“And so the intelligent individuals are identified,” Madhavari muttered as they watched. Several of them turned to stare at him, but he did nothing except continue gawking at the feeds.
“I bet the hesitant ones are the original specimens,” Felina thought out loud. When people started looking at her, she felt their gazes sink into her flesh and she finally shrugged as if a hundred bugs were on her.
“How many were in the cafeteria earlier?” Palmer asked, looking at Connell. “You know, a couple of hours ago…after we left MALBO?”
With a shrug, Connell replied: “I dunno, man, it was a blur…remember? We never even saw them clearly. Besides—”
“Six,” Felina blurted. “I…I believe there were six of them. Maybe only five. And then…then the one from secondary labs, so let’s say seven? But I think one or two were killed earlier in the corridor…”
“Okay,” Palmer drawled, not liking the sound of it. “So there’s probably at least eight or nine left.”
“Xeno carnem is Xeno carnem at this point,” Madhavari said. “Regardless of their mature state, original specimen or ‘carrier’ form.”
“Madhavari is right,” Connell announced. “Best we recognize them all as equal threats.”
“Well, equal or not, the loiterers are finally following the rest,” Boyd said, observing the feeds.
Gradually, but surely, the vessel’s primary starboard corridor vacated of hostiles. Only murals of blood, viscera, and corpses remained. Better obstacles than extraterrestrial organisms that sustained a voracity for chaos.
“Alright, Brennan—plot the course of Manticore’s auto-pilot. Its new home, the Kuiper belt.”
Brennan complied with Cassel’s order with ambivalence. He felt the necessity of the plan’s action sink into him like a universe-altering epiphany, let alone life-changing. But considering his history with this vessel, and of all personnel responsibilities, redirecting it to its death was like betrayal.
He did it, however, and not without witnesses.
Mitchell, Connell, and Felina—with a few curious documenters at her heels—attested to its completion. Seconds later, as everyone started to cluster together between the pulpit’s base and the entrance door, the orrery hologram flickered. Then it solidified again, as only a hologram can, but with emphatic arcs indicating the updated itinerary.
The Manticore’s ETA at its current speed was eighty minutes—deemed ample time for them to reach the Samum, with potential delays considered. Brennan also confirmed that he disabled the override settings to manual, which would require Keyes’ own passcode entered while utilizing a fingerprint scanner. Lastly, he set the responsibility of disconnecting from the Manticore to manual control aboard the Samum, which Mitchell thanked him for as if a favor instead of a necessity.
With everything set into motion, all they had to do was leave the bridge.
“Okay, everyone, this is it!” Cassel announced without yelling but retaining audible authority.
All had clustered together, huddled by the door that led into—and thus out of—the bridge. Cassel led the way at first, and then the Remoras spearheaded their group into the corridor. It was smooth sailing up until the first corner, and upon turning it things still proved hopeful. However, their line-of-sight extended for another two-hundred feet before a slight bend in the corridor, disrupting their linear view. At present, they saw nothing but emptiness—corpses excluded. Although this was a good thing, the sight and reek of bloodshed was fresh to the bridge personnel; and even to the others, there was no growing accustomed to it.
That foul reek of entrails and ravaged human flesh didn’t lose its punch. Accompanying this wretched humidity was the unavoidable reminder of what had caused such devastation. And that those responsible were essentially the only things standing between these survivors and perpetuating their status as survivors.
Felina did her best to focus on the positives.
Perhaps it was only singular: she was alive. She had survived this long; although, certainly not without the undimming help of Remoras and documenters alike. Nor had she forgotten the PDA in her back sleeve, and the ones in the others’ possessions, crucially speaking Calloway’s.
She couldn’t have predicted her praise of his sleuthing.
Meanwhile, during their progress, one thing was not only obvious but also overlooked: Madhavari wasn’t the handicapped one. His hover-chair, although speed-limited, might as well have had off-road endorsements. He need not concern himself with stepping over halved corpses—thus watching where he stepped and inadvertently making eye contact with a lifeless, mutilated face—nor minding his path across a pool of blood. Meanwhile, these aspects of walking were exacerbated with Mitchell and Zometa. Although both suffered from leg wounds, Mitchell’s had been tended to faster than Zometa’s, the latter of whom was less robust than he. Calloway didn’t leave her side, either, which Felina absentmindedly thought was admirable; meanwhile their pace began to thwart the group’s speed.
