The constricting continues, drawing breath out of his lungs. His stomach feels like it's being stabbed by a thousand hot knives. The darkness around him is thick. It's so thick that he cannot even see centimetres from his face. He begins to panic. He has no recollection of how he got there. He cannot remember why this is happening to him. But then, then he is offered a gentle reminder. A reminder that jogs his memory.
It all comes flooding back to him. The corpse in the middle of the room. The blood spatter all over the place. The fact that the commander knew something was lurking in the shadows. And then the shadows themselves. How they came alive. How they swooped him off his feet and smashed him into the ground. How he'd lost consciousness. And now, now the commander found himself wide-awake. The pain he was feeling was immense. It was overtaking him. It was consuming him. And consumption was exactly what the commander feared the most.
Before, he hadn’t had much time to see exactly what was lurking in the shadows. All he saw was a blackness so dark that no amount of light could ever penetrate it. But right before he was taken off his feet and slammed into the ground, he’d managed to catch a glimpse of the dark figure that had been concealed within the darkness. It was a figure that belonged to a fully-formed being. A being that was both big and nimble. It moved with a certain grace. It was fast. Lightning fast. One minute he’d been standing, staring into the dark, and the next he’d been swooped to the floor and was being squeezed to death.
Williams had succumbed to the darkness and decided that it was best to allow himself to pass out. He didn’t want what had happened to the once alive corpse in the middle of the room happening to him. Or at least he didn’t want to be awake for it. No amount of training could prepare you for such a thing. Staring into the beady eye of death was a traumatising event for the Commander. Back on Earth, his training had made him tough. It had made all of the soldiers in his troop tough. But when it came down to brass tax and you were staring death in the eye, toughness went out of the window. Being strong and resilient would only get you so far, and actively fighting the inevitable would only prolong the pain associated with leaving your life behind and entering the unknown. That’s why Williams had decided to allow the pain to knock him out. That’s why he had decided that the prospect of dying a painful death was unacceptable, and going out with his eyes shut would do him just fine.
But he hadn’t gone out at all. He was still alive. And it pissed him off. Why was it that he couldn’t even get dying right? The man had lost everything. He’d lost his ship. He’d lost his men, and he’d failed his mission. Surely dying would be an easier accomplishment? But it was alluding him. Whatever was in the shadows wrapping itself around the commander, wasn’t in a hurry to kill the man off. It was toying with him. Making him suffer. And suffering was what Williams was experiencing. So much suffering. More than he’d ever experienced before.
White hot pain, blood red anguish and yellow stained cowardice. Williams was going out like a chump. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. Sobbing sounds were escaping his tight throat, finding their way through the constricted muscles in his windpipe. The sight wasn’t pretty – not that the Commander could see anything. The darkness was too much for him. It was everywhere and seemed to slowly be making its way up his body, covering every inch with its black tar-like substance. He could feel the ice cold feeling of it. It sent shivers down his spine. His eyeballs felt like they were freezing over.
He could hear incoherent growls. He didn’t know if they were coming from the room he was in, or if the ships metal was creaking as the temperature plummeted. With the engines being out, the ship would only get colder. And after a short while, the thing would most likely start to crack. Segments of the ship would begin to break off, and the vacuum outside would do its thing, ripping and tearing the mammoth structure until all that remained of it were tiny particles that could only be seen under a microscope. So the Commander’s future wasn’t looking bright. He knew that his time had come. And all he wanted was for it to be over with already.
“Kill me,” he whispered under his breath.
He tried to tilt his head up to get a better view of the rising blackness that was slowly consuming him, but when he did, he began to cough uncontrollably. More blood trickled and sprayed out of his mouth. He concurred that he must have internal bleeding. He didn’t know how serious it was, but if he was back home and found himself haemorrhaging blood as he was now, a visit to the ER was most likely. But there was no ER where he was. There was just darkness. Darkness and uncertainty.
“Kill me now you son of a bitch!” he shouted, still glued to the floor, still spitting blood out of his mouth.
The ice cold chill hadn’t stopped making its way up his body. By now it was near his neck. He figured that once it reached his head, he’d finally die. So a smile was forming on the Commanders face. Specks of blood glistened on his cheeks as he grinned. Sweat dribbled down his brow. His skin became paler as the blackness crept up his neck, but the smile didn’t fade. He was happy to die. Happy to finally accomplish his new goal. At least in dying, he wouldn’t have to deal with the grief that he’d most likely feel for the rest of his life. Greif that he let his men out of his sights on an unknown ship. An unknown ship that was covered in an equally unknown substance. So dying was all that was left to do.
But suddenly, the ice cold feeling making its way up his body retracted and a deafening sound echoed through the room. He tried to see what was going on by craning his neck toward the door, but his muscles were stiff and unmoving. No matter how hard he tried, his head would not budge.
