by Ben Wolf
“I think this plant can—”
“Run!” someone yelled.
Pulse blasts lit up the corridor up ahead.
Justin pulled Garth backward. “Get moving. Hurry.”
Garth complied, and Justin hustled through the group alongside Shannon and Harry toward the shooting. The others turned back and fled.
Carl shot Justin a glare as he ran past with Noby.
At the front of the group—now the back—Stecker and Candy fired pulse after pulse into the ruby-lit corridor. Dirk stood just behind them with his pipe at the ready, and a pair of his friends, both of them unarmed, stood just behind him.
Justin ran past them and started firing in the same direction as Stecker and Candy, and Harry and Shannon joined the shooting, too.
Dark forms screeched and wailed and groaned amid the shots, but they continued to barrel forward.
“Back!” Stecker hollered.
Justin and the others didn’t hesitate. They kept firing but jogged backward while they did it. Even then, the mutations gained on them. They needed to flee, or they’d get overrun.
Stecker blew a mutation’s head off and shouted an obscenity when it kept coming toward him. “Enough! Retreat!”
They all turned and ran. Justin chased Dirk, who ran pretty fast for being a big guy, and heard footfalls following behind him. Farther back, a cacophony of squishes and splats and moans pursued them.
When they passed the grav lift, Justin stole a glance backward. They’d increased the distance between them and the mutations, considerably.
When they reached the door to Sector 7, Justin saw Carl and Noby leading the group back toward them, running just as fast as Justin and the other shooters. The sight confused Justin at first, but then he remembered the loud clank he’d heard earlier, and his stomach seized.
“They’re coming from both sides! We have to do something!” Carl’s shouts confirmed Justin’s fears.
The two groups met in the middle, right in front of the door to Sector 6. Justin shook his head. Perhaps he’d been right after all—perhaps the ghost did want Carl at the place where Mark had met his demise.
“If you have a weapon, form a perimeter around those who don’t!” Stecker yelled. “Both sides. Now!”
Justin’s heart thrummed in his chest. He ended up between Candy and Harry facing the direction of the admin offices. Stecker and Shannon ran past and sidled up next to Noby.
Something nudged Justin’s shoulder. He turned.
Dirk pushed his way between Justin and Candy. “If they get close, their asses are mine.”
For as much as he hated Dirk, Justin envied his confidence.
Justin tried to recall the priest’s words on courage, but they didn’t come to mind. He could only recall the idea that he should have courage to begin with. Perhaps that was enough.
Atop his repeater, the Nebrandt flower’s petals curled inward, and it sealed shut into a bud again. The source of the stimulation had left.
The first of the mutations materialized around the bend ahead of Justin. He called, “They’re close!”
“Our side’s in view, too,” Stecker yelled back. “Make every shot count. We can do this!”
There it was again—more false hope from Stecker.
Courage. Courage. You must have courage.
Justin crouched down and took aim at the nearest mutation, still twenty yards away and little more than a dark, gesticulating blur in the crimson light. He lined up his shot and fired.
The pulse hit the mutation’s shoulder, and it looked like its arm dropped off, but Justin couldn’t be sure. He fired again, and a chorus of plasma blasts ignited the air, accompanying his.
Some of the mutations dropped, but most kept coming. Justin kept firing.
A feminine scream split Justin’s ears. Candy still fired pulses next to him, so it had to be either Connie, Shannon, or Etya.
He cared about all of them to some degree, and he’d move to help any of them if he needed to. He stole a look back.
It wasn’t any of them. Instead, Pig Nose lay flat on his back, squirming under a dark form mounted on top of him. He squealed again, high-pitched and piercing.
Dirk whirled around and bashed the mutation in its side all in one motion.
Crack. It flew off of Pig Nose and landed a solid five feet away, still moving, but gravely wounded.
Dirk leaped over Pig Nose with his pipe raised over his head and slammed it onto the mutation three more times until it went limp.
Another dark form dropped from above and landed behind Dirk. It rose to its full height, only about half of Dirk’s size.