Crossing through the area where most of them had just passed earlier, involving the deaths of Ngo and the others, rendered a tumult of emotions.
The most unnerving was the fact that none of the human corpses—documenters and Skugs, as it were—had been left. Their bodies were missing, except for Ngo’s severed head. The Ikabu carrier remained, what was left of it, as were the Xeno corpses.
Felina didn’t want to imagine why they took them; reanimation was beyond reason, viral bile or otherwise. Probably just to consume, and share. Nobody uttered a word regarding the matter, until Felina paused to pocket her Deci and take out her PDA. She brought up the camera feature and knelt over what appeared to be a healthy Xeno carnem corpse to take a few photos from various angles of it. She dared not touch it. Even as she did this, the others walked around her, their gazes drifting on and off her, probably acknowledging in their heads the logic behind her actions. Eventually Loudon and Baez dropped back to the rear of the group just as the three back there came upon Felina finishing up—she was photographing the Ikabu carrier corpse, as repulsive a sight it was.
“Smart woman,” Landham said quietly, he and the other two at the group’s rear slowing down. “But I think you’ve gotten enough; pop up and let’s keep moving.”
“You’re right. I have plenty.” Felina returned to her feet, hibernating the PDA whose battery edged at forty percent, and secured it in its sleeve once more.
“Dammit, girl, you’re crazy,” Baez said in a harsh whisper. She and Loudon reoccupied Felina’s sides while she put the Deci back in her hands and the three behind them remained in formation. They gradually reconnected with the rest of the group, behind Madhavari, Lemaître, Wainwright, and Leigh.
“Oh, c’mon,” Felina replied. “It was necessary.”
“Yeah, but now we’re at the back of the group!” Baez kept whispering, speaking louder with her eyes and brow. “Further from the Remoras, Samum guys and Cassel! Ugh.”
“Yeah, because you know, we’re useless,” Ochoa’s voice startled her. He smirked weakly and she apologized under her breath, then Felina interrupted Ochoa before he could even begin again.
“You didn’t have to join me,” she said.
“After what happened earlier,” Loudon said with an aft nod, “I think it’s best we three stay close.”
“True,” Baez added. “And besides, they say the triangle is the strongest shape in nature.”
Baez managed to hold a solemn expression until Felina’s grim face cracked a smile and then Loudon chuckled quietly. This minor outburst of mirth was fleeting but not forgetful.
At last, they had reached the first bend without incident.
Cassel raised a hand at the head of the group to indicate that they had roughly four-hundred feet more to go.
Whether this was comforting or not, Felina couldn’t tell. She just soldiered on, Deci in hand for good measure, while Loudon and Baez walked similarly. They could have shifted back to the front of the group but didn’t, althou
gh they started to get into talks about it when Loudon—the tallest of the three—indicated a denotation of their progress.
They were now within sight, albeit quite a ways off, of the cafeteria’s signage. Lighting along this corridor was spotty, and some ceiling panels, LED and otherwise, were entirely missing. The debris littered the floor along with the corpses, making for a most hazardous path.
As they walked, nobody uttered a word throughout the group—even after Loudon mentioned the cafeteria to Felina and Baez. Behind them, she knew Landham probably saw it sooner, but said nothing; she frankly felt more at ease than ever before with such a dedicated soldier in the immediate vicinity. She wasn’t of course neglecting the others’ significance, but thus far Landham had proven himself a hundred times over. The fact that he had sustained a chest wound was a bit disheartening, but his unfazed persistence and stable façade of emotional stability—in lieu of losing two comrades—actually comforted her.
Only in a time like this, she wished she was apathetic.
And even now…
Something like a king cobra’s hiss split Felina’s focus right down the middle. She and the others peered up ahead to the front of the group, although it all happened so fast, those leading the way didn’t witness it until it was far too late.
