by Naomi Lucas
Reina reached over and silenced the sirens. The thudding of Atlas’s booted feet left the room. She got up and joined the doctor back at the window. The thing slithered as she approached. Others, half-plastered to the glass, were at its sides.
“What’s not possible?” she asked, wondering how much time they had left.
Yesne jerked as if coming out of a trance. “What?”
“You said it wasn’t possible.”
“Life in space. Creatures this big surviving in a vacuum,” he mumbled.
Reina looked back at the jellyfish thing. She wasn’t sure how, but she knew it was studying them, looking at them, just as they were looking at it. The colors of its body shifted from a pale yellow to a muted pink. A quiver rolled through her belly.
Atlas stormed back onto the bridge, completely decked out in battle armor, the sharp planes of his face set with intent. He joined them, eyeing the thing at the window as if it was an enemy that needed to be eradicated.
The glow-streaks shifted from pink back to yellow.
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Atlas eyed the swarm in front of them. He didn’t know why, but try as he might, he couldn’t get a read on the things that surrounded his ship.
Our ship. He glanced at Reina and Yesne.
She caught his eye, hers were wide and filled with worry. He had a problem with losing himself in their crystalline hazel depths, and he wanted to comfort her until they cleared up. Unfortunately, they were living on borrowed time.
Reina stepped closer to him and settled slowly into his arms; Atlas wrapped her up and breathed her in. He didn’t want anything to happen to her and didn’t think he could bear living if she wasn’t living with him. Atlas pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Yesne broke the moment.
“It keeps changing its colors. Look.” He pointed. Atlas only looked down at Reina as she shifted to see. “It’s purple now. It went purple when you two touched.”
Reina pulled away and he let her, only to keep one hand wrapped around her forearm.
“Do you think it matters?” she asked. The ship rocked as if hit by an overwhelming force. The creature at the window jostled and fell away. Yesne stepped forward, making a sound of distress. It had vanished into the gelatinous globule.
“It doesn’t matter, you two need to gear up,” Atlas warned.
“They haven’t attacked us,” Yesne argued. “What do you think those guns are going to do to them?”
The ship rocked again. Atlas steadied Reina. His mission was to protect her and to protect the ship. Whatever else happened, he wasn’t about to let any possibility of escape go by.
“We all know what happens,” he answered, “No one ever returns. It’s only a matter of time before those squirmers try and take us down.” He walked over to the console and brought up all the imagery from the past hour, swiping through them one by one, showing the others the uncanniness of the situation. “There is no evidence of their existence. There is nothing at all.”
Reina shook her head. “They will try but they won't succeed. We need a plan.” He shot her a look, debating whether her confidence was feigned or if she really believed that they could get out of this. He could hear her heart race.
Atlas went to his seat and powered up the cannons. No one stopped him as he shot off a blast at the swarm. Bright yellow and red lit up washed out the bridge and their pathway cleared. The dark void of space returned. The creatures surrounded them again in a swirling mass of tentacles just as quickly. He shot off another round and this time they didn’t open up the sky, but they did wiggle.
“They’re all glowing yellow now,” Yesne piped up.
Atlas hated that he could still get headaches. He rubbed his temple. Reina was back in her own seat now, seemingly lost in thought. No one spoke, lost in their own thoughts, knowing that this mission could mean their deaths. The tension sucked the air out of the room and the remaining quiet hung heavily around them.
Reina jumped as the sirens blared again, this time accompanied by flashing red lights. He shot to his feet. The wail of it echoed off of the walls. It shattered their doomed thoughts.
“Put us in lockdown!” He rushed to the door and looked down the hallways before turning back to the captain’s screen. The door shut closed behind him as Reina opened up the report. He already knew what it said.
“There’s been a breach,” Reina breathed, her eyes wide and focused as she opened up her live schematics to find the source of the issue. “It’s in the underbelly where we were hit,” she sighed as if it were a relief.
Atlas tightened his fingers around the handle of his gun as he watched her. Even without a direct target, the twitch of wanting to pull the trigger strained his joints. The screen widened and glowed with red, indicating the problem area but there was nothing else there, which was to be expected as the creatures outside were invisible to all but the eyes.
The piercing noise came to a stop and Reina slumped into her chair. The abrupt quiet was louder than any noise that had come before. Strain permeated the bridge and built as each new tentacle thumped and slid across the window, demanding attention he no longer wanted to give.
The ship rolled to the side, stuck in a slowly swaying wave of goo.
The slap of Yesne’s hand broke the silence as he grasped a metal rail to keep his balance.
Reina spoke up, saying the one thing no one wanted to say. “They’re in the ship.” She drew her thumb across her bottom lip. “We need a plan,” repeating her earlier sentiment. Atlas kept his eyes on her as the time ticked away, every second bore them closer to an outcome that was inevitable. He walked over and buckled her into her seat as the ship continued to shift and jerk.
“I think they’re sentient.” Yesne, still enchanted by the amorphous, color-changing tendrils mumbled, unmoved and unworried by their situation. The ship moved again and the doctor stumbled until he found his balance. Atlas shifted his eyes back to his captain, who remained lost in thought, lost in the circuits of the ship. He could feel her flow through it and caress him like a feather before drifting away.
