by JE Gurley
“The logs are current. Either this beacon isn’t the Abraxas or someone’s playing hot and loose with the official logs.”
“Hmm. Make that distance 5,000 clicks when we come out of Skip. I want some wiggle room.” He had been half-joking with Tish about pirates. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“Will do.” Andy punched in the new coordinates on the console; then looked up at Dax. “Say, you don’t think they found something down there, do you? Something secret?”
That thought plagued Dax’s mind as well. The Navy certainly loved its secrets. “We’ll find out in forty-five minutes.”
2
Cargo Specialist Seaman Yeager Hines wore a silly grin as he rolled the two-wheel dolly from the aft cargo bay to the Deck 1 supply closet. Of all the supplies they had picked up in route, he thought this load the most important – four cases of toilet paper. He didn’t mind recycled water or boring as hell Navy rations, but government-issue toilet paper was as bad as it came, a real ass scratcher, like 800-grit sandpaper. Four cases of civilian name-brand toilet paper was a special treat. He intended to make sure a few rolls reached the enlisted men’s quarters before the officers snatched it up, as if their asses were any more precious to them than his was.
The dolly’s wheels squeaked a tune so familiar he whistled along with it. He could have oiled the wheels, but he had gotten used to the irritating sound, and Petty Officer Anker, the midwatch supervisor, had not. Anything that set the pompous Norwegian’s teeth on edge was worth cultivating.
The United Nations Navy frigate Abraxas had left station three weeks earlier than scheduled. The news to depart had been received with enthusiasm. Circling a white dwarf, while the science department made astronomical observations, was as boring as a mission could get. To the entire crews’ consternation, instead of heading back to Earth for a long-awaited shore leave, they had long-Skipped across half the Lower Arm. If not for a quick rendezvous with a civilian cargo vessel to resupply, they would have been eating cold rations and ripping pages out of magazines for toilet paper by the time they made it back to Earth from Loki.
He didn’t mind the long Skips in spite of the headaches and queasiness that ensued. He had joined the Navy to see the galaxy. He had seen a large chunk of it on this mission, whatever their mission was. So far, the captain had not informed the crew. As a lowly E3, he would be one of the last to know.
Just as he passed the machine shop, the shriek of shearing metal rumbled down the corridor. He stopped and glanced into the shop, but it was empty at two a.m., and the lights out. The sound repeated a few seconds later. He stared back down the corridor at the cargo bay, which he now knew had to be the source of the noise.
“Drunk-ass forklift driver skewered a cargo container,” he grumbled aloud. “Damn that Linc. Guess who’ll get to clean that mess up.” He shook his head. “I hate midwatch.”
When he heard a bloodcurdling scream, sounding as if torn from the throat of a banshee, followed by an earsplitting roar, his blood turned to ice. Another, shorter scream followed. It did not sound like an accident. Petty Officer Second Class Geir Anker and Cargo Specialist Third Class Linc Arvida were the only two crewmen in the bay when he left. What the hell were they doing to one another? He turned to check on them, when Anker lurched out the door backwards into the corridor. He turned and glanced in Hines’ direction. The look on the burly Norwegian’s face was one of terror and disbelief.
“Anker. What the bloody hell is going on? It sounds …”
Hines stopped talking as a meter-long claw emerged from the open door, impaled Anker through the chest, and yanked him back inside the cargo bay. The sound of crates falling and cargo sliding across the deck drowned out any further screams. For thirty seconds, silence reigned. The pounding of his racing heart and his gasping open-mouthed breaths sounded eerily loud. He was too frightened to investigate. As he cowered there, eyes blinking in horror, the bulkhead around the cargo hatch bulged outward in a slow motion explosion. He held his breath, as the three-centimeter-thick steel split and peeled away from the frame with the sound of heavy cloth ripping. When a giant monster lunged into the corridor and faced his direction, Hines knew he should run, sound the alarm, or something, but his muscles refused to budge. His bewildered mind could not come to grips with the reality of the impossible creature standing in front of him filling almost the entire corridor.
