“What the hell is that?” Willis said, slowly steering the ship to float by the broadside. They stayed at a good distance just to be safe.
Black tendrils were attached to nearly every panel of the ship. Large globs of pulsating sacs connected the tendrils. There were holes blown through the hull, tendrils stretched out as if to keep the ship together.
Apelu, the co-pilot, turned the spotlight on, moved it slowly across the Utopia. It only raised more questions.
The ship was clearly attacked, but they could not even imagine what could have done it. It appeared to be diseased. An illness attached itself to the ship, left it dead in the water.
“Sir, there are survivors.” Irzazee announced.
“Can you locate them?” Reaper leaned forward.
“They are in the bridge.”
“Can you radio them?”
“The signal is bouncing back. We have no communication.”
Reaper sat back, pressing his teeth together. He hit a button on the arm of his chair.
“Lieutenant Jackal, have your team meet at launch pad 1. I will be down there in a minute.”
“Wait, you’re going too?” Willis turned around.
“Irzazee, is there anything else on that ship?”
“No, sir.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. We’re going to get those survivors and bring them on board. Have Reynolds stay on standby.”
“Man, I don’t like this at all.” Willis shook his head.
It did not take long for them to take a shuttle to the Utopia. They moved down the broadside of the vessel, a spotlight scanning over its busted surface. Multiple openings showed blast zones and lack of escape pods. Scans showed most of the bay doors were inoperable. They had to be cut open, and unfortunately, the Syndicate had no means of doing so.
The windows gave them no answers. They were blacked out. Perhaps the material used reflected light back out. That, or they were blocked.
The tendrils seemed to writhe against the panels. They swore they saw them grow, stretch out further.
Jackal took the shuttle up and over the ship. The largest of the pustules, pulsed. Its surface bubbled and twisted. The closer the shuttle got, the more active it appeared to be.
It retracted from the spotlight, as if it were hurt. Multiple tendrils around it pulled into the pustule like a turtle hiding in its shell.
"Did...did anyone else hear that?" Mjolnir put his face to the window.
"Hear what?" Ruby looked as well.
"Guys, something isn't right. That thing...it's alive." Sparrow pulled away from the window, hugged her rifle against her chest.
Jackal pulled the shuttle from the pustule. As the spotlight left, the blob of flesh returned to its original, calm state.
Back down the broadside, in sight of the Syndicate, they scanned further down.
"Right there. The lights are on." Reaper pointed.
"Activating anchor." Jackal hit a couple switches. He lined the shuttle up, door to bay door. At the press of a button, a barbed spearhead shot out. Right through the hull of the Utopia. Another button. The shuttle's autopilot was on. It stabilized itself, keeping the rope of the anchor tight.
The shuttle's door opened upwards. Mjolnir held the handlebar, giving the area a once over. Ruby jumped out, went for the door. He looked around the frame for a service panel.
Jackal, Reaper, and Sparrow followed. Mjolnir placed a hand to the door, his other gripping the handle of his war hammer.
Every single hair upon his body stood. His tail flicked side to side.
Ruby opened the service panel. Snipped some wires and touched them together. It took a few tries before the lights flashed. Air rushed out from the vents around the door.
Mjolnir pulled his hammer free from its straps.
The door split in half horizontally, both sections peeling away to reveal the interior of the airlock. The interior was lit up red with a single light. A bell was supposed to be ringing, but it came out like a whine.
The team stepped in slowly, rifles against their chests. Ruby messed with the console for a short time. The door shut behind them. Air rushed in.
Mjolnir touched the wall, his head nearly pressed to it. He walked, hand sliding across the cool metal. He could hear breathing on the other side. He followed it to the door, put the side of his helmet right up against it.
The light turned green.
CRACK!
The light shattered. Glass rained down over their heads.
Sparrow yelped, slipping her fingers around Ruby's arm.
The door's seal broke, but did not split open. Ruby hit the button again. Nothing. Again. Still nothing.
With a grumble, Ruby slammed his hand into the console. Hit the button several times.
The door opened.
Despite being in their suits, they were hit with a wall of something foul. It had been a long time since a door had been opened. Mothballs and sour garlic flooded into the airlock.
Ruby gagged.
"Jesus Christ, what the fucking hell is that smell?!" He choked.
"How long you reckon this ship has been here?" Jackal stepped out, peering down one end of the blackened corridor.
Mjolnir followed, looking down the opposite end.
"A lot longer than a couple days." Reaper guessed.
The flashlights on their rifles, and helmets sent concentrated beams of light a few meters ahead. Each beam only spread a few feet apart, with helmets double that with less intensity. Everything else was pitch black around the lights.
All they could see were the walls unscathed. Somewhere down the end of the corridor wires sparked, hanging from the ceiling.
"Take a left," Reaper ordered, "let's head to the ecosphere. We can figure out where to go from there."
Jackal took the lead, headed down the middle. Mjolnir was right behind him.
"Where is everybody?" Sparrow asked after a couple of minutes.
It was as if everyone on board disappeared without a trace. Nothing was out of the ordinary beyond the lack of power.
