Slow Burn_Deep Darkness

by Stephen Landry

  "Like riding a bike," Chel said.

  "You've shot before?" I asked. It seemed there was more to her then I had been let on.

  "In an expedition once. We were venturing into an area inside one of the Skrav drop zones, we were going to excavate their ship but we had gotten word that several of them were still possible on the grounds. We went in during the early part of the day, six of us total. We got lost within the first hour and found ourselves faced against a horde of feral Skrav that had been inbreeding. Years and years of being stuck in one place, mostly in the darkness. They were like a wild pack of dogs most of them were mutated beyond recognition and starved. The whole thing was wiped from the books. Four of us made it out. Myself included. I spent the next six months in recovery because one had taken a chunk out of my leg. Terran military sent in a death squad after and they never came back so they nuked the whole site from above. A waste if you ask me but there was something in that ship, something about that ship they were protecting I guarantee it. It was alive. The hallways inside it was like the walls were breathing," she said.

  I had heard stories before but most of the Skrav ships I had been deployed into were derelict decaying shells of whatever it was they once were.

  "I'd rather be fighting the skrav now then this drake," said the captain.

  "No you wouldn't," said Chel.

  Everyone began to stand closer. Our backs were rubbing against one another as the drake continued to attack the ship. We could hear it tearing apart the hull. It wouldn't be long. I would give anything for the silence again. Just to travel back in time one hour to be laying by Chel, laying there looking up at the stars through the holes in the hull or outside around the base camp surrounded by the beacons of light and hope that were lit guiding the rescue party towards us.

  "SHOTS FIRED!" captain shouted.

  "Outside the hull," another whelped.

  "THEY ARE HERE!" another shouted aloud.

  Over and over again we listened as the rescue party came to save us. Just when we were beginning to lose hope there was a spark again.

  The mini-K, ripped through the hull. It wasn't alone, there was a pack of them around. They tore the roof off and snatched one of the survivors. Outside in the trees soldiers were firing with their own rifles on the beasts. We began firing upwards. One of them fell and another took the head off another passenger causing all of us to jump back away and grab cover wherever we could. Chel and I began rushing towards one of the open hatches. We banged it open forcing it adjust with both of our bodies. She began to fall but I caught her picking her up slinging my rifle around my side. She slung hers around her back and we began running. A dead horse like create was laying in the clearing. It looked like it was carrying supplies and a harness. The humans here had already began taming the creatures. Too bad it wasn't a drake. For a moment I imagined riding one into battle against the Skrav. If we could tame these creatures it would be a miracle. They were storm. Three of them tore into the drop ship ripping it apart and picking apart the survivors. Several followed us out but out of the thirty that had made it our numbers had dropped to half.

  The captain was the last one out of the ship to follow us into the woods. He never dropped his guard or his gun firing all the way past the clearing as we ran towards the rescue party.

  We ran about forty yards away before stoping to catch our breath. I was certain the rescue party was near us hiding upwards in the trees. The drakes began to retreat away as another one fell to their death.

  "They must have a high tolerance for pain, interesting," said Chel staring through the trees back the way we came. We were assessing the situation when the captain was grabbed from behind by one of the survivors.

  "I have to do it, I have to do it, I'M SORRY, I HAVE TO DO IT FOR MY FAMILY," the survivor said.

  We were pointing our guns at him. The captain was forced to drop his. He was holding his hands down, trying to make himself as small as possible trying to tilt his head to the side hoping that one of us would kill his captor.

  "NO PLEASE, I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS, PLEASE!" the survivor shouted again.

  I knew exactly what was happening. He was arguing, pleading with that voice in his head. Miguel was here, with us every step of the way. I could see it clearly now just below his chin, another collar, another captive. I wondered if Miguel spoke to him the same way he spoke to me. Probably not. I was serving him for myself. Protecting myself. This man's family was on the line. If he didn't do what Miguel said it wouldn't just be his life, his family was on the line and he wasn't about to let them die. After the captain Miguel would probably use him as a pawn against me. That's how we play. This new world is just more of the same shit. Thirty moves ahead. Miguel was a king, Reynolds was a king, the rest of us lesser pieces. If I wasn't a pawn I was probably a knight or a maybe even a queen. I couldn't do anything for the captain, nor could I do anything for this man and his family. I could do something to protect Chel, the others around me, even myself. It only took one shot to blast a hole through the chest of the captain and his captor.

  "ELYSE! What did you do!" Chel screamed. The other survivors turned their guns towards me.

  "He wasn't going to let him go, he lost his mind in the crash I'm sure, if we are going to survive we can't take any chances, I was a freelancer back on Earth, I worked with the Hegemony and Terran military, I don't need to defend myself but the rest of you need to take your guns off me and start worrying about what else is out there and if anyone else loses their shit I won't hesitate," my message was meant for Migeul as much as it was meant for the rest of them and the rescue party that were hiding in the trees.

  "Well played Elyse," Chel said smiling as the other survivors lowered their rifles.

  "Well played," she said again.