But then the confusion that was making the world around him seem like cotton disintegrated. And the rather loud and obvious sound of gunfire proceeded. The Commander managed to sit up and get a better look at what was happening. To his surprise and relief, he saw a man standing in the doorway. The man was holding a heavy looking machine gun. The machine gun was being fired at will. The man aimed and let rip at the blackness, the blackness that was now retreating further into the room. It climbed up the walls and became one with the shadows. Williams couldn’t believe it. The ice cold touch of the darkness had dissipated and he felt normal. It no longer had a strangle hold on him. He could move. And just as surprising, the thick substance had vanished completely.
“Get up and follow me! It will come back, and once it does, we’re screwed!” the man at the door said, hesitating and then stepping into the large room.
He ignored the dead soldier on the ground and rushed toward the Commander who was sitting up, shell-shocked by the turn of events. It was obvious to the man with the gun that Williams was in total shock. So he strapped the heavy machine gun around his shoulders and dragged the Commander to his feet. Williams was unsteady, his balance off kilter. He managed to stay standing. But he was still in a daze. Everything was happening far too fast for his liking. One minute he’d been on his back, being suffocated by a mysterious being covered in dark shadows and the next he was being rescued by a stranger.
“We need to move, and we need to move now!” the man said, dragging Williams out of the room. At first, the Commander had to be physically moved, but after a few seconds, once in the corridor and out of the room, Williams’ brain rebooted and he was able to move by himself.
The two men began to run down the corridor.
The man with the machine gun refrained from looking back as he made his way down the tight and narrow ship, but Williams couldn’t help himself. He jolted his head back to see if they were being followed. At first he didn’t see it, but then out of the blue, around forty feet back, he saw a mass of darkness forming. The darkness was quickly growing in size. Williams gasped in horror, but then felt a hand grab at him. Then two. Then three. Suddenly he was being forced into a room, through a side door that had appeared out of nowhere. Inside the room he was met with the stairs of a load of unfamiliar faces.
People. Other people.
The door that he’d been forced through slammed shut. A huge
metal bar was locked into place over the heavy looking door. A roar could be heard on the other side of the door, followed by two large thuds. Williams jumped and let out a whimper, but then the roaring stopped and everything went quiet.
Minutes of sustained silence passed and then somebody finally spoke.
“Welcome aboard the Orion Traveller. As you can see, we have an uninvited guest roaming the ship. If you want to survive, I suggest you keep quiet and stay in here with us,” a man said.
Williams turned around and faced him. He was standing in front of the others. The others wore blank expressions on their faces. Expressions that only fear could produce. Pale faces. Gaunt and thin. These people looked like natural disaster victims. Clothes ripped up. Hair caked in crap. Scars and cuts. He didn’t recognize anybody. And none of them recognized him. Right away he was the outcast. But social hierarchy wasn’t important right now. Getting off the ship was all that mattered to Williams, that and recovering his lost men. He’d be damned if he was going to hide in a room. Now was his chance to do some right. To get these people off the ship.
“Name’s Williams. I don’t know what you guys are dealing with here but I do know this; if we stay in this room and do nothing, that thing - whatever it is - will find a way inside. And trust me, you don’t want to go toe to toe with it. So I suggest you lot put your heads together and come up with some sort of plan, because I ain’t getting KIA’d by that black gunky thing out there,” Williams said.
The men and women remained silent. The man at the front shook his head in disapproval. Williams could tell that he was their leader, maybe even the Captain of the ship. But he wasn’t looking to fall in line here. This was a life and death situation, and no ship Captain was going to tell him how to save his own skin.
“You go out there, and you’ll die. Trust me, we all want to get off this ship, but we can’t with that thing out there,” the man said.
Williams looked at the man and then at the people behind him. Judging by their appearance, they hadn’t eaten anything for days, or slept for that matter. He quickly scanned the room and saw that there was a crate of bottled water near the far end. The room itself appeared to be a storage room. He guessed that sheer luck had landed them in there, but no amount of luck was going to get them out. Only brute force would. Williams coughed, wiped a sliver of blood off his lips and grunted.
“As I said, I ain’t standing around here and waiting to die. I’m out of that door, with or without you guys. Besides, I have a plan,” he said.
The man raised his eyebrows.
“A plan? Please… enlighten us,” he said.
Williams nodded.
“All in good time,” he replied, cracking a blood stained smile. The man grimaced, while the others looked on.
Williams had a plan, but for it to work, he had to get organized. That was the only way that any of them were getting out of there alive.
Second Earth:
Part Four
L.D.P. Samways
Chapter One
The man in the suit sat there, staring at his computer screen. His head was hurting badly. One of those tension headaches. It was constricting his brain, wrapping itself around his face, pressing down on the bridge of his nose, moisture finding its way into his eyes. From afar, to the passer-by, the man would probably look like he’d been crying. But no tears had left his tear ducts, in fact, crying was the last thing he wanted to do.
