by Jamie Sawyer
“Move out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AT PEACE
Mission timeline: fifteen hours.
The tunnels became narrower. There was no way that we would have fitted a crawler through them. The Artefact is a rotten tooth, I considered. Beneath the gumline, the root is immense and infected. We were in that root, now somewhere below the rotted structure.
My head felt like it was going to explode, and I had to focus on what Jenkins and Martinez were saying to me, or my mind was quickly dominated by the Artefact’s signal. The impossibility of my plan – the idea of making it all the way to the Artefact – dawned on me during the trek.
Can’t give up. Got to keep it together.
So many dead bodies. Not enough to account for the two thousand missing staff, but enough to demonstrate that the tunnels had been the site of an unmitigated massacre. We didn’t even stop to inspect them.
“I hate this place,” I whispered. “It offered me so much, but has taken everything.”
“What do you mean?” Jenkins asked, panning the area behind us with her rifle. When she turned away from me, I immediately panicked, desperately looking ahead to make sure that Martinez was still with me.
“Elena. It offered me Elena.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” Jenkins said. There was pity in her voice. It made me angry; not just with her, but with Kellerman, with the whole damned cosmos. I was so drained from being angry.
“A long time ago, I tried to follow her,” I went on. Easier to just recite past glories, to remember what had come before, than to think about what was going to happen next. “Command wouldn’t authorise the mission. Too expensive, too risky. Not without star-data.”
I wanted to keep talking. Jenkins’ voice was a comfort in the darkness, something real in the midst of this nightmare.
“That was where I went wrong. I let Elena go. I should have tried to stop her, should have told her that I loved her.”
“We all have to make choices,” Jenkins said. “But it isn’t the good choices, the easy ones, that define us. It’s the bad choices, the hard decisions.”
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”
“I suppose so. Sometimes a bad decision isn’t obvious until it’s too late.”
Now, I was paying for that decision, that choice. Elena had gone out into the cold, hungry stars. I had let her go. She had been alone, desperate and separated from the rest of the human race. And now I was too.
“It’s ironic,” I said. “Elena always wanted me to live a real life, to enjoy unsimulated reality. All those years ago, I couldn’t do that.”
Maybe she blamed herself for inducting me into the Sim Ops Programme. Maybe she felt that was her bad choice. She was wrong about that; she might’ve inducted me, but I was the one who became addicted. I kept going back out into space for more, simply because I craved it.
The anticipation of making transition.
The rush of inhabiting a new simulant body.
The gratification of doing things that no natural human being was capable of.
And yes, even the horror of extraction. Even the pain of dying, again and again, became like a drug to me eventually.
“Elena knew that none of it was real,” I said, shaking my head. “She tried to warn me against becoming addicted. Tried to warn me that I was losing touch with reality, losing her.”
“Just remember who you are, Harris,” Jenkins said. “Lazarus. You always come back. We’re all going to get through this.”
She didn’t sound convinced at all.
The tunnels became wrinkled, scarred with ancient cuneiform. Consoles of black obsidian lined the walls. I approached one of them, and the controls glowed green in reaction. Martinez and Jenkins tried to do the same, but they couldn’t reproduce the effect.
My head ached worse than ever before. Even death by vacuum had been more pleasant than this. Whatever Kellerman had fed me to overcome the pain caused by the beating I’d suffered back at Helios Station, it had now completely worn off. I was in the throes of a chemical comedown. I limped on. My data-ports burnt. I’d never felt this sort of hurt in a simulant, let alone my own skin.
Something flashed red on my wrist-comp display. I stared down at it for a long time. TRANSPONDER TRACKING ACTIVE. So Kellerman still has his talons in me, even now.
I didn’t bother telling the others.
Martinez’s bio-scanner chirped a regular warning, letting us know that there were hostiles out in the dark.
It had been making the same noise for hours.
The Krell were following us.
Mission timeline: twenty hours.
“The floor is rising,” I said to the others.