He realized he didn’t know how to get them out of this; he was stuck in the same brooding state as Reina and the doctor. His nails bit into his palm as a feeling of uncertainty washed over him.
Atlas stormed to the barred door, placing his hands at the bottom and forcing the metal barrier back into the wall with the magnets in his palms. His fingers traced the gun on his hip in reassurance. Reina was at his side as he ducked under the grinding door.
She grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?” He strolled forward toward the passageways that led to the breach. Reina tugged on his arm, briefly stopping him, surprised by the strength in her arm. “You can’t fight them off alone.”
They reached the next door and he broke it the same way.
“I’m going to read my enemy. If it comes to bloodshed, it won’t be me that starts it.” They passed the lounge and eatery. Reina trailed behind him, half jogging to keep up with his gait. The ship shifted and he caught her before she hit the wall. “Reina, you need to go back to the bridge, the doors will shut again if you put them back into lockdown.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm.
“I’m not leaving you,” she hissed. “This is my ship and I’m the captain. You’re going to need backup to repair the breach.” The fingers on his arm pierced through his armored suit. “You can’t stop me. There is nowhere on my ship that can keep me away from you. They could be dangerous. They could be fast.”
Atlas took a step back as his captain let go of him and strolled forward. “They could also be nothing more than pretty blobs swimming through empty space.” He couldn’t help but smirk. She led them to the gear room and he lifted the door for her.
“I’m glad you’ve come to your senses,” she murmured under her breath. They picked up space suits and tugged them on. The sirens flared back to life, screaming in their ears.
Atlas grabbed Reina and kissed her hard, taking, deman
ding, one more kiss from her before they put their helmets on. The warning lights made them glow a neon red. He sought her tongue and sucked on it. A bite of desperation fueled them. They parted just as quickly, just as painfully.
“You taste as good as the sex we’re going to have when we survive this.”
That taste remained at the forefront of his mind. They made their way to the hatch, guns at the ready.
SHE COULDN’T STOP THE chilling shivers that rocked her body. Spots formed in her eyes from the bright red flashes, her hearing was nearly deafened from the wailing of the ship. But she could still hear the thunderous noise just beyond the last door. The flailing of heavy limbs and crashing, crushing machinery just beyond her sight.
Atlas shot her a look as he bent down to lift the door open. His face grim, his lips downcast, his hair wild, and his hands pressed against the metal. Reina checked her gun, the grenade on her belt, the long knife attached to her hip, and knelt next to him, nodding for him to continue.
Her self-assurance was fake; she wanted to run screaming back to the bridge and hide in a corner, pressed up into a closet and chant how she shouldn’t be here. She had never trained for frontline battles.
But she was better than what her reflexes wanted: she was a goddamned captain, a Neoborg who faced off with Trentians, space pirates, and now monsters. Reina balanced on her knees and aimed forward.
The door lifted up with a screech as if upset for being disturbed, and forced to disobey the commands of the ship. The screech of metal on metal drowned out the heavy flopping on the other side.
A silvery, red-streaked tentacle flooded under the growing space, slapping Atlas’s knees before shooting back into the room. Reina fired a shot that missed.
She winced and jerked back. Atlas gripped her forearm.
The rest of the slab slipped into the wall and Atlas hit the side, peering into the darkened room as the air from the ship vented out of the jagged rent in the hull.
Reina felt the buffeting atmosphere of the ship press her forward; she spread her legs and leaned against it. Something bright, elongated, and red sailed across the room. It disappeared into the darkened corners.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t coming at them. It seemed content to stay in the destroyed underbelly.
Atlas nudged her, placing the barrel of his gun over his helmet in a hush.
Reina shifted to the side, hoping to catch a glimpse, only to be confronted by more darkness. The flash of green caught her attention just as a chemlight was thrown into the room.
The glow from the hallway, down farther now as the pressure was shattering the stripped lighting and being sucked into the dark room, was now fused with an oily green. Reina squinted, her attention brought to the opening, seeing nothing but a pearly glob about to burst through the seams.
Atlas motioned to the side.
She turned to look where his gun pointed and was met with the sight of two of the squirmers twitching in the corner, the subtle colors of their stringy limbs, still a gross yellow, was fading into their bodies, muting the glow. The longer she stared at them, the more they seized, the more their transparent skin solidified into a sickly, white form.
Atlas said something that she couldn’t hear. Reina crept back slowly, away from the doorway and opened up her portable console, turning off the ship’s screams.
She looked up just as her Cyborg entered the room, feeling her fear replace her hard-earned resolve and hurried to cover him.
“What are you doing?” she wheezed, entering the room, her eyes on squirmers. Tiny pieces of unhinged debris flew past them and into the unfilled cracks of the opening. “Atlas?” Reina shivered with every step closer, the ship rolled and shook with her. Her fingers clenched the handle of her gun like a lifeline.
