Sea of Sorrows

by James A. Moore

  “… the fuck are you?” Juergens screamed into his radio. “We’re under attack! We need backup!” His voice was frantic. He tried firing at one of the damned things, but was too slow on the draw. The dark shape rammed into him and they both fell to the ground. Inhuman limbs rose and fell and drew back again and again covered with blood.

  Juergens stopped fighting.

  Three of them took down Blake. He saw them coming and shook his head. Then he raised his hands above his head.

  Shit! Connors thought.

  “I surrender!” Juergens screamed. “I give up!” Damned if Connors didn’t feel like shooting the bastard right then and there. Before he could move, Juergens disappeared under a black, chitinous wave.

  Several of the things surrounded him, peering at him and moving together, circling him, keeping him busy.

  “No,” he said. “No way.” Connors sighted on the closest one and aimed his rail gun at its oversized head. The loud POOM of the round firing roared through the air. One round punched through the vile thing’s hide. Before he could celebrate, the next one came in low and fast, and while he was trying to track it the monster’s tail slapped his gun arm aside with ease. His arm flared with pain, and then he couldn’t feel it at all.

  The creature’s flesh was hard and hot and coated with a slick moisture that left a trail of slime on his forearm. Connors kicked the thing in the chest and sent it backward. It hissed and he charged forward, determined to get past it in one piece.

  The tail again. The tip came around and slashed at his face, tearing his nose and lips apart. Connors stepped back purely by instinct, and another of the things came up behind him. The damned thing grabbed his arms, the sharp claws of its fingers digging for purchase and sinking easily into his flesh.

  He thrashed and fought, but it wasn’t enough. They were stronger than he would have ever guessed. Blood streamed down his face, and the one he’d kicked reared up in front of him, face-to-face, hissing as it peeled back its lips and revealed silvery teeth coated in a thin blanket of saliva. Nothing he’d ever seen in his worst nightmares had ever scared him more.

  There was a skull buried inside that head, and he could see the hollows where eyes should have been leering at him.

  He kicked it again, but this time it was prepared. The blow was solid, but the thing didn’t fall back. Instead it came forward, and those teeth parted, and then closed down.

  Meat and bone crunched and Connors screamed before he passed out.

  21

  EVERYWHERE

  The lift took off while they were looking around the area. Piotrowicz damned near wet himself. But there was no one on board—it was probably the miners, using it to get from one of the upper levels to another.

  His group had taken the truck back to the lift area, because Willis wanted to make sure the scene was secured.

  Soon after they’d arrived, Willis received an update from the group who found the alien city. Apparently they’d come across some mummified remains, but none of them were complete. They were burned, broken or worse. The best they could come up with was something like a long-limbed dog.

  “Have you got any pictures?” Piotrowicz asked curiously. “Of the aliens.”

  “Nigel’s group may have taken some, but they’re keeping them tightly under wraps,” the bureaucrat replied. “No unauthorized personnel see anything we find down here. Some of the crew who found the ship snapped some shots, and their cameras were confiscated immediately.

  “If you see anyone—miners, even your own men—recording what they find, shut it down immediately, and report to me,” he added.

  Piotrowicz figured he’d have to be more careful when the time came. Other folks might give up their cameras, but he had no intention of doing the same. Even as he and the desk jockey were talking, everything was being recorded… for posterity.

  When the time came, he planned to sell to the highest bidder.

  “Okay,” he said, “so what’s up with the black glass?”

  “We’re really not sure. At first we thought it was made from the local sand—that black stuff on the surface. But it’s different on a chemical level. It’s as if there’s something out there making the stuff.”

  “Well, Decker said there’s some of this stuff up near the surface, poking up out of the ground. How far down did you say we are?”

  “Seven thousand feet, give or take.” Willis shook his head. “But that’s probably unrelated. Most of the stuff near the surface probably broke off and worked its way upward years ago. Maybe through tectonic activity. Or perhaps it was the storms.”

  The mercenary shook his head. “I don’t get you.”

  “Well, the city and this ship were likely at the surface, back when the crash happened. The storms were bad enough to bury all of that. For all we know, the black tunnels might have been manufactured on the surface, then buried over the centuries.”

  Piotrowicz shook his head.

  “Not a chance,” he said. “Listen, I’m not remotely an expert, but even I can see that stuff is a lot newer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t just look wet. I found one of the tubes close to the ground, and there was moisture coming out of it.”

  “That’s impossible,” Willis said. “There’s no source of moisture down here—it’s as dry as a desert.”

  “We can drive over and check right now if you want to.” At that moment the lift started to move again, somewhere above.

  “We’ve got to get a handle on this,” Willis said, and he reached for the comm on his hip. “I’ll stop them.”

  Before Piotrowicz could respond he heard Juergens screaming in his ear, “We’re under attack! We need backup!” The sound was so sudden and so loud that he almost pulled the headset away before the words registered.

  Not far away Anderson shot a look in his direction. Vogel was talking with the three stuck over at the communications base. They tried to respond, but nothing seemed to be getting through. Then Manning came on, trying to raise Juergens from wherever he was.