Martinez and Jenkins nodded in agreement. The incline was almost imperceptible, but the tunnels were coiling back, taking us to the surface.
To the site of the infection.
“How far do you think we have to go?” I asked. Forming the words took such immense effort.
“Maybe a few hundred metres,” Martinez declared. “But it’s difficult to say—”
Suddenly, Martinez’s bio-scanner began an urgent trilling. I could envisage his sensor-feed: a mass of fast-moving hostiles converging on our position. An amorphous signal-blob, indistinct, impossible to quantify. Behind me, Jenkins fell to one knee, rifle up. I clutched my plasma pistol.
In the dark, Martinez spun about-face, rifle up, searching for targets. I felt the prickle of fear on my spine: the Krell were here, even if we couldn’t see them yet.
“Keep all approaches covered,” I yelled, my voice echoing down the tunnels. “Watch the six!”
“Conta—” Martinez managed.
Something enormous swooped from the ceiling, accompanied by a claws-on-metal squeal. It came from a shaft above Martinez, and had been hidden until it chose to reveal itself. The primary-form sank its forearms into Martinez’s torso. Both blades pierced his combat-suit, lifting him off his feet. All happening so damned fast, too quick for my unaided senses to properly digest, let alone react. The xeno dropped from the shaft, hitting the ground with an enormous boom.
“Help me!” Martinez howled.
“Jenkins!” I shouted. “It has Martinez!”
I’m going to be next—
I started firing. Unguided, incensed. Plasma pulses tore into the xeno’s body, sent boiling alien blood over the walls and floor. The thing screamed, scrabbling around on the smooth floor for purchase, forearms still in Martinez’s twitching body. It wasn’t going to let him go, no matter what I did.
Jenkins immediately joined my fire. It took a couple of shots from her M95 to put the thing down – one to the body, another to the head. Guts and brain matter slid from the cauterised wounds, and the two corpses collapsed to the floor.
Martinez was gone. His body crumpled, huge wounds slewing his internal organs. His face-plate had smashed. No prospect of revival: extraction complete.
“Good journey, compadre,” I muttered.
I just hoped that he had safely made extraction, back at Helios Station. And as with Kaminski, there was no telling whether his extraction made his real death any more or less likely.
“Oh shit!” I yelled.
Another xeno came out of the shaft. I stumbled backwards, away from the attacker. This one landed on its feet, immediately launching at Jenkins.
Then two more slid from the ceiling. Back the way we had come, I saw the flash of wet bodies in the dark. Boomers and stingers wildly stitched the metal walls and floor.
“Get down!” Jenkins yelled. Behind her face-plate, she was a picture of sheer determination: mouth set, eyes wide.
She pumped the grenade launcher on her rifle. I lowered my head, covered my face. Even slammed my hands to my ears, although I was already wearing my helmet and it would do me no good.
An incendiary grenade sailed down the corridor. It exploded almost immediately – star-bright, scattering Krell body-parts. That wasn’t good enough fo
r Jenkins. She pumped the rifle again, fired another grenade. That exploded too. The sound was so loud, amplified by metal walls and floor.
Fuck, fuck! This is really happening.
I was shaking inside my suit. Even using the respirator atmosphere-supply, I tasted the reek of sweat and fear in the back of my throat.
“Press on down the corridor,” Jenkins barked at me. “Now! Stay back.”
I sheltered behind her. I was in no position to argue; she had the authority now. She fired again and again. Despite her enormous agility and strength, she cleared each sector carefully and cautiously.
They kept coming, and this time there were more of them. Again from the shafts above, from sub-corridors with no apparent use. Every shadow spawned them.
A primary xeno-form hurled itself at her.
Then: a ball of teeth and claws and talons and muscle.
Now: a blazing wreck of dead tissue.
I almost crawled after her. I fired when I could – both hands wrapped around the grip of my pistol. The pain in my head was overwhelming. The Artefact’s song was so clear that it was crippling me.
