by Paul Tassi
“Are there more of you inside?” he asked.
The creature made another noise and shook his head slowly from side to side. He patted his chest with his good claw.
Lucas slowly circled around the creature, his gun still trained on him. He reached down and picked up Natalie sticking upright out of the sand.
“Can you fly it?”
The creature pointed to the glowing cylinder he had dropped a few feet away. Lucas wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but he had an idea.
“So you found the keys . . . Alright, inside. Get up.”
The creature staggered to his feet, and Lucas slowly backed up to where the woman lay. He pointed his gun at her head.
The alien started emitting a cacophony of sounds and thrust his arms out toward him. Lucas immediately jumped back and trained his sight on the creature again.
“Whoa, whoa! What are you doing? Get back!”
The alien raised his arms and slowly circled toward the woman. He pointed at her, then at the ship.
“You want to take her inside?” Lucas lowered his weapon. “Why?”
The creature had no response but bent over and scooped up the woman, a light burden for the tall creature. He slung her over his shoulder and walked toward the hole. Lucas grabbed her pack left lying on the ground and followed him toward the opening, which was still intermittently flickering with bursts of light.
Inside, the ship still sputtered and whirred. The creature sauntered over to a panel at the base of the two engines, inserted the cylinder into a slot, and tapped a few virtual keys. Immediately the engines ceased their groaning, converting to a dull hum, and the light shone a constant cerulean blue and more brightly than ever. Lucas felt the floor beneath him shake.
But then it all stopped. The creature swirled his hand around in one of the arrays, and the entire room powered down completely. He turned and trudged up the stairs, practically walking downhill as the entire ship was buried in the earth at a sharp angle. Lucas found his footing and followed him, Natalie always at the ready in case the creature attempted another assault, but he seemed to be paying him no mind.
They walked through the doorway of the engine room and down a long hallway lit by a pale green glow that seemed to pervade the ship. There was a massive door at the end of the hall, but the creature diverted to the left where there was a smaller one. Lucas followed him cautiously, expecting an ambush at any time. But there was none. Instead he turned to find a small empty chamber, one with no windows and a solitary light embedded in the ceiling. The back wall was full of metal cuffs, and the floor was caked with dried black blood.
The creature set the woman down on the floor. He walked back a few steps and played with some controls. A white wall of light flickered to life across the middle of the room. It stayed there for a few seconds until it disappeared, and the creature made a sound of dismay. He walked back inside and grabbed the woman by the hand. Lifting up her limp wrist, he inserted it into one of the wall cuffs, which automatically snapped around it, her body dangling lifelessly underneath. The creature turned, grunted, and motioned toward the door. Lucas slowly circled around him, his gun still raised and his hands shaking from a combination of anxiety and exhaustion. Breathing a sigh, the creature walked slowly out the door with a slight limp, presumably acquired during their last altercation. As he moved toward the door, Lucas looked behind him and saw a mummified hand lying on the floor next to the unconscious woman. One bigger than his head with three claws.
He followed the creature out the door, which slid shut smoothly behind him. They walked to the end of the hallway where a tiny circular room waited. It turned out to be a lift, and Lucas soon found the ride up a few levels was painfully long. How could a ship so advanced have an elevator that moved so slowly?
Ahead, two giant doors opened with a hiss, and the pair entered what must have been the command center of the ship. A giant circular table was in the middle, and flickering above it was a hologram of Earth. Red dots appeared all over its surface. Surrounding the central hub were panels with holographic interfaces similar to those in the engine room. Some were glowing a constant blue; others were flashing an angry red. Lucas saw that the far side of the room was completely open, made of a transparent material that resembled glass, but was assuredly far more durable. Instead of an expected view of stars and galaxies, it was black with dirt and ash. In front of the viewing area sat what appeared to be some sort of seat, albeit with a massive amount of technical and holographic add-ons whose purposes were unknown.
The creature walked over to this area and made a few hand motions. The ship roared to life, and it almost knocked Lucas over, in combination with the tilted floor. Another claw swipe and the ship powered down again. A grunt of approval.
For the first time, the creature turned to look directly at Lucas. He was large, but Lucas had seen bigger. He looked kind of pathetic in a way, his naked form far less impressive than the ones Lucas had come across all suited up in armor. He was breathing heavily, and Lucas wondered if he had knocked the wind out of him earlier. Bruises were already beginning to form where he’d struck him.
These things had two arms, two legs, two eyes, and a long-snouted mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. Their pupils were entirely black with a singular ring of color running through them; this one’s were gold, but Lucas had seen a full spectrum in his travels. Their legs were bent backwards like a bird’s, but their arms and hands seemed to function as one might expect, with three clawed fingers and toes. They were all shades of varying gray, and had darker patches of natural armor plating across much of their chest, abdomen, and back. They had no tails, nor wings, nor tentacles, nor anything one might expect from a Lovecraft novel, but they were certainly built to give mankind nightmares nonetheless.
Lucas called out from across the holotable.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
The creature put his arms out and looked down, as if to say he had nothing on him that was dangerous.