“Mjolnir, what’s on your mind?” Reaper stepped up closer to the ardrizi.
“I swear, by Azotl’s strength, I can hear something inside the walls.”
“The only life the scans have picked up are the survivors in the bridge.” Reaper reassured him.
“I can’t be going crazy. It’s so loud, can you not hear it?”
Everyone stopped. Reaper put the side of his helmet to the wall. They were silent for a moment. He focused as hard as he could. He listened for any sound.
“There’s nothing there.” He straightened himself.
Mjolnir’s face dropped. How could no one else hear it? He pointed at the wall, eyes narrowed. His finger trailed across until it stopped at a hole. A vent grating had been ripped off halfway, leaving a gap of blackness.
Jackal and Reaper joined the ardrizi, staring into the darkness. They leaned in close, their headlamps shining against the white panels around the hole. Two red sparks broke through the darkness. Swayed side to side.
Jackal lifted his rifle, letting its light shine into the hole.
The red sparks disappeared.
An empty air vent.
Reaper looked up to Mjolnir, who looked absolutely dumbfounded. He heard it.
“Maybe you need a with the doctor.” Ruby suggested.
“My hearing is fine!” Mjolnir insisted.
“You may be picking up the electricity.” Jackal added.
“No.” Mjolnir shook his head. “I can hear breathing.”
“Let’s move on.” Reaper started back down the hall. He did not want to suggest hallucinations. They were in near pitch black, on a foreign ship that had suffered a catastrophic fate. They were all freaked out.
They did not make it much further before Sparrow pointed out a strange set of lights just out of range of their flashlights.
Vermillion insufflated upwards, short strips lightly spaced apart. She could have sworn
it outlined a figure.
"What is that?"
Jackal and Reaper stepped closer. The lights continued in their strange pattern.
They all continued down the hall slowly. Rifles shouldered.
The lights never got closer, no matter how far they walked.
Instead, the lights disappeared. They were left with a door and a turn. Black smoke hugged the floors, not even knee high. The ship was cold as is, but that smoke was even colder. Frost fractured into place on the metal surface.
"Where did they go…." Ruby looked down the hall.
There were no matching lights to the red ones they thought they were approaching.
"Maybe we shouldn't be here." Sparrow backed away from the door. She shivered, hugging that rifle to her chest.
"You can wait in the shuttle if you want." Reaper squeezed her shoulder. "Can we get through this door?"
"Yeah, sure, if anything fucking worked!" Ruby grumbled. Hitting the button did nothing.
"Make it work."
Ruby shut up. The last thing he wanted was for Reaper to kick his ass. He heard about the last guy that defied his orders and Ruby was not willing to suffer the same fate.
He knelt at the door console to pull open its casing.
"What do you think happened?" Jackal watched down the hall.
"I couldn't imagine it was a fight. This is a fleebeeron ship. Who would want to attack them?" Mjolnir watched their rear.
"Without weapons, they wouldn't stand a chance. They would have ran from any threat." Reaper added.
"What about that... stuff on the outside?" Sparrow chimed in.
"Don't think I'm qualified to answer that." Reaper shook his head.
The door opened.
A brief hall opened wide at the other end. A check-in desk on one side. Benches and plants on the other. They made it to the lobby of the ship. A series of large balconies circled around the center which housed a massive tree thousands of years old. Its thickest branches stretched out, lovingly carved into more walkways, benches, and gardens at the top of the sphere. The lowest level was a beautiful landscape of edible vegetation. Stores were set up across all the balconies, none of which took away the beauty of the natural ecosystem, nor the surrounding space outside. Bridges stretched around the ancient tree, connecting the balconies at their furthest points for faster travel across the sphere.
They would have been in awe, seeing it for the first time, were it not shrouded in darkness. They were hit again by the foul smell of garlic, only now it was accompanied by rotten eggs, cabbage, feces and who knows what else. Even Jackal gagged this time, and Ruby could not keep his lunch down.
SIX
Ruby whined, trying to keep his mouth shut, but the taste of his own stomach acid was too much to bear. He could not get his helmet off in time. Sour liquid and chunks coated his helmet. He could feel the nasty warmth draining down his collar.
He cried, dropping to his knees. He felt around his helmet to get the release lever, but Reaper stopped him.
"Don't! We don't know what this stuff is!"
"What do you mean?" Sparrow touched Ruby.
The same black smoke on the other side of the door was flooding the lobby. It puffed and rolled like ocean waves rising against taller surfaces before crashing back down to the floor. It moved when it was touched, reacting similarly to a liquid. It could be carried, and otherwise manipulated. It was too cold to handle for long.
Jackal's glove developed frost upon the surface.
"What in God's name…." Reaper's rifle dropped to his side.
Everyone looked up except for Ruby, who quietly sobbed on the floor.
The smoke made a trail around the lobby, a path to follow. Yet what caught their eyes was the damage.
Broken pots, benches, walls, and railings. Wires and pipes stuck out from the walls and floors. A store nearby had collapsed in on itself, an arm and half a head visible underneath the rubble.