Like some four-meter-tall, mutant, tailless spiny echidna, spiky, black shiny scales with upturned points covered the creature’s body. It had no eyes, but the flaps of its nose billowed as if smelling him. The mouth, set in a short broad muzzle, opened in a roar, revealing rows of long, jagged teeth. His stomach roiled in revulsion, as he noticed shreds of uniform and pieces of human flesh belonging to Petty Officer Anker lodged between the teeth. The stench emanating from the creature reached his nostrils and his stomach rebelled. He bent over and puked on the deck, but his eyes never left the monstrosity.
As if vomiting had been a catharsis, the grisly sight sent a surge of adrenaline through his body and melted the ice in his muscles. He darted down the corridor and up the steps as fast as he could run. He heard the creature lumbering after him, crashing into walls, but he did not look back.
Others had heard the commotion as well. A squad of Marines, some wearing only their skivvies and a helmet, armed with laser rifles, shoved him against the wall as they brushed past him, racing down the steps. Torn between running away and watching the creature that had killed Anker and Arvida die, he stopped to see what happened next. The hiss of lasers firing punctuated the creature’s ferocious roars as they grew louder and closer. Screaming and strident yells erupted from the corridor below. The din of the melee quickly reached a crescendo, and then went silent. When he heard the metal treads creaking under the weight of the creature climbing the steps, he took off.
Like most of the crew, he had been irate at the announcement of no shore leave when they reached Loki. Months cooped up in the ship on station at Sirius B were bad enough. After eight gut-wrenching days of long Skips across space, to walk on a planet’s surface and breathe fresh air would have been a blessing, even on a barren dirtball like Loki. At least they had women. Instead, a shuttle departed the ship and returned in less than two hours, bringing aboard two large cargo containers. Now, he knew what was inside the containers.
My God! There were two containers. The thought of two of the creatures lent speed to his steps.
By the time he reached the midships crew’s quarters, alarm klaxons were sounding throughout the ship. Marines, some in battle armor, and bleary-eyed sailors poured from doorways into the corridors in various states of undress and confusion, unsure if the ship was under attack, on fire, or holding an unscheduled drill. It was utter chaos until Chief Petty Officer Vanosh Klusky, wearing pajama bottoms, his uniform jacket showing his rank, and a cap, strode down the corridor yelling, “Make way! Make way!” He saw Hines and demanded, “What the hell is going on, Hines?”
Hines swallowed, took a deep breath, and in a rush replied, “A monster in the cargo bay.”
Klusky opened his mouth to reprimand him, but saw something in Hines eyes that stopped him. “What the hell are you talking about, sailor? Monster, my ass.” He leaned forward to smell Hine’s breath. “You hitting the hooch?”
Hines understood Klusky’s confusion. It all seemed unreal. “Petty Officer Anker is dead. So is a squad of Marines.” He raised his arm and pointed down the corridor. As if cued by the motion, the creature emitted a screeching howl that echoed down the corridor, overpowering even the klaxon. Klusky’s face paled, but he recovered quickly.
“Kill that thing,” he snapped at a sailor, who shut off the alarm. Alarms in other parts of the ship still rang. He turned to face the crew, who stared at him like lost puppies. “Matthews, take two men; go to the arms locker and bring some weapons. The rest of you get dressed. Dog the hatches and stand by for further orders.” He tapped Hines on the chest. “You, come with me to the bridge. We
have to inform the watch crew.”
Hines followed Klusky eagerly, anything to place distance between him and the creature. Halfway to the bridge, he felt a slight pressure in his temple and ringing in his ears as the ship dropped out of Skip Space. He didn’t have time to ponder the reason. Moments later, the lights and artificial gravity failed. They floundered in total darkness for the short time it took the emergency lights to come on. The dim red lights spaced along the corridor revealed an eerie spectacle – Klusky pin wheeling end over end, and sailors clinging to whatever handhold they could find. Hines’ heart crawled up his throat, as he pushed off the wall to grab Klusky. He intersected the CPO and carried him to the opposite wall. Without magnetic boots, they could not walk, but everyone knew how to swim in Zero-G. Together, they pushed off for the bridge.
Hines knew the unscheduled drop out of Skip Space and the power failure bore some relation to the creature’s appearance on the ship. With a sickening feeling, he knew he would never see home again.