The man wasn’t sad – nor was he distraught. The only feeling he was experiencing was anger. Anger at how Earth had let the people on the Orion Traveller down. Just because this particular man wore a suit didn’t mean he was void of feelings. He had plenty of feelings. Feelings that on a daily basis he would have to suppress, just in case they bubbled over and reached the surface.
If they did reach the surface, he feared that he would lose his job. If the powers that be knew how he truly felt, how he had doubts about the future of The Company and the people that ran it, not only would his job be lost, but his life would probably be lost as well. But this man was a patient man. He knew that even in his position, sitting behind a desk, staring at a computer, he could make a difference. He may not be the richest or the most influential member of The Company, but he was an asset nonetheless. And one day, the man would make his power known to the rest of them. And it would be nothing like their power.
For their power is a power that is drenched in darkness. It is a power that is rotten to the core. And power like that is only good for one thing, and that is being overthrown. Power like that and the people that possess it don’t last long in the thick and thorny political climate that has encumbered Earth. If the people knew what depths the men in suits had gone to in covering up the actions of their organization and what lies they had spilled, then the public would revolt.
And this man wasn’t stupid; he knew that no amount of power or money could defend or shield The Company from over nine billion angry and scorned members of the public. But there wasn’t much that this man could do at this moment. Starting a revolution took time. And even when everything deep down within his core was telling him to do something now, he knew that the longer he left it, and the more atrocities that were committed, the harder the impact of the revolution would be.
The sad fact is that people tend to only react at the very last minute. He’d seen it a million times before, governments of the past defecating on the hopes and dreams of its citizens. And the citizens take it like the timid beings that they usually are. But then, something magical usually happens. Something magical that shines a light that the people of all Earth’s nations can see, even from their homelands thousands and thousands of miles away. Deep blue seas divide them in reality, but in spirit, they have never been so close. And then the people rise, torches high in the air, a blazing light, shining for all to see, and then they act, tearing down the fabric of corruption that has cradled them from birth to death. That is when you act. That is when a revolution is effective. It takes time. And time is what this man had.
He remained seated in his chair, swivelling side to side, staring at the blank screen in front of him. He was waiting for something. He’d heard rumours down the office grapevine that something big was about to happen. He obviously already knew what that big thing was. The people in his office would never come to know; they’d probably think that it was some sort of restructuring. People being let go. Jobs being lost. Cutting and saving wherever possible.
The corporate motto; cut fast and save big. It’s something that The Company believed in wholeheartedly. People were numbers and numbers were what made everything tick. Pluses and minuses, if the numbers weren’t green, then they’d be dealt with accordingly.
And then he saw it. A message popped up on his screen. It was an email - an internal memo - only for the selective elite group of The Company. He was a privileged member, seeing that he held no wealth or no actual power. He was just a man in a suit, in an office, doing his job. Inputting data and reading results. Spreadsheet after spreadsheet. But there were many people like him. Many who hide in plain sight.
They possess something that most humans on Earth do not. And that is intellect. And not in the sense that books or lecturers can teach, but intellect that is far and wide. Intellect that stretches to the ends of the Earth and to the bowels of deep space. It is an understanding, an understanding of the bigger picture. And it is people like him, people that hold a certain knowledge of the Universe, be it big or small, that are invited to be a part of The Company.
There are thousands of them. Thousands out in the open. Thousands going on about their daily business. But none of these people reach the table. None of these individuals sit at the meetings. So the memos sent to the worker bees of The Company were important. Without those emails, then the men on the outside, the men that aren’t rich or powerful, wouldn’t know what was going on within The Company.
So this particular man was not looking forward to opening this very particular email. He already knew
what had happened. Somebody that did sit at the table - that did have a lot of money, and a lot of influence had sent him a message a few hours ago detailing his worst nightmares. He’d told him about the people on Second Earth, and how there was a rescue mission to recover the crewmates of the Orion Traveller.
But unfortunately, that mission had failed. And a rescue pod had gone AWOL. So naturally, to save their own skin, The Company had decided to nuke the rescue pod. The man knew that the only reason they’d nuked the pod was because this so-called Second Earth had intelligent life on it. Intelligent life that was and is human. So he smelt a cover-up. He wanted to know exactly what was going on. He wanted to get to the bottom of this and get to it fast. But he wasn’t stupid. To get that close to the people in-the-know would be hard. But he had a plan. A plan that would rock The Company to its very foundations.
A smile broke out across the man’s face as he read the memo. It was a standard affair. The memo detailed the destruction of the pod ship. It detailed the fact that the so-called resource was being retrieved. It also detailed the fact that the memo was top-secret, and any attempts at copying it would result in the offender’s immediate termination. These were all empty threats to him. For he had a trump card, a wildcard if you will. He knew people. People that could get him to the Andromeda Galaxy. People that could form a team, a team with a sole purpose and that purpose was to rescue every single person on Second Earth and bring them back home. And once they were back on Earth, then the man could expose The Company for what they were.
Second Earth: The Complete First Novel (Second Earth Chronicles Book 1) Page 12