by S. A. Lusher
As he straightened up from his search and looked out the front windows, (both of which were cracked badly), he spied something that at least filled him with a bit of hope: the dark angles of a nearby structure.
“Drake, there’s a building within sight. We need to get to it,” he said.
“Got it,” Drake replied.
As Greg returned to the cabin, he saw Drake finishing dressing Eric’s head wound. Once it was done, he replaced the medical equipment, snapped the kit closed and reattached it to his belt. He took a deep breath, then picked up Eric and stood.
“Can you handle him?” Greg asked.
Drake nodded tightly. “For now, but we need to move fast.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
They moved to the back of the compartment and Greg hit the access button. The ramp was thankfully in good enough condition to lower. As it did, snow blew even harder into the ship, adding to the small drift of the stuff that had leaked in through the cracks in the hull. The temperature dropped even further. Greg guessed it had to be around zero, probably below that. He fucking hated the cold. With that cheery thought in mind, he hurried down the ramp once it had finished lowering and checked to see how Drake was doing.
The man was following him, but he looked strained and pale.
They had to get inside fast.
Outside, it was brutally cold, definitely way below freezing. Greg kept his pistol in hand and led the way around the side of the ship, making progress towards the front of it. The snow was deep, maybe a foot of it, and they had to slowly kick their way through it. There was a storm in progress, snow falling from the skies in thick sheets, dropping their visibility down to maybe twenty feet. Well, that meant that the building was really close at least. Eric had done a fantastic job landing them both close to the colony and without getting them killed.
Greg reached the front of the ship, already breathing heavily from having to kick through the snow, the icy air burning his lungs. He looked around as he thought he heard something, another sound briefly rising above the shrieking of the winds. Raising his pistol, hoping that his shivering wouldn’t throw off his aim too bad, Greg scanned the immediate area. He couldn’t see anything, so he took a few more steps forward, away from the nose of the ship. Still nothing, and he could see the building ahead of them, just at the edge of his visual range.
“Almost there!” Greg called, and began kicking his way through the snow.
He’d made it maybe five feet when he suddenly heard Drake scream “On your six!” and he spun around, pistol raised.
A Mutant had crawled on top of the ship and had gotten down to the ruined nose of the vessel. About the time Greg noticed, it had gotten into position and was leaping for him. Cursing, he managed to get off a single shot and then had to throw himself out of the way. A fresh wave of dull pain rolled through him as he hit the snowy ground and he heard a thud as the Mutant hit a second later. Thankfully, as he scrambled to his feet, he didn’t hear the Mutant doing the same. Looking at it, he saw that he’d hit it dead on in the chest.
Well, lucky shot.
More growling came to him from somewhere nearby.
“Let’s move!” he screamed, scanning the area and providing cover while Drake hurried forward as fast as he could, which wasn’t terribly fast given the snow and the weight he was carrying. He kept looking around, keeping watch, until Drake had made it about halfway there, then he started moving forward again.
The next attack came seconds later.
A pair of dark figures were lurching out of the snowstorm from the right, growing and apparently having no problem kicking through the snow.
“Keep going!” Greg shouted as he raised his pistol.
Cursing the cold, trying to keep from trembling, he squeezed the trigger. The first shot missed both of them cleanly. Gritting his teeth, locking his muscles down, he aimed carefully and fired again. This one clipped one of them in the neck and caused it to stop briefly. Greg tried to take advantage of the now unmoving target and fired a third time. This time he hit his mark, putting a shot right through the center of its chest.
Okay, one down, one to go.
Greg tossed a glance towards Drake and Eric. Drake was nearly to the structure. Good. He aimed carefully at the second Mutant. It was closer now, but not close enough. He kept his aim as steady as he could, waiting for it to get closer so he’d have a bigger target. Once it was within five feet, he fired, embarrassed at having to wait until the target was this close in order to hit it, but goddamn, he was freezing!
The second Mutant went down as its chest was pierced.
“Thank fuck,” Greg whispered, looking around again, then turning and hurrying through the snow. Drake had disappeared through a door in the structure. Greg pushed himself, feeling his energy being sapped by the immense cold, and finally, after what felt like way too long, stumbled through the open doorway. He stayed upright just long enough to close and lock the door behind him, then confirm that the area was safe, and then he collapsed to his hands and knees.
“You okay?” Drake asked.
“Uh-huh, just need a minute,” Greg replied, his eyes closed, head hanging down, trying to simply keep from passing out.
He wasn’t looking forward to when his body warmed back up and came online. It was going to be painful. After the feeling of being on the verge of passing the hell out slipped away and he felt more grounded to reality, Greg crawled miserably to his feet. He looked around, found a chair and sat down heavily into it. They’d come to what appeared to be a garage. A couple of things immediately jumped out to him.
The first was that whatever had gone wrong up on Tempest Station had also gone wrong down here as well. The place was trashed and he could definitely see a few corpses strewn across the floor, among the debris of whatever cataclysm had tore through the building. The second was that it wasn’t really getting any warmer. It was nice to be inside, out of the storm, but he could still see his breath on the air and the only light was coming from a few work-lights still functioning and whatever dim gray light that filtered through the windows.
