by S. A. Lusher
“We received some new intelligence last month from an unlikely source. They didn't want to say but I did some digging. Last year there was some kind of operation, I couldn't get the details, but in the course of that operation, a team was dispatched to a derelict vessel, alien, ancient, not Cyr but even older, although it was clear the Cyr had been there. The report said they'd faced some kind of shadow creatures and somehow managed to pull data from their databanks.”
“In respect for full disclosure, I was there,” Parker said, speaking up. “A rogue government faction had found the vessel and attempted to study it. They discovered that the Cyr had once done the same thing, and managed to create a siphoning device to extract data from the ship's databanks and translate it into Cyr language. The rogue faction simply did the same, pulling out the Cyr data and translating it. We stole it from them.”
“Huh, interesting. Well, interestingly enough, some of the data on that ship correlated to the device we found on Ash. Apparently, they figured out what it was, or, at least what it was supposed to be. It was created to cure death, to stop it from happening. Obviously, this was going to take some pretty serious, pretty heavy power. Now, this next part is going to be kind of...out there. But, given what you've seen over the past six hours, I'm willing to be that you won't doubt me. This device, for whatever reason, draws its power from what I can only describe as a real-life demon. There's evidence in the translated Cyr files that this thing was pulled from an alternate universe. From what I've been able to tell, they needed something extremely powerful to fuel this device they had built. It was basically like a focusing lens.
“I imagine they thought they would be able to use this creature like a battery, and that they would be able to control it. But that obviously wasn't the case. The pod also acted like a stasis device, holding it suspended animation for all these years. And it...corrupted the device. When the Brass up top found out we had what could be our first real look at actual immortality, they instructed us to go full speed ahead with the research. In the end, I activated the device, since we simply couldn't go forward without doing so, we were at a dead end.”
“Very, very bad idea,” Drake said.
“Yes, obviously. At first, we weren't sure anything had happened. Then, slowly, shadows seemed to fill the catacombs beneath us. Then the walls began to bleed. Then people started to go crazy. Twelve hours in, the red pulse was released and everything really went to shit. That's when I got here and locked myself in. I wish someone had joined me...”
“So how do we stop this...demon?” Greg asked.
“Well, this is where the bad news comes in, I'm afraid. The good news is that I know how to deal with this. I know how to shut it off, and you can do it. It's not hard. The bad news is that you can't simply shut it off. Doing so would flat-out kill everyone here who has life-threatening injuries. Obviously not everyone can be saved, but some can, and they deserve it. Worse than that, I'm not sure if there won't be some kind of negative reaction to simply pulling the plug. The other good news is that I know what do for that as well.
“The bad news is that someone is going to have to get into that pod. Someone who can sustain it for...well, for as long as possible. Days, at least. Long enough for emergency medical teams to get here, comb through the rubble and save as many people as possible. This will require someone of a sound mind, someone with great mental control.”
“How...how can we do that?” Eric asked. “I mean, this technology, it's ancient and unknown...”
“From what I understand, once you're in the device itself, it's intuitive. But listen carefully. Whichever among you does this...will more than likely die in the process. This device was never meant to be used by a species like us.”
They all slowly looked at each other, clearly considering it.
“I'll do it,” Eric said suddenly.
“Let's...get there first,” Greg said. “Then we can figure out how to handle it.” He didn't want to point out that Eric wasn't exactly of a 'sound mind'.
“Whoever does it will need to keep the deathless field going and render everyone on the planet unconscious...except for me. We're going to have to record a message explaining the situation to be sent out by me the second the communications blackout is lifted. I'll coordinate with them once we've established contact.”
“Fantastic,” Parker muttered.
“Now, I'm sending you a map that has the shortest possible route to the device. There's a cargo elevator not too far from your present position that will grant you access to the catacombs below. The tunnels below aren't all that complex but...” He hesitated.
“But what?” Drake pressed.
“Based on what I've seen from what few camera feeds are left down there, there's definitely some Deathless down there. They're not going to make it easy. And there's...something else down there, too. I don't know what it is, but it's big, and definitely not natural. This demon thing must be creating creatures somehow.”
“It definitely is. We've faced some fucked up shit getting here...but we could kill them,” Greg replied.
“Huh, interesting. As insane and wretched as all this is, I can't help but have questions.”
“They'll have to wait.” Greg was studying the map now. He slowly nodded. “There's some machine shops along the way...”
“Yes, what of them?”
“We've been using a bolt gun to incapacitate the Deathless,” Greg replied, liking the name as much as he hated it. Leave it to a scientist to come up with such a fitting name.
“Very smart.”
“Yeah, I imagine there'll be more there...okay, memorize this data and we'll record the message to send to Hawkins.”
Time passed. They memorized the data, all of them feeling elated, though at the same time apprehensive. One of them was going to have to die to do this. Greg held on to the hope that he was wrong, that they could survive. He pushed it out of his mind, focusing on the task at hand. They had to get this done.
They had to.
