by Jack Conner
The fighting that had taken place here before their arrival had evidently included explosives, and several gaping holes in the floor and walls of the tube revealed the violent storm all around them and the long drop to the sea. Rain whipped in through the first one Avery came to, and he tasted the acrid toxins on his lips, stronger than the somewhat filtered drips from the ruptured hull, and spat. Energy sparked off his spittle.
A bright green tongue of lightning sliced down as he leapt the gap, heart in throat, and fled on. When the survivors reached the far side, they regrouped, beginning to form a half-circle facing the tube. They would meet the creature head-on and rescue any comrades still in the tunnel.
Before they could complete the formation, though, more shapeless fungal creatures, glowing or otherwise displaying a myriad of hues, fell on them from behind.
“This way!” Sheridan said, firing a round from her pistol into a creature’s brain. It reeled back. She darted toward a stairwell. The group followed, tripping over each other in their haste to escape the monstrosities. Avery found himself gasping and sweating and wishing he had a weapon; once again the Octunggen had not trusted him enough to arm him and he had no time to snatch one from the dead.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Sheridan plunged down a hall, the group right after her. Commander Lasucciv reasserted her authority and ushered them down one side-tunnel, then another. The shapeless things followed, gradually falling behind. Avery put a hand to his forehead and found a gash he couldn’t remember getting right above where his hairline had used to begin. Rain dripped down from the pipes, both burning and frigid, and from somewhere wind gusted down the tunnel, colder still. He was shivering and out of breath, heart leaping wildly.
Lasucciv drew them to a stop.
“What the fuck?” someone said, and others erupted with their own thoughts. All were panting and lathered in sweat.
“What are they?”
“They’re unkillable!”
“Fuck this. Let’s go back to the Valanca.”
Lasucciv glared at the man who’d said this last. “We’re on a mission, and we will see it done.”
“The mission was to find out what happened here, Commander. Well, we found out—”
“Shut it or so help me gods I will put a round in your brain. We must end this infestation and make the station safe. We don’t have the machines aboard the Valanca to unite Key and Codex. It must be done here.”
Moans drifted from down the corridor, shockingly close, and flashlights swiveled to pick out fungal creatures lurching around a corner.
“Run!” said Lasucciv, and showed them how to do it.
Avery found himself pelting down a corridor beside Sheridan. She’d scraped her chin somehow, and her hair looked sweaty and disheveled. She looked shockingly fragile, he thought. Shockingly vulnerable. She was just a woman, after all. Not a god, not a devil. She was as human as he was and as much at the mercy of unfolding events.
Around them the station shook as a blast of thunder rolled out, louder even than before. Now that he was paying attention to it, Avery realized the station had been rocking and shaking since the very beginning, and it was only growing worse. Something had happened, perhaps when primary power had been cut, and now the station had become unstable. That was what was causing the leaks, and before long it would cause far worse. As he and the others passed down a tube between wings he was aware of the ends of the tube shaking in their brackets, threatening to tear loose and send them all to their deaths.
Reaching the next wing, they wove through one hall, up a flight of stairs and down a corridor, the fungal creatures losing ground behind them. Lasucciv brought the group into what turned out to be a library—Sheridan had been right that the station would have one—and had the hatch closed behind them. Panting, the group stared at the door, waiting to see if it would bulge outward and be wrenched off its hinges. It didn’t, at least not yet, and Avery wondered if that would even be necessary. The fungal creatures might well be intelligent enough to simply open the hatch by pulling the lever or turning the wheel. If nothing else, there was a second door on the far wall that the group could escape through if necessary.
“We stay here,” Lasucciv said.
“That’s a mistake,” Sheridan said, tucking a lock of hair back in place behind an ear. “We shouldn’t be holing up. We need to make the station safe, you were right about that.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Lasucciv’s voice was almost a snarl. “That we go on stumbling around blindly? I’m not even sure how to get back to the Valanca from here. I have no idea where the fucking Key is. Who has the map?”