From one of the missing ceiling panels loomed a lurking Xeno, appearing to be held up by its legs like a child dangling from the monkey-bars. Its claws vise gripped Ballard’s shoulders, crunching bone as it pulled him upward. His scream became the loudest thing in the corridor, legs kicking below him. Before withdrawing into the ceiling, the creature’s jaws enclosed around his neck, not taking a chunk out of it but enough to threaten death.
Connell and Wincott were quickest to act, shooting up but at a safe angle so as to only hit the Xeno and not Ballard. The creature hissed and shrieked as it tried pulling Ballard up into the ceiling but eventually was forced to drop him back into the corridor as it retreated. There had been a fraction of time, however, ample enough for it to have spat bile onto the wounded Ballard. The Remoras’ Seighty’s pummeled the ceiling panels, including the missing one, with gunfire. More shrieking and small spurts of blood coming down from above, but no corpse to fall.
Felina’s perspective was limited, but she was thankful panic had not divided the group.
They did, however, stop.
And then Felina looked up and screamed, but her reaction was as belated as it was futile. The Xeno arm lashed out from the shadows of a missing ceiling panel directly in front of her, a single talon slicing through Wainwright’s skull. He hardly had time to scream, except for a croaking groan. From left jawline to above his right ear, his head split open. The jawbone broke off milliseconds later, and he was officially half-headed. The sight and spray of blood that dappled Felina’s face was beyond anything she had ever witnessed so nigh. Her scream hollowed out as she staggered back and her fellow documenters raised their pistols to fire, their free hands clutching her.
Just before their Deci’s could light up the ceiling, a raucous barrage of gunfire roared behind them. They instinctively dropped, while Felina remained standing in shock, gawking up at the ceiling. Meanwhile Ochoa’s TG-24 and Landham’s Seighty both spat fire after the receding creature, its entirety never seen, just that lone hand and arm which had ended Wainwright’s life. He now rested, more or less in pieces, at Felina’s feet. The sheer experience had beyond startled Leigh, but also rendered her in a similar state as Felina—frozen in dismay; unlike Felina, however, Leigh was still screaming. As Loudon got onto Leigh about quieting, Baez shook Felina out of her daze. She started hectically wiping the blood off her face, leaving smears of crimson on her cheeks and forehead.
A blur of motion caught her eye off to the right.
Djevojka had sidestepped, planting her right shoulder against the wall, Tenor steadily aimed. She peered down the sights, observing the corridor’s length outstretched before them, primarily gazing up to focus on the ceiling.
A few feet in front of the sentinel was the first entrance to the cafeteria. The group had stopped shortly after passing it, going a pace too hasty to C&S the large room. Felina felt right to assume it was visually empty, though, or else the Remoras at the front would have acted otherwise.
And yet of all places, they were attacked from above.
Seconds later during this pause in time which seemed to last heavy minutes, Felina heard erratic screeching that preceded a loud crash. One of the LED panels ahead flickered off before spitting sparks and gave way entirely, along with another regular ceiling tile. The tumbling Xeno crashed through and onto the floor in a heap of debris and flailing limbs, shrieking all the while. Fortunately the group had divided just in time, so it didn’t crush anyone; however, the presence of the creature at the heart of the group did part their sea of uniformity.
Screams bounced off the bulkheads.
The creature screeched ten times as shrilly and lashed out at people, intermittently fired upon by surrounding documenters. Whether this Xeno was the one that killed Wainwright or attacked Ballard, Felina couldn’t be sure, nor certain that it really mattered.
Regardless, the scare sufficed to send Leigh into a scrambling panic. She fled the corridor, scampering off into the cafeteria through the nearest entrance.
“No, come back!” Loudon, who had previously been intent on comforting the woman, now screamed after her.
“Shit! Stay put, Landham.” Ochoa tucked in his TG-24 as he ran after her.
“I got your six,” Djevojka said, following her comrade into the cafeteria.
Landham remained behind, but was not without an expression of utter discontentment. In the meantime Loudon trailed Djevojka, calling over her shoulder to insist Baez and Felina stay. Landham cursed after the documenter, just the same heeding a similar warning to the other two.