  Nothing.

  Piotrowicz called to the team to assemble, and grabbed his weapons. He asked the comm techs if they could locate Connors and his team, but their fancy, state-of-the-art screens didn’t show a damned thing.

  Worthless piles of crap.

  Willis waved for his attention, unaware of what was going on.

  “It’s the team from level three, using the lift to move a few pieces of digging equipment,” he said. “So we’ll be stuck down here for a while—but the team at the dig site has already put in a request for when they’re done.”

  “Yeah? Well, right now we’ve gotta move—on the double,” Piotrowicz said. “Our guys who were headed for the dig site just radioed. They’re under attack. So you might want to call your people back and alert them.”

  “Under attack? By who?”

  “No fucking idea. But if I were you, I’d make the call.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he ran, gesturing to the rest of his team to join him at the truck. As soon as the four were aboard, the vehicle was moving.

  Juergens was a card. He liked playing practical jokes. But he would never consider crying wolf and calling it a joke. Never.

  Manning would have skinned him alive.

  No, whatever had happened, they’d been cut off. He hoped that was all it was.

  “Manning. What do you want me to do here?” He suspected he knew the answer. He also doubted he was going to like it.

  “Get over there. Have comm tell you where to go—they may be able to get a decent reading.”

  “Negative, chief. They already tried.” Perkins answered him just the same, her voice tight with tension.

  “Interference. Same as with DiTillio. We’re getting nada. Something around here is screwing up our signals.”

  “Fuck!” Manning said it at the same time as Piotrowicz. “Go check it out, Petey. And be careful.”

  “Damned straight.”


  The truck moved under the hull of the ship, and they had to duck their heads. Then it got to the point that the vehicle wouldn’t fit—they would have to continue on foot.

  Piotrowicz climbed down and gestured to his team. They came on fast and hard, all of them carrying, and all of them looking very seriously like they wanted to kick some ass.

  Fine by me, he thought. But he kept quiet, listening…

  The distance they covered was a few hundred yards. The reduced gravity made it feel like less, but it still took time to get where they were going. They rounded the side of the wreckage and looked everywhere. As the gloom increased, they locked lights onto their weapons, and flashed them into every shadow.

  The lights revealed two dead things. Maybe it was three. The pieces didn’t quite seem to match up. Lutz crouched close to one of them and used the barrel of his repeating shotgun to move it around to get a better look.

  “The fuck is that?” Lutz’s voice was calm enough, but he was looking around with a lot more caution than he’d been managing a minute earlier.

  “Comm, can you receive visuals?”

  “Negative. I mean you can try, but no promises.”

  Nothing like a solid, committed answer to make the day go better.

  “I’m gonna try. We need to let everyone see this.” He leaned in closer and took his time viewing the body. “What’s this thing made of?”

  “Looks almost like a machine.” Vogel’s voice was soft. “Are we dealing with bio-mechanical organics here? Like the ship?”

  “No idea.” Piotrowicz stepped back. There were places on the ground that had burned, wherever the spillage from the things had landed. Spots on the side of the wrecked ship showed similar damage, and even as he was checking it out, Estrada walked over carrying Connors’ helmet.

  “Manning, it looks like we’ve got five more down,” Piotrowicz reported. “We’re seeing evidence of the combat, but no bodies. No human bodies. There are other things here. I think we’ve found the bugs we were supposed to come hunting for.”

  Manning didn’t answer.

  He repeated his comment, just to be sure.

  No one answered.

  And then the sound of an engine reached him. It was large and it was loud, and it didn’t sound good.

  He gestured for the rest of his team to pull in close to the ship, and was glad of it a moment later. The vehicle came barreling around from the far side of the dig site, where none of them had been yet. It wasn’t armored, but it was enclosed. There were lights, but only half of them were working, and the entire massive affair was smoking as if it had been caught in a firestorm. The outer hull was pitted and scarred, with several deep gashes and what looked like at least one hole burned into the side. One of the tires was a slagged mess, flapping and thumping instead of running smoothly over the ground.

  Estrada said something, but the roar of the engine was too loud.

  The wagon tore past them at high speed, and for a brief moment Piotrowicz saw the driver’s face. Her eyes were wide and her lips were drawn back in a rictus of fear. And he could see the reason why. There were black-skinned things hanging onto the top, ripping at the metal shell and trying to get inside.

  Piotrowicz and Lutz both fired. One of the nightmares sailed off the side of the vehicle as it rumbled past. Another blew apart. Lutz liked his shotgun for a reason. The damned thing did damage.

  It was hard to tell if there were more of the things on the wagon as it shot around the hull and disappeared from sight.

  A second later they didn’t much give a damn anyway, because the one he’d shot was coming for them, shrieking as it charged. Piotrowicz froze. The damned thing was alive—and it was very, very angry.

  Anderson tried to lift her weapon, but too late. The thing took a swipe at her and slapped her back against the ship’s hull hard enough to stun her. She never even made a noise. Vogel was right next to her, and she pumped four rounds into the thing, screaming like a banshee the entire time.