The soldiers looked at each other, then to their leader. “Hulnisc didn’t make it,” someone said.
“Godsdamn it.”
A priest cleared his throat. There was only one now, Avery saw. The other two had fallen somewhere along the way, Avery could not have said where, and he wondered if the surviving priest could either. “Watch the blasphemy, young woman,” the priest said. “It will not be tolerated.”
Lasucciv subsided, and Avery could almost see her gears turning, trying to formulate some plan of action.
“We stay here,” she said. “Wait for the ... the things to calm the fuck down, forget about us.”
“You’re assuming they will forget,” Avery said. “I’ve seen no indication so far that they possess a sub-human intelligence—although it’s entirely possible, of course.”
Lasucciv narrowed her orange eyes. “When I want you to speak, I’ll ask you to, and don’t hold your breath for that to happen.”
“The doctor is correct, Commander,” Sheridan said. “Staying here and putting our heads up our asses is no sort of plan. We need to move.”
Lasucciv sort of smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Is that the sort of thinking that cost the lives of everyone on your last expedition—or was that the input of the doctor?”
Avery sucked in a breath. “As it happens, I have an idea.”
“This should be rich.”
“Well, the station is still afloat, as it were, and I’ve been hearing something that might be engines, and seen several emergency lights, though many seem to have been damaged in the fighting.”
“Yeah? So?”
Avery indicated a speaker console set into the wall near the door. “There is an intercom system. Perhaps it’s hooked up to the emergency power. Communication would be something vital in an emergency.”
“And what would we do if it did work—summon the creatures to a feeding frenzy?”
“There could well be survivors hiding here somewhere. If we let them know we’re here to help, they could give us directions to the Key, perhaps provide some explanation for what happened, even some way to fight these things.”
Lasucciv glared at him, then the intercom, then back to him. She was clearly loathe to take his advice on anything.
“Fuck it,” Sheridan said, and moved to the intercom. She hit a button and said into the mouthpiece, “Calling any survivors in the Fortress. Repeat, calling any survivors of the Fortress. We are from the zeppelin Valanca, temporary flagship of the Great Lord Uthua, here to give aid to any survivors. Please respond.”
Her voice echoed down the halls, giving testament that the intercom system did indeed function, but silence greeted her announcement. Long, tense moments passed during which Lasucciv’s smile became more real, and more repugnant.
“Well,” the X.O. said, “look at that. Wasn’t that a brilliant suggestion from our good doctor?”
Avery frowned. “Well, it was worth a—”
“Hello?” came a voice from overhead. “Hello? Is anyone there? Wait! Before you answer, enter code 4729—it will dial us directly. No sense stirring up the Vathe. They can’t understand us, don’t worry. Somehow they don’t fuse with that part of the brain. Oh, and you can look at the little map diagram beside the intercom. See those numbers in the rooms—give me that and I can dial your location directly, too.”
&n
bsp; Sheridan arched her eyebrows at Lasucciv, giving the X.O. the option of taking over, but Lasucciv shook her head. Sheridan glanced briefly at Avery. No expression crossed her face, but he felt the urge to smile in response anyway. It had been a look of victory.
“Why should we give them our number?” Lasucciv said, before Sheridan could respond to the survivor. “I don’t know if I trust them with our location.”
It wasn’t a bad point, really, but Sheridan ignored it. She pushed in the code and said into the intercom, “Thank you for replying. What happened here?”
The voice returned. It was male, and sounded as if it was only suppressing hysteria by the thinnest of margins. Gods knew how long its owner had been hiding from the fungals. “Thank the Collossum you’ve found us! We didn’t think anyone would arrive. When the Great Ones died ...”
“How did they die? I know you’re excited, but slow down. Take me through it, as quickly as you can. What went on here?”