After memorizing the route there and the method they would have to use on the device as Kruger outlined it, Parker, who still seemed to be the sanest of them all, recorded a message with all relevant data about the situation and the quickest, most logical way to handle it. She made sure to emphasize that all of the emergency medical teams should be comprised of grizzled vets who'd seen combat. Once she had it recorded, she gave it and the contact method of reaching Hawkins to Kruger, who thanked them from his protected bunker.
“Is that it?” Greg asked. “Anything else?”
“Just one more thing: good luck. This isn't the first time I've tried this.”
“Great...let's get to it.”
CHAPTER 14
–The Catacombs–
Jennifer felt better than she had in a long time as they gathered by the left exit to the command room. Better than she had since landing on this miserable fucking rock. They had a plan now, an actual goal in mind that they knew how to complete. The fact that one of them was likely going to have to die to do it was...very problematic, but there was at least an option, a viable means of ending this. Because the thought of being trapped here forever, undying and eternally in pain...well, she didn't believe in hell, but this was sure close enough.
However, as soon as she opened the door and stepped out, that feeling immediately went away. Because someone shoved a knife into her thigh. It sliced right through the armor and into her flesh. Cold agony washed over her leg as she shrieked in pain and fury. As she turned to face her attacker, a pale man wearing the ragged remains of what might have once been a scientist's jumpsuit, she felt pure fury rise up in her.
Screaming, she grabbed his head and began smashing it repeatedly into the wall next to her. Her vision went red and at some point she heard something crack wetly, like dropping an overly ripe watermelon from a great height onto concrete. Reality seemed to bend and it was like she was coming out of a bad nightmare. She was lying on the ground with Eric and Greg holding her
down and her leg was on fire.
“What the fuck-fuck that hurts!” she growled.
“Hold fucking still!” Parker snapped. She looked down and saw the medic crouched over her leg, a section of her armor off.
“Hurry it up, doc, we don't have a lot of time,” Drake said.
“Your femoral artery was missed, thank god,” Parker muttered. “This is gonna hurt.”
“What-FUCK!” Jennifer yelled as Parker poured something into the wound.
“I know, I know,” she muttered.
Amidst all this pain and confusion, Jennifer flashed back to her tenure aboard the Cimmerian, when she'd done basically the same thing to Mark.
“Jennifer, you kind of went berserk on us,” Greg said. “Smashed someone's head in.”
“Oh god...” she moaned. “I fucking killed him.”
“I know...Jennifer, I'm sorry,” Greg said quietly.
“Done,” Parker said. “It'll hold.” She put the armor back in place and they pulled her up.
“I don't know what happened,” she said. “I just-everything went red and...” She trailed off as she saw the mess to her right. A body lay bolted to the floor. The remains of its shattered skull and brains were smeared all over the wall next to it. She had done that? Jennifer felt her gorge rise and for a second she thought she was really going to throw up. But she managed to control it, barely. The burning pain in her thigh helped.
“We need to prioritize non-lethal takedowns from now on, now that we know we should be able to save people,” Greg said.
“I killed him...” Jennifer groaned sickly.
“We have to get going,” Drake said tightly.
“Can you walk?” Eric asked.
“I have to...he's right, let's move,” Jennifer said, reigning in control of herself. As they started hurrying down the corridor, she cast one, last glance over her shoulder at the man she'd killed. The man who was still horribly, impossibly alive, twitching and bucking against the restraint of the bolts. She had never lost control like that in her life. Not once. She'd heard of the phrase 'seeing red' but never thought that something like that could actually happen. But that's what it had been like: a horrible bloody film creeping over her vision, turning the whole world red, and then she'd been gone, except she wasn't completely gone.
She remembered taking his head in her hands, wanting nothing more than to kill him, to end him with her own bare hands, and then smashing his head against the wall over and over and over until...she shuddered and kept walking.
Although medical technology had come a long way, the wound she'd given him was one that could not be recovered from. When the deathless field fell, he would die. And he didn't have to. And it was her fault.
The pain in her leg jarred her from her thoughts as they continued through the base, following the path Kruger had laid out for them. As she jogged down one stretch of corridor after another, she couldn't help but think that something was off about this pain. She'd been shot before. She'd been stabbed before. She'd been burned and thrown into a wall and had fallen off a high place before. She'd had black eyes and loose teeth and bruises, cuts and scrapes. And gaping wounds. Her life was dangerous, and that sucked, but it was worth it.
This was different.
She didn't know if it was the stress of the situation, but she was suspecting that it might be something else. Was that psychotic demonic presence actually making the pain worse, amplifying it? Given what she'd seen so far, it wasn't impossible. Hell, it wasn't even unlikely. Anything to speed up the process of going fucking insane. It made her worry for Drake. Apparently he'd been gutted for...how long now?
Probably close to an hour.
“There it is,” Greg said, startling her back to reality.
Up ahead, in the left wall, was a large opening that would take them into the machine shops. She wondered what they'd needed machine shops for, but right now, who cared? They stepped into the room, Greg and Jennifer first, sweeping the area with their rifles. Nothing but dented walls and blood smears, it was empty. She wondered where everyone else was. Drake, Parker and Eric came in and Eric set to work closing the door behind them.
“Bolt guns and bolts, or anything like that,” Greg said. “Spread out and search. Fast as you can manage, sooner we get the fuck down there the better.”