“Well...this isn’t exactly an improvement,” Drake said.
Greg glanced over. He saw that Drake had laid Eric out on a table and was sitting next to him, looking around in mute dismay at the environment.
“It does suck,” Greg agreed. He sighed heavily. “We need to find some kind of generator or something. Without power, we’re going to freeze fast.”
“Yep...and I can’t come with you, because I can’t leave him here like this,” Drake replied.
Greg nodded. “Yeah...do you have a weapon?”
Drake raised a pistol. “Yeah, mine got lost in the crash but Eric still had his strapped to his hip. I’ll be okay.”
“All right, I’ll try to be fast. See if you can dig up any supplies from this place while I’m gone,” Greg replied.
Drake nodded and slowly stood. Between the cold, the pain and the lethargy, both of them were moving like old men. Greg flicked on the flashlight mounted on the end of his pistol’s barrel and scanned the walls, hoping for another non-digital map. He lucked out and found one across the room, near one of the exits. Time to figure out what kind of situation they were looking at. Making his way across the room, through the chaos of smashed equipment and dead bodies and frozen blood, he reached the map and looked it over.
Well, he was in a fairly simple building. He saw that there was a hangar to his left, and that both it and the garage made up this side of the structure. Across a dividing hallway that cut the structure neatly in half was a maintenance bay, generator room, bathroom and break room, plus a control tower in the hangar and a little emergency infirmary. Okay, perfect. All he had to do was slip out into the hall and get down to the generator room.
“I’ll be back,” Greg called.
“Good luck,” Drake replied.
He moved over to the nearest door and reached out, preparing to open it, remembering that the outer door had h
ad enough power to open, otherwise Drake wouldn’t have been able to get it open so fast, so there wasn’t a reason this one shouldn’t open, when he suddenly heard something. Blocking out the distant howling of the winds, Greg listened, closing his eyes, waiting. Abruptly, he had it: footfalls. Heavy ones.
He had a flashback to that first outpost he’d found after waking up on Dis, the Berserker in the basement, listening to it thud around. Shivering, he suddenly decided that maybe it’d be a better idea to move through the hangar and to a door that was almost directly across from the generator room, so that he didn’t have to spend so much time in the hallway with...whatever the hell that was. It sounded huge. Suppressing a sigh, Greg turned and moved along the wall, pistol in hand. He patted himself down again, trying to ignore the cold and determine what he had to work with. Well, he at least still had his grenade and one magazine for the pistol.
Not a lot, but better than nothing.
Greg reached the door that would take him into the hangar. He waited by it, listening intently for any other threats that might be lurking, but all he could hear were the footfalls stomping around out in the hallways. He opened the door. The hangar loomed ominously, much larger than the garage, stuffed full of supplies and vehicles. He didn’t have a good view of the bay, as the immediate area he was coming into was mostly blocked off by a pair of jump ships that looked like they’d taken a beating, and a stack of crates.
Deciding to just cut through all the bullshit, Greg moved over to one of the jump ships, found the ladder that granted roof access and climbed right up to the roof. No more of this wandering through a maze bullshit, at least if he could help it. Once he was up on the roof, he took a look around. The lighting was still pretty awful, so he played his flashlight over the dark spots. Mutants began to appear, moving through area.
He put them down one by one, able to actually take his time and line up his shots right. Once they were dead, he scanned the area again. This half of the bay was pretty packed with junk, but the other half was fairly open. The biggest landmark in that section was a big stack of fuel canisters. He was glad he hadn’t gone off on a shooting spree. One wrong bullet and those things would blow big time. Satisfied that the area was clear, Greg climbed down and hurried through the confusing proliferation of crap that was packed on his side of the hangar.
Once he was out of it, he hurried over to the door that led to the hallway. Again, he stopped and listened, waiting to hear if the thing without a name was nearby. It was, practically right outside the door, apparently. Maybe his gunshots had drawn it. He waited, listening by the door for nearly a minute before he heard its footsteps retreating, back towards the garage. Perfect. Once it was about as far as it was going to get, Greg opened up the door and poked his head out. He looked around, trying to get a glimpse of it.
It was too dark to really get any details beyond the fact that it was big and seemed to have long arms. Well, nothing he’d seen before. He hurried across the corridor and opened up the next door, then leaped in, shut and locked it as he heard the footsteps coming back his way again in a hurry. And he nearly leaped into the arms of another Mutant. Letting out a small shout of shock, Greg raised his pistol and put two in its chest.
The thing let out a gurgling roar and crashed to the deckplates. Greg looked around, finding himself in the maintenance bay beside the generator room. He shivered and stepped away from the door, feeling the cold even more now. He needed to get this damned show on the road. Besides the single Mutant that had been hanging out, there didn’t appear to be any more enemies, which was fine by him.
He’d expended the last of his ammo in the current magazine. Ejecting it, he grabbed a new one and slapped it in. Just one more magazine after this. He was going to have to get some more bullets from somewhere or he’d be forced to fight these horrid things in hand-to-claw combat. Which probably wouldn’t turn out too well for him.