* * * *
Sergeant Charles Jackson Ivers came awake immediately when he heard the klaxon. He slipped on his one-piece jumpsuit and boots and stepped out into the corridor. Behind him, fellow Marines spilled from their bunks and gathered around him.
“What’s a ‘appening, sarge?” Private Duncan ‘Dog’ Nicholson asked in his clipped New Virtue brogue.
“Damned if I know, Dog. Grab your rifles and follow me.”
He and six half-dressed Marines stormed down the corridor, shoving bystanders out of the way. He heard a gut-chilling roar in the distance and swore. He was only a lowly Marine sergeant, but he could connect the dots between the remains of two fossilized creatures they had picked up on Loki and the commotion near the cargo bay. He didn’t know how and didn’t really care why the two monsters, which everyone had thought dead, had revived and now ran amok on the Abraxas. That wasn’t his department. His job was to stop them.
“Take up positions at the bottom of the stairs,” he ordered.
When the creature came into view, the men shuffled nervously and glanced at each other in disbelief, but they didn’t run. Ivers gave them credit for that, because the creature was a real monster, something from a DTs inspired nightmare or conjured up by smoking too much Turish blossom at the notorious Thunderthighs Bar on Hagman II. He resisted the impulse to pinch himself, thinking he had rather it be real than to believe his mind could create such a beast. It had looked harmless enough when they had picked it up on Loki, a shriveled-up, mummified relic from an archaeological dig. It was large and ugly, but presented no threat. Hell, he had even touched its weird black armor plates. It didn’t look so harmless now.
He waited until it was fifty meters away before ordering them to open fire. To his dismay, the lasers were useless. The black armor scales reflected the coherent light energy better than his battle armor. The few shots that struck the few areas of unprotected flesh only enraged the creature. It swiped at the bulkheads with one of its massive forelimbs. The three claws sliced through solid steel, exposing and ripping away electrical wiring and severing water lines. Water sprayed into the corridor like a water fountain.
“This isn’t working,” he said to his men, as he saw the futility of the lasers. “Dog, come with me to the armory. We need something bigger. You men continue firing but keep out of its way. Lead it toward the central core if you can. We need some elbow room.”
The central core ran almost the entire length of the center of the frigate. The hollow space could be fitted with modular habitats for troop transport, landing craft, or science or medical modules. On this mission, it was empty. One section made a perfect basketball court and another contained a ten-meter by five-meter inflatable swimming pool. Ivers considered it the perfect spot to confront the creature.
He and Nicholson entered the empty wardroom and headed for the opposite door leading into the parallel corridor on starboard side of the ship. Just as he exited the wardroom, he heard a loud roar and screaming. He stopped and looked back. One of the men he had left in the corridor, or rather what was left of him, slid across the deck past the door, leaving a bloody trail. The head and most of the upper part of the torso were missing. The creature had moved much faster than he had thought it capable. His men had no time to run. The screaming stopped, and he knew his men were gone. He had ordered them to stay, and they had died.
“Wot is da thing?” Nicholson asked. His pasty face was a shade lighter at the carnage.
Ivers shook his head. “I don’t know.” He shunted aside his bitterness at the loss of his men. He had a job to do.
They took the stairs to Deck 2 two at a time and turned sternward to the aft weapons locker, but quickly ran into a mass exodus of sailors fleeing the aft section of the ship.
“There’s some kind of monster in the engine room,” one frightened engineer said as he raced by.
Almost as he spoke, the ship dropped out of Skip Space, and the artificial gravity and power both failed. He knew they would never reach the aft weapons locker. Their path took them past the engine room where the second creature lurked.
“Come on. We’re going forward.”
As they passed an airlock, he stopped. The creatures were hell bent on destroying the Abraxas and seemed capable of accomplishing that goal. “Get into a suit.” Nicholson stared at him in disbelief. “Move it, Dog!” Ivers snapped. “Those things could rip the guts out of the ship and leave us sucking vacuum.”