“They’re not attacking us.” Atlas canted his head toward the two in the corner. “Don’t let them touch you. We don’t know what they can do to us. I can’t read them. Still.” His voice had a hard edge of annoyance to it. “But I can sense these three now, their biology is changing.”
Reina stood up and made her way to the opposite corner from the two monsters already in the room.
“Changing?” She didn’t try to read them. She wasn’t sure how too, knowing her cybernetics were built more on emotion and feeling and a direct connection to her ship. Reina was afraid of how much control she had and how to use what she controlled. Atlas had far more wired inside him than just a single chip in his head and a heavy arm.
He shook his head, moving forward deliberately, a hunter on the prowl. Reina sucked in a breath, seeing him as the killing machine that he was.
All at once, she was glad that they were on the same side, knowing instinctively that she wouldn’t stand a chance if he had tried to kill her after his revival.
The alien mass in the crack plopped forward, demanding her attention.
Tiny hairs released from the globe of its body, shifting in color, size, and length, slithering around as if feeling for something. Reina saw another squirmer take its place in the crack. She rounded the side of the newcomer and picked up a large metal rod, adjusting to the weight of it in her hand.
She was met with the sounds of thumping and the wet slip of slime. Atlas pointed his gun at the target in silent communication as she edged near the one writhing its way across the dank floor toward the others in the corner.
Reina shifted to make herself a smaller target and steadily pressed the rod forward until the blunt tip poked into the body of the mass. The tiny tentacles shot out and grabbed the metal, rolling around its length but it didn’t tug it out of her hands. She pushed it harder into the thing and it slithered back, away from the probe. Streaks of yellow and a dead grey wormed its way through its body. Reina pulled the weapon back just as a tentacle shot up its length and swiped across her gloved hand. She jerked back. The thing slithered away.
Atlas lowered his gun and came toward her.
Dust and debris continued to flow through the room. He took the hand still holding the rod and looked at where it the thing touched her. There was a line of silvery mucus across her glove. Reina noticed that he didn’t have the same streak over his knees.
All three squirmers were piled in the corner now. Atlas took the rod from her hand and shoved it into the creature wiggling its way through the crack. He slammed the end of it over and over until it was pushed back out into the bloated mass surrounding the ship.
He bent the metal and shoved it into the gap.
Atlas stopped abruptly and cupped the rod. “What the hell?”
Reina moved to his side and focused on where he looked. Flakes of metal peeled off and flew into the crack. It was deteriorating at an alarming rate.
“How is that possible?” she asked, eyeing the floor, finally noticing that the dust and debris that was being suctioned out came from her ship’s floors and walls.
“They’re corrosive, whatever they are.” He stuck his arm through the gap and rubbed the outside, a feeler came through and swiped at him. When he pulled his arm back into the room he had a clump of metal in his hand.
Reina grabbed his arm and looked at the crumble of her ship’s exterior plating, pieces of it began to vanish in thin air.
“They’re destroying it!” Watching in horror as the clump turned to dust in his palm. She glanced at her glove It was still intact. Only metal? “Atlas—don’t let them get under your skin.”
“Shoot them if they move.” He headed toward the exit. “I’ll be right back.” He left her in the room with the creatures before she could muster a response.
Reina eyed the squirmers in the corner, the green flare was all but a dull glow now, leaving only a muddy look to the destroyed landing mech. Long tentacles flooded through the opening, reaching in and exploring the walls and the bar that denied them entrance.
The crack was growing bigger.
The ship rolled abruptly, turning on its side, making her stumble and fall into the opposite wall. Something silky and strong slippe
d across her body, shielding her from direct impact. It was the one she had poked. It covered the other two, twitching creatures, shielding them as well.
Reina shifted away and the feeler let her go. It turned grey before her eyes and then to her horror, it cracked like brittle clay and fell off its body.
The jellyfish thing slumped into itself as she backed away, scooting across the wall.
“I’m sorry,” she felt the need to tell it, whispering into her helmet. Her gun slid across the wall toward her, and she caught it before it flew past. With it in her hand, Reina shuffled her way to the exit, trying not to look at the fallen limb slowly being pulled to the crack.
She felt the need to get away from the yellow squirmers; they didn’t make sense to her, a gleam of intelligence that shouldn’t have been possible. She could have sworn the third one caught her and with that notion, her thoughts drifted to Yesne’s sentiments. Reina stiffened. They don’t have eyes.
Why do I care?
Reina ducked through the door, releasing a heavy breath. Atlas was storming down the passageway toward her with plates of metal in his arms. Their large size made him look awkward.
Concern clouded his features as he went to her. She shook her head, urging him to finish the job, communicating in silence. He stood over her, staring at her with eyes that pierced her soul, burrowing into her and taking the unease from her.
Everything came to a stop and each second lasted an agonizing eternity. There was so much she wanted to say just then, her mouth opening and closing but no words came out. He just continued to stab her with his steely gaze.
The ship rocked back into position, breaking the tortuous moment.
Atlas walked back into the room, followed shortly after by the sound of punching metal. Reina buried her head into her knees. We still need a plan.
A plan.
We’re still stuck. What can we do? What can I do? A plan...a plan...