Justin raised his repeater and fired. The pulse split the thing’s torso in half the long way, leaving its head and right arm connected and upright while its left arm and shoulder hung at its side, limp and useless. But the thing hadn’t gone down.
“Dirk!” Justin yelled.
Dirk looked back, wound up, and smashed the mutation’s head off. Dark fluid erupted from its neck. He gave Justin a quick nod and leveled another one that landed beside Pig Nose.
“They’re falling from the ceiling!” Justin shouted.
Profanity rang out all around him. A mutation landed beside him, too close to shoot it. He caught its neck with his robotic arm, barely keeping it from reaching him. How do I use the damned stun gun mod?
Purple sparks shot out from between the mutation’s neck and Justin’s hand, and the mutation dropped at his feet, seizing.
All he’d done was think about it, and the stun gun had activated.
Good enough for me. He shot the mutation twice to finish it off.
Another one dropped from the ceiling. He shot it once, Dirk finished it off, and then Justin turned back to the approaching horde from Admin. He fired three quick pulses, but he might as well have been throwing pebbles into a tsunami.
They were all going to die. There was nowhere left to run. They were trapped, about to be overrun. The ghost had succeeded.
And then the door to Sector 6 opened behind them.
30
The trill of automatic rifle fire blitzed Justin’s ears. A dozen Inter-Planetary Marines clad in black tactical armor swept into the corridor from Sector 6. They quickly bolstered the group’s failing perimeters and began to mow down the approaching mutations.
Justin couldn’t believe it. Grinning, he turned back to the fracas and kept firing.
One of the IPMs nudged him and yelled, “Pull back into the cavern!”
Justin nodded, fired off a couple more pulses, and then backed toward the welcoming blue light of Sector 6.
A black thing dropped in front of him and lunged toward his face.
Justin fell back out of instinct, and he fired two pulses at the mutation. The first shot blew a hole in the mutation’s chest, and the second sheared off its head. It slumped to the floor between Justin’s legs, immobile, and gushing dark fluid toward his crotch.
He scrambled backward, and a hand hooked under his armpit from behind and hauled him upright. He found Candy behind him, and she gave him a quick nod.
Amid shouting and gunfire, the IPMs hauled three bodies through the Sector 6 door, and then it shut behind them. Four mutations managed to sneak through as well, but a barrage of rifle pulses liquefied them within seconds.
Justin looked over at the access terminal. An IPM stood there with a handscreen hardwired into the decimated terminal. He disconnected it and tucked it into a pouch on the front of his breastplate.
They activated the door with some sort of device? Was it still functioning, despite the damage it had sustained in the first Sector 6 accident?
“Thank God you’re here.” Harry approached one of the IPMs, a silver-haired man with a square jaw, and extended his hand.
“Carl Andridge?” the IPM asked. Three gray bars adorned the armor on each of his shoulders. The other IPMs only had one or two bars at the most. He stood there with his hard eyes fixed on Harry and his rifle firmly anchored in his g
rasp.
Harry lowered his hand. “Not me.”
“Over here, Captain.”
The IPM turned and headed over to Carl and Noby, who stood near a damaged rack now all but empty of mining equipment.
“I’m Carl Andridge.” Carl extended his hand, and this time, the IPM shook it.
“Captain Eugene Mitchell, at your service. We received your message. We’re going to get you out of here, sir.”
“Thank you, Captain Mitchell,” Carl said. “Your timing is impeccable.”
“Not for these three it wasn’t,” another IPM said.
“What is it, DouPonce?” Captain Mitchell headed over to him.
Justin and the others gathered around.
Pig Nose lay next to another of Dirk’s friends, whose name Justin had learned back in Shannon’s room but now didn’t remember, and a female IPM.
Pig Nose writhed and clutched his shoulder, and blood seeped between his fingers. Dirk’s unnamed friend clutched at his leg, and the IPM pressed her hands against a bloody wound on left side of her stomach, near her hip.
“Nothing that can’t be resolved with proper medical attention,” Captain Mitchell said. “DouPonce and Landry, administer first-aid to Private Neumann first, then proceed to the others.”
