The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1)

by Gwyndolyn Russell

  Personnel were stretched thin. Not enough hands to go around. Not enough materials. Engineers called for help from any able person. Even the children, under strict, specific instructions, were sent into the kotoli tunnels to help. Most of the security force was assisting in repairs and ration handling led currently by Mjolnir.

  Everyone was doing their part to the best of their ability. All of the wives had banded together to help take care of the children and provide for the hard workers. It was a time of unity and every bit mattered.

  So, when the rumors spread about the cause of the damage, fear of the unknown took their hearts hostage. The lead engineer, Torch, determined the cause was a solar flare, but that did not explain being pushed out of the warp tunnel. It could have been a nasty combination of anomalies stemming from the solar flare. Torch did not know. In his short life, he had never witnessed an incident quite like this at all. Being hit by a flare like so was a one in a million chance.

  These rumors completely dismissed Torch's knowledge and diagnosis. They had an ethereal stranger among them who somehow did not require being put into liquid stasis. This creature had free reign of the ship while they were all asleep for the journey. People were falling ill and experiencing hallucinations ever since the creature arrived. It brought an overwhelming sense of doom with it. It's very name made them tremble. The rumor of its title made them avoid it at all costs.

  The rumors claimed that it was this creature, who slept against the nuclear reactor of the ship, forced an overload of the system. Fried the hardware. Set fires to the maintenance shafts. Destroyed what kept the ship functional. Then proceeded to tear apart the stasis pods to feast upon, not just the bodies of those asleep inside, but their very souls. They believed that these poor, defenseless people would arrive to no afterlife, just a bottomless black pit of suffering. They believed it happened on the Utopia. That these devoured souls would be spat out to grow as mindless husks of starving monsters that would wreak havoc across not only the Syndicate, but anyone else who happened by.

  The rumors spread like wildfire. Took hold with deep roots. Their minds possessed by fear and paranoia. Who would be next? How could they let anyone else suffer? Folk sabotaged repairs to delay the inevitable. They especially attacked outgoing signals to prevent SOSs from attracting more potential prey for this demon aboard their home. They accepted that perhaps they were already lost, but at least they could stop anyone else from falling for the sham of a helping hand from that black beast.

  The people could not take it any longer. They gathered in protest. Screaming into the void of space, their plea for mercy and the power to do what must be done.

  Many piled into the halls, blocked the door of the bridge. They banged on the walls, and chanted.

  "Cage the wolf! Cage the wolf! It must answer for its crimes!"

  Luckily, Jackal and Fenris had already been in the bridge. Jackal wanted to tell Reaper of the semi-good news from his checkup. A little over two weeks had gone by, and while he was still blinded, at least his eyes were healing. Others had already recovered. Some received permanent damage and would either be blind forever, or require implants the ship had no way of providing. At least Jackal would not yet be turned into a cyborg.

  The ruckus outside made everyone in the bridge fall silent.

  "Cage the wolf! Cage the wolf!" The people chanted.

  "What in God's name is going on?" Reaper looked to the door.

  "Oh, no... They really meant it." Willis stared wide eyed.

  "Meant what?" Jackal questioned.

  "I overheard some guys in the mess talking about protesting."

  "You didn't inform me, why?" Reaper looked at him.

  "Thought it was just another dumb rumor. You know how people love complaining, but never do anything."

  "What wolf…" Reaper wondered.

  "Fenris." Jackal answered. "They mean Fenris."

  When they looked to Fenris, they saw the wolf sitting there. Ears dropped, tail curled at its side. Its head low. It knew this would happen.

  "Your people wish Fenris gone. They are afraid." It announced.

  "Well, they'll just have to put up for a while more." Jackal crossed his arms over his chest, floating across the room aimlessly.

  "Why would they? You've done nothing wrong." Reaper leaned back in his seat.

  "No need to stay. Remove self from Syndicate."

  "Absolutely not!" Jackal snapped from across the room. "They're just being dumb!"