“Stay with me, Harris!” Jenkins called. Her helmet had been torn off, thrown into the mass of invading bodies.
The tunnels became tighter still. The walls were covered in scripture, the characters running like melted wax over metal, dripping and flowing. I brushed a hand against the wall, and icons suddenly flared to life.
But there was also a light at the end of the tunnel, I realised. At first, I only saw it in the afterglow of Jenkins’ rifle muzzle, still flaring brightly from the firefight.
Jenkins fell to a knee again, and fired another grenade. The corridor shook violently. I stole a glance back the way we had come.
I didn’t dare think about how many Krell were packed into that space. Clawing and shrieking, desperate to break open Jenkins’ armoured body and rip her insides out.
And once Jenkins is gone – me too.
Stinger-spines sailed overhead, impacting the walls and leaving studded reminders.
One hit Jenkins hard in the chest. It cleanly spiked through her combat-armour.
“Oh fuck!” she said, letting out a surprised grunt. She half turned to me: “Just run! Just fucking get out of here!”
She managed to stay upright; no doubt her combat-suit was compensating for the toxins entering her bloodstream. Just one of those envenomed fragments would be enough to kill me – to drain my body of all life, to wither the real heart in my chest.
Jenkins grasped her grenade harness, enormous hands fumbling for an explosive—
Every possible sub-tunnel and shaft was rammed with aliens, and they had already choked the corridor from which we’d come. They were encircling us – now so close they were pressing in. No way back: the only possible route out of this mess was the light at the end of the tunnel.
A primary-form separated from the Collective, and leapt towards Jenkins. Unfurled to full height, it struck mantis-quick: knife-tipped forearms piercing her shoulders, right through her.
“Jenkins!” I shouted, paralysed.
Two or three further attackers descended on her, excited by the scent of blood, sharks following the kill. In such close confines, she couldn’t bring the rifle up to fire, and futilely struggled to pull herself free from the talons.
She’s already finished, I told myself. Nothing that I can do.
“Go!” she managed. Her voice was wet and broken, like Blake’s before he had died out in the desert.
I watched in hypnotic terror, detached from the scene. I’d seen this so many times before, seen the Krell kill Blake, Martinez, Kaminski. Even my own death, on vid-feed recordings. Yet this was different: now the Krell had a new purpose. Something almost ceremonial.
Like frenzied piranhas at feeding time, the Krell took Jenkins apart. With an inhuman shriek, ear-splittingly loud in the enclosed tunnels, the main attacker ripped through her combat-suit. Her body was split in two. The other primary-forms tore at her torso, pulled limb from limb. Artificial blood splashed the walls, coated alien carapaces. The remains of Jenkins’ simulated body disappeared beneath the tide of Krell.
The carnage was over in a fraction of a second. Then the Krell lost interest in Jenkins, and moved to surround me. Every xeno-form, every possible mutant strain. I felt their hot, wet alien breath through my helmet, impossible as that was. I was completely encircled.
Is this how it ends, this time? I asked myself.
A big xeno-form loomed over me. Strands of alien mucous, acting with a life of their own, darkened my vision. Simple motions like lifting my gun required so much mental strength that I could barely focus—
Lazarus, they called me. Except that there won’t be any resurrection from this.
—and the singing: so glorious and terrible in my head, so strong that I clenched my teeth to ride it out – every static-squeal making the bones of my skull vibrate—
The explosion on the train. That same lost frequency.
“Fuck you!” I screamed at the universe in general.
I was lifted off the floor, caught in the scything talons of a leader-form. It was an ancient and scarred Krell, coated heavily with dust. Eyes burning like dark coals: so alien. Did this thing recognise – through a collective, racial memory shared with the rest of the Krell species – that I had been responsible for executing so many of its kind? I think that it did – in some way that I couldn’t fathom and the human race could never understand.