  Log - 30

  There was something wrong with the way Chel said 'well played'. I knew I had only known her for a few hours but the way she said it had sounded forced. I began to wonder if she too had a voice in her head. Was Miguel forcing her to get close to me. Was she on his side or was she being forced. The same thought crossed my mind about everyone here. Miguel was silent still. I was waiting. Waiting to hear him speak to me as the situation grew and grew. Somehow he knew everything happening. Was that one survivor his only spy? No, he had much more going on then that. His network was deep. He was probably moving pawns around Reynolds right now.

  "If you want to live you have to follow us right now," said a soldier dropping from the tree. I recognized the voice. It was old and low. The soldier's face was cast in shadow but as he moved closer his blurry features began to take shape. Cillian. Former member of Squad 13. My squad 13. My former ally, my former brother. A part of me wanted to run up towards him and throw my arms around him. It had been years since I left. Retiring into my own exile. I was pretty much cast out but no one really faulted me for it. When I lost Kal I lost everything and our entire squad would never have been the same after. Here he was like a ghost standing in front of me now. I began to back away. I was afraid. Afraid of what he might say, what he might do, whose control was he under. Miguel? Reynolds? Someone else altogether. How had two of us ended up here so far from everything. This was coincidence. There were too many players, too many games going for this to just be random.

  "Chel, are you alright?" he asked looking towards her. Not even noticing me.

  "Thanks, Cil, I'm fine. This pretty damsel saved me, saved us all," she said motioning towards me.

  "I'll be damend, Elyse!" he said smiling.

  "You two know one another? I guess even with the whole of humanity nearly driven to extinction its still a small fucking world," Chel said.

  "Wait, the two of you?" Cillian asked motioning.

  "Nothing to worry about," I butted in. Chel was smiling.

  "Fuck," said Cillian laughing, "tell me about it later, we need to start moving, I already lost half my squad getting out here, we've found some shelter, an underground cave system we ca
n take halfway home," he finished.

  "Alien world and you want to go underground?" Chel said adding a few curse words.

  "We cleared it yesterday, we have been mapping this area for awhile now," he said.

  The three of us and the fifteen other survivors began walking towards the cave. As we did Chel gave me the rundown on how she knew Cillian. After Kal died I wasn't the only one to break away from squad 13. The entire squad disbanded with some following Reynolds while Cillian became a mercenary for hire. He was charged with adding extra security to Chel's expedition when they went to the Skrav site. During their expedition he was the one that saved her and dragged her out alive. She owed him his life and the two quickly began to admire one another. They spent a few years living together before hearing whispers of the Trinity that was being built. Soon after Cillian joined the Sons of Sol and became a security officer. A part of his job now was search and rescue. Not that he counted on any of that taking place on a hostile alien world. He had been fed some shit about how the Erebus was a seed ship and everyone on board would wake up to a new beginning on a new beautiful world called code named Eden. They were wrong. There was nothing beautiful about this world.

  We had set up camp inside the caves. The entrance was too small for the mini-k to follow us but we set up a line of tripwires and claymores around us just in case any of the other wildlife came to investigate. Most of us were covered in blood so we began to wash up. After that Cillian and the three other soldiers that had survived long enough to rescue us began to share what rations they had managed to salvage. This was half a protein bar for me and everyone else. Cillian had caught a few smaller lizards, he called them croc cakes. He was roasting them on a small fire Chel had made. The two looked like they had done this before. Probably on their 'expeditions'. It seemed after the Skrav incident the two became inseparable with Cillian joining Chel's organization as a full time security advisor. So much had happened since I left squad 13, I could only guess as to what the others had gotten themselves into. They were once the closest thing I had to family. A horrid violent disgusting family but still family.

  "So the two of you hook up?" Cillian asked smirking.

  "What's it to you," I said.

  "Well Chel is my wife," he said smiling.

  "You have got to be kidding me," I laughed. I was shocked. I knew from what she had told me the two of them were close but 'wife', that was a bombshell.

  "Four years, well eight if you count the hibernation period onboard the ship," she smiled.

  "So let me get this straight," I said looking towards Chel.

  "Yep," she said smiling bending over in front of me and kissing Cillian.

  "Mine," she smiled, "all the man I could ever ask for," she kissed him again.

  "Branded," he smiled pulling up his arm and showing a crescent moon with Chel's name written under it. "That was a stupid idea," I said. "I'm one of only like a hundred humans left with art on my sleeve, a rare breed," he smiled.

  The other survivors huddled together away from us. They were unlike the rest of us. Most of them were probably politicians or family of politicians, members of corporate families and members of the Sons of Sol that had gained passage away from the Earth and our solar system before it disappeared.

  "You know they look up to you," Cillian said to me after everyone had gone to bed. Chel had fallen asleep with her head in his lap (so much for that relationship) and her legs across my knees. All of the others were laid up against the walls of the cave.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Your strong, I mean hell you stripped naked in front of all of them and took a god damn nap, they see you as one of a kind, you've made an impression. Not to mention shooting the captain and that guy in the chest. We saw and heard the whole thing. You haven't changed a bit. There is still one thing I don't get. You came here because you thought it was a job, protect that guy Slen because he was afraid for his life, like he knew something bad was going to happen but he only hired you? He should have known exactly what would happen, that if anything went down you wouldn't have any time to get to him. I don't understand how the hell you are here? You should be dead," Cillian said.