  "Liam," Reaper had more to say, but he wasn't going to let it be said.

  "No. They are. It's cabin fever. We've been motionless for how long? There's not much we have. Our rations are running low. Everyone is panicking. They're afraid. They're being stupid. They want to blame the new guy for all this fucked up shit!"

  "We all know he didn't do it. It was a solar flare. It can't be helped." Reaper sighed.

  "Tell that to them!" Jackal said.

  Reaper watched him for a while. Studied him. Jackal had been changing ever since the Utopia. Perhaps it was the restrictions he was on. The injuries kept him less active. His demons were surfacing and more so while he was sober. Jackal was an open minded man who stood strong on all of his opinions even if he was wrong.

  Reaper wanted to defend Fenris, too. While he may not have known Fenris well, he still had a good idea what sort of person it was. He understood some of the valkyrie's choices and the way it acted. An innocent, misunderstood dog. Dealt a bad hand, given a bad owner, yet still trying to wag its tail and hide its teeth.

  Reaper pushed out of his seat to open the door.

  The chanting repeated a few more times before the crowd hushed.

  One man spoke out from them.

  "That thing is a monster, Captain! We have to stop it!"

  Reaper was quiet, thinking of something to say.

  "Sir, I came as soon as I heard." Mjolnir said it softly, slipping right to his side.

  "Crowd control." Reaper whispered. Then louder, he addressed the crowd. "If you have complaints about anyone on board this ship, you need to file a complaint, or come to me directly."

  "We're here now!" Someone shouted.

  "That thing has been sabotaging the ship! It's sneaking by to destroy what we've repaired." Another said.

  "I've seen it eating whatever it can rip up, be it metal, or a pet! What if it snatches up one of our children?" A scared mother.

  "It's making everyone sick! It's in their heads!" Another.

  Jackal wanted to speak up, to call them all idiots. When he opened his mouth, Reaper immediately raised his hand to keep him from causing a riot.

  "I can assure you that is not the case." He said it loud and clear. "Fenris has not been alone since joining us. It would take great effort for him to sneak around the ship with his size and presence. He would have been seen by someone had he managed to slip away from Jackal's watchful gaze."

  "He's blinded!" Someone called out. "How would he be able to watch it? That thing is as silent as the night!"

  "Fenris hasn't left my side since the solar flare!" Jackal called back. "Eyes, or not, he's been helping me deal with this issue ever since we all woke up!"

  "It's tainted you! See? It can manipulate us like some sort of parasite!"

  "Everyone relax!" Mjolnir said, hands up. "There is no need to get violent. This ship follows the laws of the Federation, meaning innocent until proven guilty. If you have any hard evidence to prove any of this, please report to the Security desk to file it."

  "Captain, sir, with all due respect I cannot stand for this." Someone stepped up to the front of the crowd. A young man, eyes still full of hope. "I requested a transfer from the Atheena to work under you. I took a demotion for this job."

  Reaper wasn't sure what to say. He knew most of his crew had done similar. Everyone wanted to work under a war hero. He may have never felt like one before, but now he was starting to feel like a bad guy.

  "I am all for peace, but that thing, that creature you're
defending, is an anomaly unlike anything we have seen. It is frankly horrifying. Everyone is suffering from nightmares that creature shows up in! Our children are afraid of leaving our homes. We only started having catastrophic issues since that thing arrived. It can't be a coincidence!"

  He was aware of the strange nightmares, Reynolds made sure he knew the health of everyone. Even he had shared the nightmares, though not as frequently as the others. It seemed everyone reacted with fear. He couldn't blame them.

  Jackal looked towards Fenris. He could feel the creature floating behind him. It was always within arm’s reach.

  Even Reaper was watching the creature now.

  "No." It spoke in a whisper. A chill down the spine.

  Reaper got the feeling a question had been asked he couldn't hear.

  "He doesn't know." Jackal said, looking away now.