“Wait,” Etya said. “How did they sustain their injuries?”
Captain Mitchell looked her up and down. “Does it matter?”
“Certain wounds inflicted by those things can create exponential issues for everyone else.”
She was right. Rodney’s face had exploded with hundreds of black crawler-things that then proceeded to kill Pradeep.
“I have no idea what you’re saying, lady.”
Etya turned toward Pig Nose. “What happened?”
Pig Nose opened his mouth, but Dirk spoke. “He got attacked by one of the ones that fell from the ceiling.”
Etya looked at Pig Nose again. “How did you receive your wound?”
Pig Nose swallowed. “It—it all happened so—so fast. I’m—I’m not—”
“How?” Etya’s voice modulated with dark, electronic tones.
“The thing b-b-bit me, I think. I don’t know.”
“Move your hand.”
Pig Nose blinked and looked up at Dirk, who nodded. Pig Nose complied, revealing a nasty red gouge in his shoulder. Justin noticed what looked like teeth marks and recognized the beginnings of the telltale puffiness and swelling he’d seen on Rodney’s face.
Etya focused on Dirk’s other friend. “And you? Also bitten, yes?”
Crimson fluid pulsed from a thigh wound under the guy’s hands.
“Show him, Amos,” Dirk said.
Amos moved his hands and nodded.
“What about you, young lady?” Etya asked Private Neumann.
“One of them stabbed me with some sort of claw. Just clipped me.” She looked up at Captain Mitchell. “I can still perform, sir. Patch me up, and I’m good to go.”
“Satisfied?” Captain Mitchell asked Etya.
“The men, we must leave behind,” she said. “Bites will swell and eventually burst, releasing tiny parasites capable of killing anything in close proximity. The woman, she may live. I do not know.”
Captain Mitchell looked between Etya and the three wounded. “You’ve seen this?”
She nodded.
“W-wait.” Pig Nose tried to stand up, but Private DouPonce pushed him back down. “What are you saying? You’re just going to leave us here?”
“You… you can’t,” Amos said, but he wasn’t going to stand without significant help.
“That’s not gonna happen,” Dirk said. “I won’t leave you guys behind.”
Private Neumann kept her mouth shut.
“I witnessed it with my own eyes in the company medbay, as did these three.” Etya motioned toward Justin, Harry, and Shannon.
Captain Mitchell stared at them, and Justin finally had to nod as did Harry and Shannon.
“It’s settled, then,” Captain Mitchell said.
“No, it’s not.” Dirk stepped forward, still clutching his pipe.
Private DouPonce pointed his rifle at Dirk. “Stand down.”
“Please,” Pig Nose begged. “Please… you can’t leave me to die!”
Tears streamed down Amos’s face. “Dirk, you can’t let them do this.”
“I’m not going to,” Dirk told him. “You sit tight.”
“I said, stand down.” Private DouPonce tightened his grip on his rifle.
“I’m not gonna ask you to move,” Dirk said to him. “Either you’re gonna shoot me, or—”
BLAM. BLAM.
The gunshots shocked Justin’s system, and everyone turned toward Captain Mitchell. He stood over Pig Nose and Amos with a large-caliber pistol in his hand. Smoke streamed from the barrel, and the insides of Pig Nose and Amos’s heads lay spattered on the cavern floor.
No one moved.
“What the fuck did you just do?” Dirk hollered and started forward.
“Stand down, man!” Private DouPonce sidestepped, positioning himself between Dirk and Captain Mitchell.
“What did you do?!” Dirk shouted again.
“I made a decision.” Captain Mitchell stared at Dirk as if he were speaking to a stupid child. “I removed an imminent threat that would’ve endangered our success.”
Justin glanced at Private Neumann. She sat there, clutching her gut, inhaling and exhaling.
Then Captain Mitchell turned, aimed his pistol at Private Neumann, and shot her in the face. Her head blew apart, and she dropped onto her back, motionless.
The group gasped collectively, and most of them looked away.