“Yeah, well that doesn’t really matter does it?”
Lucas pointed to the scratch over his eye made by one of the creature’s claws minutes earlier.
It grunted and pointed in the direction of the prison area, then down at the floor.
“Yeah, yeah, you want her here, I know. But why?”
That was an answer that couldn’t be communicated with gestures.
“You can understand me, but you don’t have a way I can understand you?”
The creature motioned to his right. Lucas turned and saw a cracked screen with a cluster of controls flashing red beneath it.
“That thing?”
The creature nodded. Sparks erupted from the controls every few seconds; clearly whatever the unit was, it would take some time to repair, if it could be salvaged at all.
“Where’s the rest of the crew?”
The creature grunted, and flung his claw toward the darkness in the viewscreen behind him.
“I’m going to guess that means they’re not coming back.”
It shook its head and walked toward the holotable. Lucas readied Natalie again. The creature gave an annoyed grunt and put his arms out again presumably to signal he had no ill intentions.
He pointed at Lucas, then at the hologram of Earth floating in the middle of the table.
“Yes, I know, you destroyed my planet.”
A few flicks with his good claw into the console’s holocontrols summoned a three-dimensional scene that flickered to life in the center, replacing the globe.
3
The holographic recording was a first-person view, shot from the perspective of a creature—this one, Lucas presumed. Amidst a flurry of overlaid symbols he recognized from the controls around him, two clawed hands tinkered with a piece of machinery. One was then inserted into some sort of glove device and started searing a metal object in front of him with a hot orange glow. He was surrounded by complex machinery, and on the opposite wall there were tanks filled with fluid. Did somet
hing just move in there?
A loud bark came from his left side. The creature turned and in front of him was a figure that towered above him, decked out in full power armor. A soldier. He grunted at him and the smaller creature grunted back. The soldier grunted louder and threw a weapon at him. The creature caught it in his claws, and looked at it like it was a foreign object. He gestured toward his lab. A scientist.
A holographic data pad was presented to the scientist. An array of unintelligible symbols scrolled across while the soldier was saying something in the background. Pointing toward the device on the table, the scientist barked in protest, but the larger creature grabbed him and started dragging him out the door. The screen cut to blackness.
It booted up again almost immediately, this time in the heat of a firefight. Around the scientist was a squad of other creatures, all wearing full power armor. They marched down a city street, firing indiscriminately, but the creature’s viewcam showed him not using his weapon at all, rather ducking any time a blast rang out nearby. The scene around him was chaotic. Fighter jets strafed alien ships, and tanks and Humvees were exploding on the ground. Bodies lined the streets. From the burning skyscrapers, Lucas thought it looked like Portland. Amidst all the carnage, Lucas was fixated on only one thing: the sun. I’d forgotten what it looked like. The feed cut out again.
It reappeared indoors, the creature squad was now inside what appeared to be an abandoned school. Outside, muffled explosions and gunfire could be heard, and the occasional jet or alien aerial fighter would scream by overhead, shaking the walls. The hallways were dark, and the team had dwindled in number to four, including the commanding officer who had approached the scientist initially. He was covered in mud and a mixture of black and red blood. A real cocktail of war.
The camera twitched frantically from left to right, mimicking the panicked mental state of the scientist forced out onto the battlefield. The school was a mess and had clearly been evacuated in a hurry. Locker doors were hanging open, ungraded tests and assignments littered the ground. Only a few lights still worked, and even in holographic form, the mood was undeniably tense.
Suddenly, a wave frequency began to fluctuate on the scientist’s display. A heartbeat. The lead creature raised his hand and made a fist with his claws. The heartbeat increased in frequency. The group slowly crept forward again down the hallway, and the singular heartbeat was soon joined by a chorus of others, causing the lines on the grid to go off the charts. The commander motioned to a door that was shut, which was conspicuous as all others down the hallway had been flung open. He removed something from his suit that immediately dissolved the hinges of the door. Shouldering his weapon, he grabbed the sides and flung the wooden door backward as the two other soldiers jumped in front of him with weapons drawn and fully charged. Screams rang out from inside the room. The two creatures pushed back the mess of tangled desks and chairs in front of the door and wrestled their way inside along with the scientist, given a firm push by his commanding officer. There in front of him was a small group of children, all flocked around a young woman who looked to be their teacher.
All of them were shrinking against the opposite wall, trying to crawl further backward away from the creatures, but with nowhere to go. There was pure terror in their eyes, and almost all of them were crying and screaming. They couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve, middle school students, he imagined, and the teacher herself didn’t appear to be more than few years out of college. The lead creature went over to the blinds and ripped them off the wall with one swift swipe of his claw. Sunlight poured in and destruction could be seen and heard outside.