Jennifer couldn't agree more. Her leg was on fire. Every movement sent fresh lances of pain through her body. She hobbled off, looking over the room as she began her search. The machine shop was a huge rectangle filled with about two dozen workbenches, all of them scattered with tools and spare parts. The place was a complete wreck, just like the rest of the compound. Jennifer hesitated as she heard some kind of movement coming from up ahead. Whatever it was, it sounded small...some kind of animal?
She saw a shadow shifting just up ahead, around the next workbench.
Cautiously, she came around the edge of the workbench, then she let out a startled gasp, taking a step back. A human hand, shreds of skin and meat hanging off the wrist, was twitching around, fingers working spasmodically.
“God,” she whispered, her stomach twitching again.
She kept up her search. Moving quickly, she searched three workbenches before finding another one of those bolt guns, then searched three more, hunting down bolts for it. She'd managed to get it fully loaded and get three spare magazines of 'ammo' before everyone else had managed to get a bolt gun and some spare bolts.
“All right, let's move out!” Greg called.
They gathered at the far right side of the room, where another exit would put them a little bit closer to the cargo elevator. Jennifer recalled the route in her mind. All they had to do was get down to the end of this next corridor, take a right turn and then at the end of that corridor would be the lift. And then they'd be done with the easy part.
Jennifer didn't relish the thought of descending down into the 'catacombs'.
That name didn't inspire confidence.
Greg opened the door and poked his head out. He'd just barely began to give the all clear when something shrieked.
“Go!” he shouted.
They burst out into the corridor. Behind them, down the other length of the hallway, Jennifer spied a bloodied, shrieking psychotic barreling around the corner. It started racing for them, screaming again. Other screams answered it. Its neck had clearly been broken at some point and its head hung at an awkward angle and its right arm had been severed at the elbow. But this didn't slow it down. Other battered, bloodied figures appeared behind it.
“Hurry!” Jennifer heard herself shout, fear welling within her. She felt her emotional control beginning to collapse. This was beginning to be too much. This was even worse than the fucking asteroid and the invisible terror creature.
The group bolted, bounding down the corridor, hitting the turn and racing around the corner...right into another group of crazies.
Suddenly, a flurry of activity burst into being. There were a good dozen of them. Jennifer felt her body lock into combat mode, it seemed to move without her input. She reached out, grabbed the nearest crazy by the neck, slammed it into the wall and pounded a bolt into his shoulder. While she went about bolting the fucker to the wall, she heard the others doing the same. A catastrophe of sound exploded as the squad defended themselves within a maelstrom of living, seething flesh. Jennifer finished with the first one, getting him in place, then turned, dropped and kicked the legs out from a tall female technician. As she hit the floor, Jennifer began bolting her.
Someone grabbed her back and yanked her up, leaving the job only half finished. They got a good grip on her neck. Gasping for air, she brought her elbow back and managed to connect with the bastard's face. Once, twice, three times and something cracked, but he wouldn't let go. There was the sound of a bolt gun being fired nearby and suddenly he was forcefully jerked away from her, sending her stumbling.
The tech she'd started to bolt to the floor was getting herself undone, so Jennifer dropped to her knees and fi
nished the job.
“Get to the fucking elevator!” someone screamed.
Jennifer looked around, seeing that they'd managed to pin about ten of them. That was most of the group...but then she saw that the initial group that they'd been running from were adding their own numbers to the mix.
Ahead of her, where the others were running, was the open, waiting, almost inviting doors of the well-lit cargo lift. She bolted, racing down the bloodied corridor. She noticed Drake was falling behind. Even the adrenaline high of battle was no longer enough to cut through his pain. Greg was in the lift, then Parker. Jennifer turned and fired off a few bolts, sending the front-most psychos stumbling back into the crowd and knocking several of them over. Non-lethal, but it should slow them down enough. Eric got in.
Jennifer and Drake hit the lift at about the same time.
Greg slammed his fist on the close button and the doors slid shut. Immediately, the sound of beating fists began to invade the cargo elevator.
“Fucking shit,” Eric breathed. “Too fucking close.”
“I got cut,” Greg groaned.
Jennifer looked over. A knife was sticking out of his stomach.
“I'll patch it up on the way down,” Parker said, getting her medkit out and walking over to him. While she set to work, Jennifer reached out and hit the down button. The elevator began to descend deep into the earth.
* * * * *
The elevator ground to a halt.
Drake was still fighting through the pain, but it was getting exhausting and more difficult. He shouldered his rifle, cringing from the shooting, burning agony in his guts. Every movement caused more lances of suffering to fill his torso. The only good news from that was that his shoulder didn't really hurt anymore.
His focus came back online as the elevator hit bottom and the doors slid open. A world of terror was waiting for them, just beyond the threshold. A tunnel stretched away from them. This was not a tunnel of rock, but one of glistening, raw meat. Remnants of what the tunnel once was still poked through the bloody meat: the occasional hint of black rock, some abandoned equipment, and several of the light fixtures were still intact and at least somewhat functional. Overhead, a steady rain of some black, oily substance dripped from the ceiling.