  "Doesn't know what?"

  "About the nightmares."

  Puzzled, Reaper watched the two of them. Even Mjolnir seemed confused, he hadn't heard a thing either.

  "Fen, can you explain?" Reaper asked.

  "Cannot explain what is not known." It retorted.

  Reaper did the best thing he could think of. Remove the problem from the current situation. He had Jackal take Fenris back to his room to wait out the chaos of the rioting. Even with the two of them detached from the crowd, the protesters did not leave. They continued to insist completely locking the wolf up for everyone's safety. Reaper could not bring himself to comply. He knew Fenris was innocent, and if he wasn't, he clearly had no knowledge of whatever the problem was. Reaper was not sure what to call it. In fact, when he managed to get everyone to go back to work, he made a trip to the medical bay to speak with Dr. Brannum, the psychiatrist of the Syndicate. He shared what he legally could with Reaper. No client names, only some details of their reports. Everyone who visited had the same issue. The same set of nightmares, enveloped by shadows and darkness, watched by some sort of red eyed monster that looked freshly risen from hell itself. Some were drowned. Some eaten alive. Some brutally mauled. Their worst fears came to light. Some people were suffering from hallucinations, feeling as if their nightmares were reality. Trapped in a perpetual cycle of dreaming and never knowing when they were actually awake or not.

  Brannum was trying different medications out, but there was no effect. He agreed that unknown bacteria humans have never made contact with could be the cause.

  He went to Reynolds. She had been trying to study Fenris for weeks now. Her hands were full from the injuries of the warp, but things seemed to have calmed down.

  "Oh, you're sitting down!" Reaper smiled at her.

  "It's been a busy month." She set her pen down. "You can't be here for idle chat, Captain."

  "I was just talking to Brannum. He suspects these ship wide hallucinations could be caused by something foreign."

  "Ah, yes, I wish I could figure out what exactly! I was able to scan Fenris during his voluntary examination. It struck me as odd I found nothing completely foreign. On the surface." She leaned back in her seat. "Honestly, everything is odd about that specimen."

  "Can you elaborate for me?"

  "Well, you see, the metal of its armor perfectly matches carbon alloys from Apex Corps. They're the only ones that use this specific material."

  "That's strange."

  "That's not it! The strangest part is how old the armor is. I estimated a couple hundred. I should also mention how the armor was manufactured, yet there's flesh, actual muscle sinew attached. The armor has developed rings, like what you see in a tree, or even in some bones. The metal has grown beyond what it was created."

  "How does that explain the muscle?"

  "Well…" she shuffled through a drawer filled with folders. After a moment, she produced one folder labeled under Fenris. "It seems to be parasitic? Maybe not. Symbiotic. Something living has grown into that suit of armor. Something that I can't find in any database. It's not even mentioned in our oldest text books and I can't find any hint of something similar in the books available from the fleebeerons."

  "Could you get any samples from him?" Reaper took the papers to look over while they talked.

  "I tried." She sighed. "Needles broke upon contact. Scalpels broke, too." She hummed. "I did get a temperature."

  "What does that tell us?"

  "Well, its internal temperature matches ours. Twenty-eight degrees."

  "That would be normal, right?"

  "Only humans and most other earth animals have that temperature. No other species is even close. Eldiravan have thirty-seven. Fleebeeron twenty-two. Ardrizi at a whopping forty. Verbanass have twenty. Kotoli are pretty high as well at thirty-eight."

  Reaper was quiet, processing the information.

  "Without getting deeper samples, why a valkyrie, or rather, something not from Earth, has the exact same body temperature as those from Earth, will elude us."

  "Has he cooperated?"

  "Yes! He is the most cooperative patient I've ever had! Though I have concerns… I was wanting to get your permission to conduct intelligence tests on him. I suspect his IQ is equivalent to that of a young child, what with the lack of knowledge about its own body."

  "He may be smarter than he lets on. His skills as a tactician far surpasses mine."