I fumbled with my pistol, eager to fight until the last. There was no way that I was going down without a fight. I aimed it under the leader-form’s ribcage, fingers probing the trigger stud, and I ground my teeth. I pulled the trigger, again and again.
Nothing happened. There was no response from the weapon, no physical feedback as to why it wasn’t operating.
Please no!
The power cell was already empty, and the LED display flashed in warning. When had that happened? I hurled the pistol at the leader and it bounced, harmlessly, off the creature’s carapace. Both of my arms were free, and I patted my suit down – searching for something, anything – to use as a weapon.
There’s nothing to help me out here. There never was, and now this is the end.
I closed my eyes. I drew into myself. I imagined Elena’s face. The colour of her hair. The smell of her skin. I awaited the killing blow – that final and deadly act from the Krell leader-form.
But the attack never came.
After long seconds, I opened my eyes, still held in the clutches of the xeno bastard, feet nearly a metre off the ground. The leader was frozen. All of the Krell had stopped. Some of the nearer xenos backed away. They formed a wide circle around me, and slowly and surely withdrew.
This was not the same as the planned and purposeful retreat on the Oregon. The Krell recoiled from me. They knew fear.
I realised that in my struggle to find a weapon, I had found something. The Key. I clutched it like a knife. Unconsciously, I had lifted it, displaying the ancient device to the gathered Krell.
With grace and delicacy that I had never seen from the species, the leader-form placed me back on the ground. I immediately fell into a combat-stance, baring the Shard device.
The leader looked on with undisguised curiosity. It tilted its massive, armoured head to watch me. There was something almost mournful in its features.
My whole body shook. I tore free my helmet, gasping in lungfuls of poisoned atmosphere. My skin bristled with damp sweat.
We faced off against each other: the xeno leader and I.
A deep sonorous drone filled the air. Something around me was coming online, coming to life.
The xeno bowed its head.
For just a moment, we were at peace: captured in time, both species in awe of this ancient alien technology – whatever the Shard Key really was.
Then the harsh report of gunfire – of human gunfire – snapped me out of it, and the leader-form exploded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NO ONE HAS EVER MADE IT THIS FAR
A part of my brain that I had forgotten existed suddenly kicked in.
Wessler-Heslake carbine. Standard civilian security forces issue. 9 mm armour-piercing rounds.
The gunfire was ferocious and intense. Many of the Krell were shredded. Rounds ricocheted off the metal walls and floor. Xeno corpses piled in front of me.
I slammed my body to the concave wall. Through pure chance, I hadn’t been hit. In shaking hands, I unholstered my remaining weapon – my father’s old revolver – and raised it, unsure of who or what to fire on.
“Captain Harris!” an all-too-familiar voice called above the noise. Kellerman. “Surrender!”
Just the sound of his voice made my bile rise, caused the flood of memories to almost envelop me. The Artefact’s song rose with my anger: encouraged me to take him on, to take him apart. In my mind’s eye, I saw his bones breaking like matchsticks, his blood flooding the tunnel floor—
Get a grip!
The gunfire stopped. With eel-like fluidity the Krell fled into the walls and ceiling shafts.
Kellerman approached through the smoke, wading through the dead and dying. Is he really here, or is this some trick of my damaged mind? But phantoms didn’t usually wear exo-suits, and Kellerman was strapped into his. He was equipped for battle: the exo had been extensively modified, using parts from a cannibalised simulant combat-suit. Armour plates lined the torso and limbs, and new servos extended across his legs, feet and hands.
Deacon was at his shoulder, carbine panning the dark. Whatever was left of Helios Station was in tow; researchers with the hard eyes of religious fanatics, dour-faced security personnel. Ten or so of them.
Kellerman held out one hand, but in his other he carried a sidearm. A Klashov-45 – a semi-automatic, Directorate-issue pistol. He attempted a smile in the half-light of the Shard tunnels, but the best he could muster was a corpselike rictus.
“Doesn’t suit you, Kellerman,” I shouted.