Justin couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. He’d heard IPMs were notoriously cold and ruthless, but this exceeded anything he could’ve imagined.
“Who the hell are you?” Dirk asked.
Captain Mitchell holstered his pistol, stared Dirk down, and then turned to Carl. “Are you ready, sir?”
“Thoroughly,” Carl replied.
“This isn’t gonna stand, you bastard.” Dirk pointed at Captain Mitchell. “You just murdered two of my friends.”
Captain Mitchell didn’t even look at Dirk. “Mr. Andridge, all the exits are locked down. Our transport dropped us off at the parking garage first, and we tried to gain entry there to no avail. We tried the admin offices and the loading docks next, and then we resorted to gradually making our way through the mine’s ventilation system until we ended up in this cavern.”
Justin stared at Captain Mitchell, still stunned from the triple homicide he’d just witnessed. So that’s how they got into Sector 6. They came in through the ventilation system.
It also meant that was a way out.
“The vents are an unnecessarily difficult option for getting back out,” Captain Mitchell continued. “Do you know of any alternative ways out of the mine that might prove easier?”
With occasional interjections from Harry and Stecker, Carl explained their theory about getting out through the grav lift and the loading docks. Harry also brought up the ghost, but Carl shot him down before he could say much.
“Sounds to me like that loading dock is our best bet, if we can actually get out,” Captain Mitchell said. “I don’t like the idea of trying to carve through more of those things on the way to that grav lift, but I like it more than the thought of trying to maneuver a bunch of civilians through a couple of miles of ventilation shafts to the surface.”
Justin glowered at him. Yeah, but you haven’t been running from those things all evening, either.
Captain Mitchell turned to the other IPMs. “Ready your weapons and equipment, and secure what you can from Private Neumann, including her weapons. We leave in five minutes.”
Captain Mitchell and Carl stepped to the side with Noby. The IPMs finally pulled back from the three bodies on the cavern floor, allowing Dirk over to his slain friends, but Private DouPonce kept glancing at Dirk every few seconds.
Dirk
didn’t look at him once, though. He just crouched next to Pig Nose and Amos then sat between them with his head down, totally silent. Reggie and Paul, Dirk’s other friend, joined him there.
Despite their past interactions, Justin felt for Dirk. Now they’d both lost friends to this mine.
Justin surveyed those who remained. Connie clung to Candy’s arm, and Candy’s perpetual scowl seemed to have deepened. She caught Justin’s gaze, and it softened for an instant, but it hardened again when she looked away.
Harry and Shannon stayed off to the side of the cavern, pointing to various elements of the destruction caused in the initial Sector 6 incident—damage Justin had already committed to memory thanks to his last visit.
Stecker, Garth, and Pinch stood in a trio, three random points of intersection in Justin’s life, all within a few feet of each other. Though Pinch and Garth were talking, Stecker’s eyes focused on something beyond their conversation. Justin followed his gaze and saw Etya.
She just stood in the center of the cavern, staring down at the largest fissure in the floor, now mostly filled in with boulders and that familiar blue resin.
Something within Justin made him want to approach her, but Captain Mitchell’s voice snapped his resolve.
“Alright, gather ‘round. Here’s how this is going to work…”
The IPM with the door-activating device managed to get the Sector 6 door open again. A flurry of mutations poured into the sector, but the IPMs gunned them down with precision while everyone took cover behind them. Red light still glowed in the corridor beyond the door.
Their rifles seemed to shoot pulses as well, but they fired smaller, meaner bolts rather than misshapen orbs like those from the repeaters. They apparently held more charge, too.
After all the commotion, Justin’s repeater displayed a charge of only twelve percent, but he got a glance at one of the soldiers’ rifles and saw an “83%” on the display, even after all that shooting.
Military hardware. Good stuff. Justin wished he had one of those instead, but as long as these IPMs were around to handle most of the shooting, he might not need one.
Within five minutes, the last of the mutations staggered through the Sector 6 door, got promptly shredded by the IPMs’ blasts, and dropped to the floor in a pile of gray and red flesh.