  "I see...that raises more concerns…."

  "Do what you need to, as long as he consents, I see no harm."

  "Wonderful! I'll start preparing tests!"

  Reaper put the papers neatly in the folder. Said his goodbyes and left the medical bay. As always, the answers only brought more questions. He didn't need the details for her concerns. He saw them already. Fenris had no idea about itself, or its kind. All it knew, from what it told him, was it was meant to fight the eos and ascend humanity. Whatever that all meant.

  NINETEEN

  The protesting calmed down with Fenris rarely seen. Still the hallucinations and nightmares remained as fervent as ever. Reports stated that the monster in their dreams was further away than it used to be. Others seemed to be affected worse. A poor mental state only enhanced the terrors. Many had lost their families and succumbed to mourning.

  When it happened, once more everyone wanted to blame Fenris. The monster they allowed to board their home. Who else would do it? None of them would dare think of it! To take out one of their own was unthinkable. They were all family. Their own little village. They worked together. Ate together. Partied together. Who would be driven to such madness as to commit murder in cold blood deep in the night?

  It must have been the ever hungry wolf. The one Ianisse named Astradon. The monster that would come to devour the souls of the impure. The sinners.

  Rumors swirled through the ship. The wolf mauled the poor soul like a bear. Attacked him from behind while he was busy in the service box. Deep in the maintenance tunnel where only smaller humans could fit. A hundred feet in either direction of the body was roped off with yellow tape. Only a handful of people were allowed through. Mjolnir, hunched over to fit inside the hall, led four others to investigate the area.

  Blood in individual bubbles floated about the hall, still pluming from the body.

  The issue with crimes in space was not that no one could hear you scream. It was the zero gravity. The scene naturally contaminated itself. It was impossible to tell where it started and where it ended. Only that it happened. The body floated around until it was gently strapped into a stretcher magnetized to the floor.

  The blood was bagged and taken to be tested.

  The hall was searched thoroughly for any discarded weapon or other materials. Everything swabbed for fingerprints and other bits of DNA that could have been left behind.

  Reaper joined the scene as soon as he could. A murder was perplexing. He could not imagine it happening on his ship. What could drive someone into so much anger?

  An inspection of the body showed deep lacerations across the chest. Defense wounds on the arms and hands. A vicious assault that took him by surprise.
/>
  This engineer was not down here alone the time it happened. He had a partner assigned to assist him in checking every bit of wiring and piping in this hall. Yet his partner was nowhere to be seen.

  Perhaps he escaped the attack.

  Reaper knew to leave this matter in the hands of the security team. His curiosity got the better of him. He had no training to deal with this situation. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, checked the area, checked the body, and talked to Mjolnir about it.

  That was when Jackal showed up with Fenris right behind him.

  "Jack! What are you doing here?" Reaper held up a hand.

  "I want to help. We have to figure out who did this."

  "Sir, I have it under control." Mjolnir whispered. "We already have the scene roped off. No one but us have been here for the last two hours."

  "You aren't in any condition to help." Reaper was stern.

  "Bullshit!" Jackal snapped. "I can totally help! Who are the suspects? I can talk to them."

  "Fenris, could you please take him back to his room?" Reaper asked.

  "Arturo, let me help."

  He sighed.

  "We don't have any suspects yet." Mjolnir stated. "It looks like an animal attack."

  Jackal was quiet. There were no animals on board capable of that. Just Mjolnir and Fenris.

  "I see…" his voice was unusually soft.

  "It's not like that." Reaper jumped the gun.

  "What about the autopsy?"

  "We haven't taken the body to Reynolds yet."

  "So, there's a body?"

  "Of course." Reaper's brow furrowed. How could there not be one in a murder? He thought for a second. Then it clicked in his head.

  "Jack, why don't you take the body to the doctor?"

  "Yes, sir! Let's go, Fen." Jackal waved his hand. The two were off.