It was not easy donning his battle armor in Zero-G, but practice made the task less challenging. He felt safer with a little armor around him, even if was just half a centimeter of steel sponge inside a ceramic-metal alloy shell. It was more resistant to monsters than bare flesh. As soon as he closed the visor and sealed the helmet, he began receiving reports of the ship’s com link. The chatter was frantic and confusing, as speakers talked over one another.
“We have it trapped in the Deck 2 engine room,” someone reported. “We can’t get to the engines or the generators to repair them.”
“No, it’s still on Deck 1 in ‘C’ Corridor near the environmental section,” another argued.
Ivers cursed. The creatures acted as if they knew the most vulnerable areas of the ship. Knock out the Skip drive and power, disable the engines, and kill the atmosphere scrubbers – a dead ship. “Dog, go to the bridge. Monitor the viewers if they’re still operational and keep me informed of the creature’s location. I’m going to see if a shoulder-launched rocket can do any damage to that thing.”
“Got ya, Sarge.” Nicholson pushed off toward the bridge. Ivers clanked down the nearest stairwell in his battle armor. He spotted Lieutenant Lee Holders directing a group of sailors constructing a barricade across the corridor from steel cot frames pilfered from the bunkrooms and lengths of pipe from the machine shop. Ivers noticed only three of the men were armed.
“Holders, send men to fetch lasers from the Marine quarters. I’ll be back with something heavier.”
He was twenty meters from the forward cargo hold where the weapons locker was located when one of the creatures holed the ship. The rent in the hull was large; a rush of air propelled him backwards down the corridor. He activated his magnetic boots and settled onto the deck. Two sailors emerged from a room and began choking from lack of oxygen. He closed and sealed an airtight hatch, but atmosphere continued to bleed from the corridor. The creatures had punctured the hull in several spots, circumventing the airtight doors, perhaps even disabling the seals in the ventilation system that ran throughout the ship. He couldn’t help the sailors. He had no oxygen except the pack attached to his suit. He watched them die.
“Smart bastards,” he said. He wondered if the creatures were truly some kind of mindless beast or an intelligent creature. Of the two, he preferred a mindless beast.
He reached the weapons locker and retrieved a Grom MANPADS, a Man-Portable Air-Defense System. The handheld rocket launcher fired a 72mm rocket used to take out low-flying aircraft. He figured it would take out
a creature as large as an aircraft. He loaded one rocket in the launcher, grabbed two more, and stuffed them through the utility belt of his suit. On his way to the central core, by the dim glow of the emergency lights, he saw one of the creatures bounding down the corridor in Zero-G toward him.
“Bastards can breathe vacuum,” he said with grudging admiration. Whatever they were, they were no mere wild animal. He had never heard of a creature that could live in a vacuum. He clicked off the safety on the launcher and fired. With no gravity to affect its path, the rocket flew straight and true at the creature. Just before it hit, the creature wrenched a metal door from a room, dug it rear talons into the deck to brace itself, and held the door in front of it as a shield. The rocket struck the door dead center and exploded.
The blast did not move the creature, but it mangled the door. The creature casually flung the door away and launched itself down the corridor at him with a speed that belied its bulk. He loaded the launcher with a second rocket. This time, he waited until the creature was almost on top of him before firing. The rocket struck the creature in the head and exploded. The explosion slammed it into the wall. The concussive back blast sent Ivers flying backwards. If not for the battle armor, the collision with the deck would have knocked him unconscious.
He crawled to his knees and saw the monster was down but far from out. It immediately attacked and killed two men wearing respirators who floated into the corridor to investigate the explosion. It dispatched them quickly and focused its attention on Ivers, the bloody, dismembered corpses floating like a grotesque halo around its head.
Ivers backed into the forward cargo bay through the large open door and waited for the creature to enter. As soon as it was inside, it flew across the room at him. He bent his legs, de-magnetized his boots, and pushed off. The creature could not change its forward momentum. Ivers let it pass him and fired again. The third rocket struck it just above the unprotected ear and blasted a fourteen-centimeter-deep hole in its head. Reddish-orange blood sprayed from the wound and splattered the wall. The creature bounced off the wall and flew back toward him, flailing its clawed legs. He could tell the wound was mortal, but it could still kill him before it died.