In more measured tones, the man said, “There was a ship, an abandoned dirigible, just drifting. Our air defense went out to investigate it, but they didn’t find anyone aboard, so they scuttled it. I don’t know, maybe they picked something up ... but as soon as they came back things went to shit. There were explosions, men and women ripped apart. The Great Ones ... died. Then the psychic controller was sabotaged, and the Vathe went berserk.”
“The ...” Sheridan cleared her throat. “What are the Vathe?”
“Research aboard this station was originally intended to find alternate ways of harnessing power from the Atomic Sea—from the storms that gather over it. They generate unique charges and have properties separate from those of the sea. Fascinating research. I am—was—deeply involved in it.”
“Get to the point.”
“After the machine of the enemy was activated months ago and our special weapons stopped working, the Great Ones took another look at our research and determined that the results indicated a way to break through into certain dimensions. The Atomic Sea storms—they create a, you might call it a thinness in our reality. Sometimes ... a window. A Collossum came aboard and led us in the creation of certain machines to assist in specific avenues of research. Three more came later, not for the research but to oversee developments with the Key and Codex. They helped her, though. She helped us find one of the planes the Vathe live in—they’re worshippers of the Great Ones. I don’t know why the Great Ones wanted to bring them over—I just do what I’m told—but they did. They couldn’t live like we can, though. They’re multidimensional beings, and the one dimension of them that we could bring over into our reality is not strictly corporeal. We had to build them flesh. Bodies. After a great deal of research, we determined that specially-made fungus could serve as a host for them, but they needed range of movement. Also, well, they’re kind of ... mad. Deranged. And unused to the sensory organs necessary to perceive reality here. We found that fusing their consciousnesses with a human brain grounded them in our dimension and made it so they could understand us somewhat, and the reverse.
“Even then they were hard to control. The first Great One that had come aboard built a psychic harness, and we helped her when needed. After that the Vathe were able to inhabit the fungal material we grew on corpses, fuse with the brains of the dead and be able to exist in corporeal form on our world without going insane. The fungus was even developed to retard decomposition of the bodies. Then the empty dirigible happened, and whatever our troops found on it came back with them and destroyed the psychic harness, causing the Vathe to go mad. Whatever force did that also killed the Great Ones. All of them.” The voice paused. “I can’t imagine what could destroy such as they. The assailants seemed to come out of the very air—invisible.”
“Evil deed!” said the priest.
“And you don’t know why the Collossum wanted to bring these Vathe over?” Sheridan said.
“No,” the voice replied.
She frowned, and Avery knew her well enough to realize she understood more than the scientist did; she knew why the Collossum had brought these beings over. Even if she had not known the particulars of the research, she had known its goal.
“How many survivors are there?” she said.
“As far as I know, there’s just us. We’re about forty, holed up in Cafeteria 2—third level, Tarsud Wing.”
“Is there a way to bring the psychic harness back online?”
“Maybe. It’s a machine. If it can be broken, it can be fixed, assuming the parts are available. But it’s too far from where we are, and we’re poorly armed. Let’s see ... the library ... yes, you’re much closer. You’ll just have to go one wing over.”
“Tell me where it is.”
“Do you see Control Station 17 on your diagram? That’s it.”
Sheridan studied the map. “I see it. After the controller comes back online, the fungus creatures should be harmless?”
There was a pause, then: “Well, you won’t know till it’s done, will you?”
Sheridan shared a look with Lasucciv, who nodded.
“Let’s do it,” the Commander said.
The party waited a few minutes, just to be safe, then left the confines of the library. As soon as they had completely emerged and rounded the first bend, a swarm of Vathe fell on them. The reek of the fungal creatures’ musty flesh, as well as the rotting corpses of their kills, rose all around Avery, almost choking him in the tight confines. It had served as a small warning, but not enough of one to save the troops, two of which died immediately.
“Don’t stop,” Lasucciv said, shooting one creature through the chest. “The control room is this way!”