Pushing aside these thoughts, Greg focused on the here and now and moved through the maintenance bay. It was a long, low room, also packed with all manner of repair gear and equipment, parts and pieces and supplies and tools scattered everywhere, across tables and workbenches, in open lockers and crates.
It bugged Greg. He had discovered that he was a neat individual, always tried to keep his room tidy. Well, for the most part. He didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time in his quarters, between working out, visiting others, missions and training, he just didn’t have the time. But eventually he’d come home and all at once he couldn’t stand the unwashed laundry, the trash, the dishes, the messy bathroom sink, and he’d spend an hour deep-cleaning the whole area. Life aboard the Dauntless suited him, as nearly everyone onboard was military and tended to keep their workspaces spotless. He liked it, like the professionalism.
Greg found the generator room tucked away at the back. It was a simple square room of steel with a workbench, a small table and the generator itself inside. Obviously not a primary generator, but a backup one. It was humming along, clearly functional, but from what he could see, its power cells were nearly drained.
Well, shit.
He at least remembered how to do this. Unfortunately, it would mean plunging himself into darkness, something he didn’t exactly look forward to. Checking the generator out, he saw that it was a more efficient model than the ones he was used to dealing with. It only took a single power cell, and it was nearly dead. He spent a few minutes hunting down a fully-charged replacement cell back in the maintenance bay and when he found one, discovered it was bulkier and heavier than the ones he was used to hauling around.
Once he carried it into the generator room, he opened up the panel that housed the power slot and prepared himself. Paranoia crept in and he ended up heading back out into the maintenance bay to make sure that it was actually clear, the door was actually locked and there were no other ways in. Well, there were vents. And Shadows and Mutants could use vents. So that sucked. But they were all intact.
Or, at least, the ones he could see.
Sighing, knowing he’d have to deal with this head on, Greg returned to the generator and knelt. At least this time he didn’t have to deal with total darkness. He set his pistol aside, leaving the flashlight on and then, working as fast as he could, he killed the power to the generator, plunging the area into a silent, icy darkness. He then pulled out the nearly dead cell and slotted the new one. Once it was locked in, he powered the generator back up.
There was a brief pause, then the thing hummed to life and the lights flared into existence with a renewed power. Greg let out a sigh of relief, snatched up his pistol and straightened up. Okay, that was done and over with. Time to get back to Drake and Eric and figure out what the hell their next step was in this clusterfuck.
Greg moved back to the door, waited and listened. He couldn’t hear anything but the soft hum of power now. No footfalls, nothing. He waited a full minute before deciding to risk it. Opening the door, Greg poked his head out, looking first left, then right. He didn’t see the creature anywhere. So where the hell had it gone? Deciding to take advantage of the situation, Greg stepped out. As soon as he did, he heard heavy footfalls accelerating towards him from the right. He looked that direction, suddenly needing to know what the hell it was he was facing.
The corridor, he realized, extended away in that direction for a ways longer, running the length of the hangar, and then turned into a T. Something began coming from around the corner. It was huge, and dark. A tremor of excited fear ran through Greg as he raised his pistol. First, one long arm came into view. It ended in large, razor sharp claws. Then he saw a leg, the torso...and the face. God, he knew what it was.
The second he saw its face, he knew exactly what he was looking at.
A Bandersnatch.
That’s what Eric had called them. Huge, horrible alien demons. Half of its face was taken up by a hideous, broad, malignant grin. And the eyes...like pools of obsidian with a dying, twinkling crimson light at their core.
The thing le
t out a sound of awful alien triumph and began to come for him.
Greg ran through the hangar door he’d left open for just this very reason. He knew he wouldn’t be able to kill it with a pistol. Hell, even if he still had his shotgun and SMG he wouldn’t be able to bring the big fucker down. He’d need something else, something…he scanned the hangar bay, trying to throw together some kind of plan, and then his gaze came to rest on the stack of fuel canisters he’d seen earlier.
Okay, that could work.
The creature was at the doorway now. Could it even get in? Greg spun and watched in a kind of terrified awe as it slid one of its arms through, then ducked its head in, then fit its torso carefully through the opening. God, it was almost like watching an octopus get into a bottle or something. Greg’s instincts kept him from lingering any longer. He snatched the single grenade he’d managed to hold onto and prepared himself.
Just as the Bandersnatch finished getting itself into the hangar and started coming for him, Greg opened fire on it, mainly to see if he could piss it off. Well, it worked better than he intended to when he managed to get a bullet into its big fucking mouth. The thing let out another roaring shriek of fury and sprinted for him. Greg started running for the stacks of fuel canisters and barely managed to throw himself out of the way as the Bandersnatch ran straight for him. It skidded to a halt, or tried to, and ended up smashing into the canisters.
Knowing he wouldn’t get a better opportunity, Greg primed and hurled his grenade, then began running as fast as he could. While the Bandersnatch tried to get unburied from the fuel canisters, Greg had just barely enough time to get back into the maze-like area on the other half of the hangar. Then a tremendous explosion ruptured the area. Even in the relative protection of the maze, Greg felt an uncomfortably hot wave of heat wash over him. He kept going, running and dodging a fiery rain of burning fuel, until he was back at the original door.