Bodies were strewn across the ecosphere. Blood everywhere they looked, decorated the walls like graffiti. A man was torn in half at the waist, his torso barely clung onto the railing and floor. Wet crimson still dripped from the balcony above where his other half rested.
Fleebeeron, has been beautiful anthropomorphic flowers, were withered and rotten, torn apart. There were even androids scattered about, destroyed beyond repair.
Claw marks were dispersed across many surfaces. Far too large to be caused by any of the dead victims. They could have been from ardrizi, but when Mjolnir tried to match his own claws up, his hand was dwarfed.
Even the plants were not safe. Chunks ripped out of stalks, stems, and trunks. Sap oozed from the fibrous wounds. It seemed they would be the only survivors of the onslaught that took place in a once wondrous garden.
"Why? Who could have done this?" Sparrow bit back tears. Her stomach twisted.
Ruby gagged and turned away from the scene. He did not want to make a bad situation worse.
Mjolnir knelt down, gently running his claws through the smoke.
"I've never seen anything like this before."
"The smoke?" Jackal knelt down as well.
"It could have caused this... massacre."
"Gas? It ripped people apart, left gashes in metal?" Jackal almost laughed. "That's ridiculous. There's no way in hell!"
"You have a better explanation?" Mjolnir grumbled.
"No, but that's better than assuming a gas could have done this."
"Hey," Reaper cut in. "We need to find a way up to the bridge. So, we gotta get up there." He pointed.
"Honestly, I don't care what caused it. I don't wanna look at it anymore." Ruby pushed himself up to his feet.
"Yeah. Let's get out of here, guys." Sparrow hugged herself.
Jackal took the lead, searching for a way up to the higher levels. They were careful not to step on anything disgusting and to keep an eye out for anyone that could still miraculously be alive.
Reaper had another scan ran over the ship. No extra signs of life. He even had the scanner checked for glitches. Restarted. Ran again. The only good it did was enhance a map of the ship.
Every door they came across was barred up. Debris collapsed, blocking them completely. No matter how much Ruby messed with the wiring, they did not open. There was even one door missing its internals. Faint scratches were etched around the panel. Whatever happened, it was done in haste and with little care.
The further into the sphere they traveled, the worse the carnage got. More bodies. More blood. The gas was as thick as ever. They had been unknowingly following it.
"So…" Sparrow stopped. "Can gas do that?"
"What the…." Ruby stared.
They came across an elevator, only its doors had been busted open. They were bent, pulled off their placements to block the shaft. A cable was frayed. Scratches too big to be human, or ardrizi etched the interior. Down below, with a flashlight shining down, they spied the elevator itself. Nearly shattered on impact. A human arm laid atop it.
Sparrow gasped and backed away.
"We need to hurry. If whatever's done, this is still on the ship, then we're all in danger." Reaper said.
"We can turn around now. Say we tried." Ruby suggested.
"Hell no! We need to find whatever did this!" Jackal waved his rifle. "We need to save the survivors at least."
"There's an open door over there." Mjolnir stepped over a couple of bodies that were piled up in the middle.
The others followed. The smoke thickened the closer they got to the door. It was not completely open, but blocked from shutting completely. Some junk of metal was lodged in the way. Sparrow could fit through, but no one else could. The smoke pooled through the gap, rolling over itself like a rushing waterfall.
The source must have been on the other side.
No one approached. They stayed a good arm's length away.
A corpse nearly torn in half by claws was stuck against the service panel. Fingers clutched against the door, the head pressed
into the wiring.
"Can you get it open?" Reaper looked to Ruby.
With a grumble, Ruby went to the panel. He had to pry away the corpse, but it did not want to let go.
Jackal decided to give him a hand. When he got close, he noticed a red light in the gap of the door. Just like the red light they had seen down the hall.
He stopped. Stared into the darkness.
The lights were there, standing still. This time they were closer. Just within reach. Jackal shined his flashlight on them.
All he could see was the smoke on the other side, floating and wafting around. Within the thinnest strands, he caught glimpses of light shining off black metal.
A breath?
He looked back to Mjolnir, who was gazing into the blackness beyond the door. He heard it, too. Breathing. Deep, slow breathing.
Then came the sound of a snake hissing. Almost like a whisper of warning.
The red lights twisted into the darkness. Then twisted back to their sight.
"Ruby, hurry." Mjolnir said.
Jackal stepped closer to the door, a hand reaching out into the smoke. There was something there. He could hear a faint voice whispering. Wanting him closer. In some way, he wanted to be closer. He wanted to see what it was. To know it.
It tugged jackal towards the creature hiding in the shadows. An astronomical pull that he just couldn't resist. His heart was the only sound he could hear beating against his eardrums. His chest tightened. All the weight he held upon his shoulders seemed to lift away, yet he was unwilling to let go. He was drawn to the unknown of the other side.
Frost fractaled over Jackal's glove, and though he knew he should not reach any further into the darkness, he could not help himself. Colder still, the more he reached, the more the frost traveled up his arm. The lights shifted in place. His headlamp shined just right so he could see black metal breaching through the smoke, something slender. A point. A claw?
The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) Page 4