He turned to the scientist and barked something, then gestured toward the huddled, shaking group of students. The scientist looked at them, then back at his commander and made some low, guttural sounds. The other two soldiers in the group each vocalized a thought and stepped up, weapons raised at the humans, who shrieked and tried to sink further into the wall. The leader snarled at them, and they immediately stood down. He turned and grabbed the scientist’s gun, and pointed it toward the cowering students. The scientist looked at them, tears streaming down their cheeks, now mute out of fear. It was deathly silent, except for the occasional muffled explosive thud outside. The scientist paused, lifted his rifle, and then swung it toward his commanding officer.
It caught him by surprise, but the officer reacted quickly. He grabbed the gun and flung it upward, causing it to fire and blast a hole in the ceiling, which drew a cry from the children. He ripped it away from the scientist, and then jammed the butt of it into his stomach. The camera keeled over toward the ground and then peered up again just in time to see the gun come crashing down. Everything went black for a few seconds, but then the image resurfaced. It was unfocused and blurry, but showed a sideways view, as the scientist’s head was resting on the ground, looking at the students and teacher on the far wall.
The room erupted in a blaze of light and sound, then the screaming stopped. The heart rate monitor went flat. Everything went black.
Lucas looked up at the scientist. He motioned for Lucas to direct his gaze back toward the hologram.
The scientist was now being dragged through the hallway in the ship he and Lucas had just walked through moments earlier. He was thrown through a doorway and two creatures set upon him, tearing off his armor piece by piece. When they were finished, they pulled him over to the wall, emitting noises that sounded vaguely like sneers. They put his arms in two restraints on the wall, then backed out of the cell. The white wall flickered to life and stayed that way. The camera panned up toward one of his imprisoned claws, and back down toward the door. Cut to black.
The hologram flickered to life again, this time the scene was in a state of panic. Droning sirens echoed through the brig, red lights flashed every few seconds. The scientist looked from side to side, but could see nothing relevant through the translucent force field, just the closed door. He heard footsteps and frantic cries outside, when suddenly, the room started spinning.
Everything shook and the sirens intensified. The impact of the ship’s crash made the image cut out again.
The scientist awoke with the force field now deactivated. The sirens were silent and the only light was from flashing emergency strobes. Everything else appeared to be offline. He looked to his right, where he saw one of his claws had broken out of the cuff, which had burst open. Glancing to the left, he saw the other claw was still trapped. Blackness again.
He woke once more, the emergency lighting was no longer flashing, and instead produced a constant, ambient glow. Holding his right arm out in front of him, it was deathly skinny, as were his legs and torso when he looked down. His gaze shifted upward toward his trapped claw. He pulled at the cuff, which, unlike its counterpart, had apparently suffered no damage and wasn’t budging.
Breathing heavily, and then drawing shorter and shorter breaths, he reached up and plunged his claw into his own wrist. Lucas probably would have winced had he not been bathing in gore these past few months and was all but immune to its appearance.
The scene quickly escalated as the creature found his dulled claw wasn’t enough for the task at hand. He hoisted himself upward, and sunk his teeth into his own flesh. He pulled back and a big patch of skin and muscle tissue was missing. Alerts went off on the heads up display, but the scientist went back for more. This time there was a loud crack, his mouth wrestled with his wrist, and finally he ripped it away. He quickly backed up and his claw hung there in the cuff, like some sort of bizarre light fixture.
He stumbled out of the door and into the main command center. It was empty and baked in a dull red ambiance with no control panels lit up or functioning. He approached the central hub and pounded on it. Eventually, an image flickered to life, a globe with a pulsating red dot where Portland used to be.
The hologram shifted from the scientist looking at the globe to the globe itself. Lucas looked up at the creature across the table.
“You’re a
traitor.”
The creature shook his head. He rewound the video to the part that showed his squad taking aim at the children. He pointed toward them and grunted angrily.
“They’re the traitors? I hate to say it, but they seemed to be the majority opinion.”
He rewound the video further to when he was tinkering in his lab.
“You’re just a scientist, you didn’t want this. I get it. I didn’t think you things had a moral compass.”
The creature remained silent. This was now officially the longest conversation Lucas had been a part of in months. And no one was dead yet. Amazing.
“So you’ve spent all this time repairing the ship? How did you manage that?”
He swirled his claw and the globe zoomed into the surrounding area around post-crater Portland. There were certain points flagged with symbols. The display was magnified further and the wreckage of a ship came into view. It panned out, then back in on another point, where a different ship lay in ruins.
“You salvaged the pieces from other crashed ships nearby. Damn. That’s a dangerous move in this current climate. I imagine you ran into a few folks who weren’t happy to see you.”
The scientist motioned toward a set of power armor hanging on a wall nearby. An energy rifle lay next to it on a console. Both items looked battle scarred and broken down.
“Yeah, I would imagine it would have helped when those were operational.”
The creature chortled.
“Where have you gotten food, water, while the ship’s been down? I know even you things need them.”
He pointed at Lucas, then raised his claw to his mouth, clenched it, and bit down.
“Well, I guess we can call that even then.”
The mere thought of meat made Lucas’s mouth water.
The creature held up one claw and pointed to the display screen. It showed a video of a bay door opening, and a giant, flexible pipe was lowered down into a body of water and made a low humming noise.
“And?”