The party passed down another hall. Misshapen forms lunged out of open hatchways in what could only be considered a coordinated strike. The Vathe instantly grabbed up two soldiers and one pirate and dashed them against walls and ceiling. Avery had been right next to one of the men and could feel a hot spatter of the fellow’s blood seeping into the fabric covering his arm.
“To me!” Commander Lasucciv called and ran on.
“Aim for the head!” Avery heard himself shouting. “They’re fused with their hosts’ brains! Aim for the head!”
The soldiers listened and took aim. Some of the pursuing fungal creatures sagged backward, their brains erupting out of the back of their skulls, but others came on, their brains protected by dense layers of fungal armor. Some sprouted multiple protrusions from their upper bodies and it wasn’t immediately apparent which one contained their brains.
The group from the Valanca reached the tube that led to the next wing and fled across it, leaping gaps and skirting along ledges when necessary. Lightning flashed all around, thunder rattling the tube in its brackets and poisonous moisture whipping in. The Vathe pursued.
“This way,” Sheridan said when they reached the new wing, as she was the one who had studied the diagram in greatest detail, and led them up a stairway and down a hall to a hatchway, which she levered open.
The group poured in without hesitation, Sheridan last. Looking sweaty and out of breath, she slammed the hatch shut behind them and spun the wheel. A surprisingly small room, Control Station 17 was crammed with oily machinery, little of which was recognizable to Avery. Water dripped from above, and so much of it had pooled on the floor that it sucked at Avery’s feet. The sudden influx of troops spattered it everywhere.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the fungal creatures pounded against the hatch but could not get in. His relief came too soon, he realized, when the door thudded again, then again, and Avery could actually see the metal bulge inward this time. My imagination, he told himself. Surely they’re not that strong.
“Damn,” Sheridan said, sliding a fresh clip into her pistol. “No other doors.”
Avery turned, having to exert a strangely large amount of effort into ungluing his eyes from the hatch they’d entered by; he half expected his neck to creak as he turned it. Sweat stung his eyes. Sheridan was right: no other exits. They were tra
pped in the control room.
In the center of the chamber stood an exotic-looking machine that must be the psychic harness. Lasucciv approached it, frowning. She turned back to the group, surveying them, then shook her head. To Sheridan: “Our two technicians didn’t make it.” Addressing the rest of them, the Commander said, “Does anyone feel qualified to repair this thing?”
No one volunteered.
“Alright, damn it.” She pointed to two soldiers. “Take a look. You, too,” she said to Sheridan. The four gathered around the psychic harness, and at Sheridan’s gesture Avery joined them.
“Perhaps we should send to the Valanca for another technician,” he said.
“No time,” said Lasucciv, “and not enough of us left to cut our way to the zeppelin and escort one back here. We’d be shredded before we reached the ship.”
Avery bent forward, studying the machine, a great big mound of metal covered in cables and tubes, like some enormous metal stomach with enlarged arteries snaking across it. Removing one of the panels, he beheld a network of tightly-nestled wires and filaments, in some ways resembling the system of tubes inside the human body.
The two soldiers shook their heads, and Lasucciv swore. Sheridan focused grimly at analyzing the machine but didn’t seem to make any progress at finding out what was wrong with it.
Avery examined the innards of the apparatus with the eyes of a doctor, not a technician, but his experience in innumerable surgeries paid off as he continued opening panels; beneath one he spotted three intertwined tubes that were sagging and deflated where they brushed against other wires and filaments in a very subtle fashion, something an untrained eye would have been unable to detect. Turning them over to see their undersides, he saw that their bellies had been slit to a considerable length.
Nearby sat a tool chest. He selected a small wrench, removed the sabotaged cables and held them up for the others to see. He tried to ignore a thud as a fungal creature slammed against the hatch; it undeniably bucked this time. How long before the hinges gave out?
“If we can replace these and restart the machine,” he said, his voice only quavering slightly, “I think it will work. Everyone, help me find cables that look like this.”