  One round would have done it. Four was overkill, not that she could be blamed. Then the wounds vomited a sickly substance, and the stuff hit Piotrowicz’s arm, his chest, his face. The pain was immediate and he cried out as he wiped at his cheek. The fire spread across his nerves, and the next thing he knew Vogel was knocking him to the ground, dragging his helmet off of his head. Lutz pulled at his vest and jacket.

  The incinerating pain calmed down after a moment, though it did not go away completely. His clothes smoldered on the ground and Lutz stood back up, looking around, while Vogel dug into her pack, looking for a first aid kit.

  Not five feet away, Anderson was getting back to her feet, her vest slashed open by the claws on the dead thing.

  Lutz called on his radio, warning comm about what was coming their way.

  Madness.

  22

  DATA STREAM

  Eddie Pritchett looked contrite when he came into Andrea Rollins’s office onboard the Kiangya. And with good reason. When she summoned him, she had wanted him to arrive afraid.

  “You called for me, ma’am?”

  “I did,” she replied brusquely. “It’s come to my attention that your actions might have jeopardized our mission.”

  His eyes flew wide.

  “I would never do that, ma’am.”

  Rollins reached into the top drawer and pulled out a thick folder of papers, which she dropped on the desktop. The folder was really mostly for effect. She didn’t need to print out the files. She had a better memory than that.

  “Your file,” she said, peering at him. “You have a long history with your group. Before you worked for Manning you were with the Colonial Marines, where you were trained as a pilot. Before that you worked with your family, who subcontracts for Weyland-Yutani, and has made a very comfortable living in the delivery business. I believe you are expected to join them eventually.”

  He listened to her words and nodded slowly. He licked his lips, and did his best not to look too scared.

  “What’s your point?” he said. Then, “Ma’am.”

  She stared at him until he looked away.

  “My point is really very simple,” she said, rising from her chair. “The next time you pull anything—any sort of stunt involving one of my drop ships, flying to the surface of a planet, or up to the Kiangya, for that matter, I will make it my personal goal to end your career, and any career you might hope to have in the future.”

  “What?” he answered. “What can you… would you… What are you talking about?” She couldn’t decide if his indignation was real, or if he was merely putting on a show for her. Ultimately, it didn’t matter.

  “I watched the drop ship’s descent when you were taking Manning and the entire crew down. I also listened. I heard your comments about turbulence and storms, and I know there was none.”

  “Listen, ma’am,” he said, “I would never endanger a crew onboard my ship.” He regained his composure and locked eyes with her again.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t, Mister Pritchett. At least not intentionally.” She stared hard at him as she leaned forward. “Just the same, I have no doubt that your cargo got bounced around. I’m sure that if I talked to them, I’d hear a few stories about how often you’ve pulled that sort of stunt.”

  He did his best to look offended. Still, he didn’t look her straight in the eye.

  “Let me make this clear,” she said, sitting back down. “You are flying a vessel owned by Weyland-Yutani, and leased to Mister Manning. The drop ship at your disposal is worth quite a bit more than you make in a decade. It is substantially more valuable than… well, than you are.”

  Rollins waited for a moment, until he turned back, before she continued.

  “You have work to do, and so do I. If your next trip down to the surface isn’t a textbook example of how to land a drop ship—without incident, if your return trip isn’t just as exemplary, you can say goodbye to your pilot’s license.”

  “Say what?” he bellowed just the
n.

  She remained unimpressed.

  “Simply do the job you’re being paid for, in a professional manner, and I won’t need to bother with you any longer. However, if you fail to follow this simple directive, I promise you will not be happy in your future endeavors.

  “The majority of the work your family does relies upon jobs which come from my employer. I occupy a spot high enough in the chain of command to enable me to reassign any contracts I wish to reassign.

  “Don’t make me threaten your family’s livelihood, Mister Pritchett.”

  He actually took two steps toward her, his hands balling into fists. Then he stopped, spreading his fingers, doing his best to act the part of the wounded victim.

  She wasn’t playing.

  “Were you planning on attacking me, Mister Pritchett?” she asked. “Is this an attempt at intimidation?”

  “What?” he said. “No. I… I just…” He lost his ability to speak for a moment.

  Then he took exactly three steps back.

  Rollins looked him up and down, a small sneer of disapproval clear on her face.

  “You can go now.”

  He left quickly, his eyes downcast.

  * * *

  The door had barely closed when the first tight beam of information reached her desktop. The signal came in clearly, reaching from the transmitters on the surface to the ship in geostationary orbit above the Sea of Sorrows.

  What came through looked, for all intents and purposes, like so much white noise. Sometimes that was inevitable, especially in areas where interference caused signal reflection and signal breakdown. Technology being what it is, there were still some issues that hadn’t been solved.

  Andrea Rollins didn’t care in the least about white noise or interference. She did, however, pay a great deal of attention to the signal embedded inside of that synthetic static. Weyland-Yutani owned the patents on the devices that created that artificial signal, and on the hardware and software that could break it down into its component parts. It wasn’t a technology currently available on the market.