arm, it would have snapped the limb right off. But the alloy the Machinists used in their cybernetics was far stronger than mere flesh and bone.
Far stronger than even the black, dagger-like teeth of a macrobe, as it turned out.
The fangs snapped against his arm, and the macrobe jolted. March’s fingers seized the macrobe’s jaw, and he wrenched the creature’s head down. The blue-glowing eyes went wide with surprise, and dozens of legs braced against the sides of the lift car, preparing to spring. Before the macrobe could move, March jammed the emitter of his plasma pistol against the creature’s forehead and squeezed the trigger three times.
The final bolt blasted out the back of the creature’s head, and the macrobe’s coiled body sagged into itself, the legs going limp. March stepped back and wrenched his left arm free from the macrobe’s head.
That
made a mess. March grimaced and tried to shake the slime from his fingers.
Cassandra gaped at him, her left hand fumbling with her pistol in its holster until she gave up.
“How did you do that?” she said.
“Do what?” said March.
“Not...not have your arm bitten off,” said Cassandra.
“Oh.” March crossed to the GUEST SERVICES desk, found a towel, and started wiping the slime from his left hand. “Cybernetic arm. Suppose the macrobe found it indigestible.” He took a deep breath, trying to slow the rapid beat of his heart. “Didn’t the Eclipse detect it?”
“No,” said Cassandra. “I don’t know why.”
March shrugged. “Maybe because it was asleep.”
“It was asleep?” said Cassandra. “It happened so fast that I didn’t notice.” She tapped at the phone. “I think you’re right. The Eclipse didn’t detect a quantum distortion effect nearby until it attacked you. I guess...yes, on a theoretical level, that makes sense. If the possession effect causes distortions in hyperspace, then when the host victim falls asleep, that might force the macrobe to an unconscious state as well. That could cause a temporary suspension of the quantum distortion effect. I could get a fascinating paper out of that.” Her face brightened and then crumpled with revulsion. “But, God, what a horrible thing to study.”
“Like I told you, people study horrible things all the time,” said March. “How do you think diseases get cured?”
He tossed aside the soiled towel and stepped to the next lift door.
“You’re not going to try that again, are you?” said Cassandra.
March shrugged. “We need to get to the dorsal deck.”
He leveled his pistol at the door and hit the call button.
The doors slid open, revealing an empty lift car.
Cassandra let out a long breath.
March stepped into the car. Cassandra joined him, and he hit the button for the shopping promenade on the dorsal deck. The lift beeped, the doors closed, and motors whirred.
Silent Order: Eclipse Hand Page 8