  "At the end you were given a choice, I wasn't, I don't know why I'm here but while I'm glad to be alive the death of the Earth, it could have been stopped. There are people here that knew about it, they knew the Trinity was going to be more then three seed ships and they launched just in time for the end of the world. That really pisses me off," I replied.

  "You are right, there are elders, those in charge like Reynolds that seem to be holding secrets from the rest of us. This wasn't just an escape, this was an altogether exodus. I didn't even believe it at first. I had to look at the stars. They showed me. You could still see the remains of our solar system. You could see the dust from what was left behind. The light from the sun blowing apart. Light spreading across the galaxy. If there are others out there they are going to see it too. I don't think the Skrav are only at war with us. If they were I think they would have sent a bigger fleet. They didn't consider us much of a threat at first. I hope we have proved them wrong. That's my theory anyway. At the very least I'm with you. I wish we could make them pay for their secrets but they have saved us and there is a bigger game being played," Cillian said.

  I knew then that he knew something was going on.

  Did he know about Miguel?

  If he could somehow help me get his voice out of my head.

  Everything was silent now. If anyone could save me from my fate maybe it was him.

  "Do you remember our old friends in Sect-17, I would bet they are here with us," I said pointing at the collar around my neck.

  "I see, you really think so," he said moving closer studying the collar.

  "I RECOGNIZE what you are saying but I DO NOT think there is anything I CAN do, if they are here, we are going to need the hands of a good group of mechanics, tinkerers, maybe an engineer back at the colony. I bet they could point us in the right direction," he said staying backwards away from me his eyes still fixed on my neck. He knew exactly what I was thinking. He knew I was a slave, a prisoner. He shut his eye. I could see a tear fall.

  "We should get some sleep," I said. Cillian nodded his head, "agreed."

  Every time I closed my eyes I saw my old life. The apartment I had on Earth where I spent my downtime. The small trinkets that decorated my shelves and the abstract art that hung on my walls. I could feel the warmth of cotton against my bare skin as I tossed and turned in the nights looking for an escape. I hated the world. So much of it corrupt, I felt like I was always looking for a way out. I was stronger then most, better off then most but that didn't change the feeling. There was no place in the old world for me. Now I lay tossing and turning on a bed of rocks wishing for that place, wishing for that old world, wishing I had died with the rest of them. When the sun rose we could already feel the temperature rise. Vines from outside began to creep inside the cave. "Beware of the purple ones, they are covered in poisonous thorns, we have a two hour hike to the centipede, after that it should be a seven hour drive back to the colony," Cillian said.

  "What the hell is a centipede?" Chel asked.

  "Twenty wheels, ten on each side, all terrain..." he paused, "an almost all terrain vehicle, it couldn't make it through the jungles but this area is considered hazardous anyway, the plants here are death, the wildlife is exotic and violent, hell most of this planet is nothing but apex predators cannibalizing one another, it's like we are trying to colonize a nightmare world" Cillian finished.

  That was it then. We spent the next several hours on foot hiking through the jungle before finally reaching the end. We lost another three people. Some were starting to get sick. Cillian checked them out. Something had gone wrong while they were inside stasis. They weren't getting all the antibiotics and conditioning their bodies needed. They woke up fine but their immune systems were weak. He made note of it and recorded the information
he gathered digitally inside a PDA on his wrist. Soon after we went through another environmental shift. The jungle cleared way for a colder lifeless world. A clearing of dust and rock.

  "We cleared most of this area ourselves, this world can't make up its mind whether its this or that, keeps it fresh though, reminds me of the four corners back on Earth. Different state or what use to be states each direction you looked each filled with their own landmarks and torture," Cillian said.

  When we finally saw the centipede we saw a mini-k surrounding it.

  "Shit, this is suppose to be outside their territory," he said.

  "Looks like its curious, maybe we can drive it away?" suggested Chel.

  "Not likely, these things don't back down very easy, we've only got about a third of our ammo left and last time it took about half to take down the few we saw at the crash site," he said.

  "Leave it to me," I said smirking.

  "You aren't the type to play hero? What do you have planned?" he asked.

  "Just get everyone to the centipede as quick as you can and wait for me," I smiled.

  Log - 31

  One thing I was good at - taking down prey bigger then myself.

  I remember once long ago when I was on leave I took a trip back to Mars. It had been years since I had been to my homeworld and already it had changed so much. The domed cities were starting to look ancient as the terraforming process outside had been a success. Many of the domes were ruins, havens for bandits and thugs. I volunteered to help a local charity. A zoo. Less a zoo and more a genetic research company. They had been forced to abandoned a research facility inside one of the old domes. They had asked the government for help but of course there was nothing in it for them so they declined deciding to put their resources elsewhere. Jobs like this were for bounty hunters, mercenaries, freelancers like myself. I guess you could say this was my first freelance job.