They both cursed under their breaths in unison, then followed Loudon into the cafeteria. This didn’t alter Landham’s position, although he did linger by the cafeteria entrance. The last Felina glimpsed of the corridor catastrophe at present was the apparent slaying of the Xeno that had crash-landed, and the persistent shooting into the ceiling toward the front of the group.
As trashed as the cafeteria was, Felina couldn’t help but be grateful it was unoccupied by creatures. This of course didn’t include the sanctity of the ceiling crawlspaces, which troubled her as they pursued Ochoa and Leigh. Lighting for the most part was active and healthy, leaving only a few unlit panels or entirely missing tiles.
Regardless, there was little reassurance at present.
Leigh reached the food counter, which she put her back to while weeping. She doubled over slightly, dark brown hair with espresso streaks cascading past the sides of her face. Tears dappled the floor around her shoes. Ochoa was finally within six feet of her when a Xeno emerged from the kitchen, crawling over the food counter like a biological wave of terror. It hissed, jaws agape, saliva bridging fierce fangs. Leigh shrieked and bawled simultaneously, reeling off to the side. In the same instant, Ochoa drew his Spitfire with his left hand—Seighty held low in his right—and squeezed off a round. It slammed into the Xeno’s forehead, inches above its upper jaw. The incendiary hollow point drove all the way through its slightly curved, conical skull and out the back. If it had had eyes, they would’ve rolled up to expose their white underbellies. Instead the creature’s jaws slackened before its whole body tumbled over the counter. It hit the cafeteria floor with a heavy thump.
Irate, Ochoa brought the heel of his boot down upon the creature’s temple, crushing the front half of its skull into the floor with a sickening crunch.
“Ooh-ahh!” he bellowed, face reddening.
“Ochoa!” Djevojka snapped, arriving a few feet away. “Let’s head back.”
Ochoa caught his breath, panting, his whole body conforming to the chaos he felt inside. Eventually he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and nodded. As he turned to retrieve Leigh, who was muttering apologies and step
ping toward him, two more Xeno’s dropped from the ceiling. They landed deftly between Ochoa and the three documenters, the latter of whom didn’t hesitate to shoot at the creatures. With Ochoa not far behind them, the documenters’ aim was cautiously haphazard and thus not very effective.
Djevojka had staggered back into the side wall, Tenor raised. She caught one in the throat, which should have put the creature down but didn’t. As it gurgled blood and bile, struggling to attack Loudon, a third creature emerged from behind the food counter. It lowered its shoulder, slamming into Ochoa and putting him on his back. Then it turned, feet skittering, and pounced on the fleeing Angela Leigh.
As its weight bore her down into the floor and its jaws replaced her scalp, Djevojka readjusted her aim. But as she started to align a headshot, the creature lifted Leigh’s dying corpse up and the Tenor missed. It did, however, shoot through the left side of her heart, killing her instantly, and puncture the Xeno’s shoulder behind.
Djevojka prepped a second shot but then Ochoa was shooting it with his Spitfire. His Seighty had gone empty, Felina imagined its reserve too, after helping Loudon take down one of their two enemies. Even as it took its last breath on the bloodied floor, Loudon emptied her clip into its abysmal face. Meanwhile Ochoa used up his Spitfire on the Xeno’s back, until it dropped Leigh’s corpse and faced him. The Spitfire’s slide locked back into the empty position and he let go of it as he charged the imposing creature. His chances as high as gold being found in jetsam, his battle-torn expression displayed utter abandon.
He had accepted his fate.
Djevojka yelled after him, her Tenor’s muzzle lowered as he tackled the Xeno carnem face-to-face. It immediately thrust its entire left arm through his stomach, emerging out the back with shreds of viscera dripping from its claws. Ochoa spat up what seemed like a gallon of blood into the creature’s face, gleaming its oblong head carmine in the light. Those vicious teeth interlocked as its jaws closed partially, and it hissed as it brought Ochoa closer to its face.
Savage By Nature Page 29