Harbinger

by Stephen Christiansen

  Vincent gave him a questioning stare in return. “Are you really asking me that now? Does it really matter at this point?”

  Eric shook his head at the absurdity of his question. The only thing that really mattered at this point was survival. He would have to remember to ask Vincent where he had gotten his stock. It would be nice to be able to upgrade, rather it was legal or not, if they ever got out of here alive.

  Chapter: 23

  Cleo started to pace back and forth in the tiny CIC, mock-bridge. Her arms moved quickly as she swung one of the sonic blasters and she didn’t seem to care that she almost hit the vulnerable pieces of equipment that had only been haphazardly put together and she also didn’t seem to care that she almost hit Tracy. Her agitated mood started to become infectious.

  “Hey, watch what you are doing with that thing! You almost hit me!”

  “I did not! You almost got in the way! Now get out of my face!”

  Tracy jumped from her chair. “Listen! I’ll get in your face any time I feel like it! Now keep talking if you want me to bust you over the head with that thing…”

  “Go ahead and try!” Cleo’s response could only barely be heard through her clenched teeth as she put the sonic blaster into the “on” position. The power from its core started to hum and echoed in the small room. Energy started to flow through the weapon.

  “Enough!,” Bruce shouted as he jumped between the two women. “We can’t be at each other’s throats…”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, doc! I’m not one of your patients.”

  It was Tracy who had turned on Richard. Her eyes darted to the remaining sonic blaster sitting on the floor. No one had claimed the second one for defense. She had understood that since Richard was a doctor then the weapon would feel alien in his hands. She would also have the same reaction to the weapon being in her hands. She had led a sheltered life and had never picked up any weapon. Yet, now, she wanted nothing else except to pick up that weapon and discharge it, not only at Cleo and Richard, but at anything and everything that moved or got in her way.

  Tracy’s sudden interest in Richard was all that Cleo needed. She brought her sonic blaster up and opened fire.

  The air rippled with power as the sonic wave traveled through the room. It would have knocked both Tracy and Richard back several feet had it hit them squarely. However, with her emotions going haywire, her sudden jerking of the weapon upward, and her unfamiliarity with the weapon, Cleo had shot too high and had only clipped the two of them. Both were hit in the top of their shoulders, spinning them to the ground.

  Tracy was the first to respond. She rolled to her right without thought and reached out for the remaining weapon. It wasn’t too difficult to find the “on” switch and once she did, she brought it to life. The rifle hummed with power and sang with energy. Quickly she turned the rifle toward Cleo to respond. There, where Cleo used to stand, was nothing but air. Cleo was gone. The sound of her hurried footfalls upon the metal floor echoing from down the hall was the only indication of Cleo’s whereabouts.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Tracy screamed. “Get back here!” Her voice was filled with anger as she took off down the hall in search of her new prey.

  Richard shook his head. The room was still spinning from the blast and he felt lightheaded, but he had to push through. Everything was falling apart. He had to find these two and put an end to their violence before they actually hurt each other. Without concern for the security of their only control over the ship and without concern over his life, Richard ran down the hall after the two of them.

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  Eric’s eyes widened. His face became flush. His muscles started to twitch, become taut, and then twitch again. His breathing started to increase. His heart started to race. His vision started to spin.

  “They should be here by now. Why aren’t they attacking? What’s keeping them? What are they doing?”

  Suddenly Eric jumped from his post. He knew that leaving his spot would mean that they would give away a position that would allow them to keep anything in a crossfire, yet he felt as if he had no choice, or perhaps he didn’t care. Rage and worry crossed his mind. His emotions were running away with him. Eric’s aggressive stance turned upon Vincent.

  “Why aren’t you doing anything?! Why are you just sitting there? You’ve been in these situations before! You know what needs to happen! Do something! Do something now! Don’t just sit there!”

  Vincent just sat at his post and let Eric continue with his rantings. He let his breathing remain shallow but constant. The last thing he wanted to do was lose his cool. There would be enough time to use his energy later, he didn’t need to waste it now.

  He could feel his skin start to crawl. It felt like glass was in his blood and that his muscles were trying to move and react by themselves. He wanted to run, he wanted to panic, he wanted to scream. It felt like his nerves were about to explode in a fury due to emotional distress. He felt paranoid, like everything around him was conspiring against him. He felt like he couldn’t sit still. He felt like the ship was going to explode and that every dreadful thing that ever could happen was going to happen this very moment. He knew what Eric was going through.

  “Why aren’t you listening to me?! Do you think that I’m not good enough? Get up! Get up and face me and I’ll prove…”

  Eric had continued his tirade until he had gotten into Vincent’s proximity. Here he got into Vincent’s face and started to raise his voice and when Vincent hadn’t answered back, he gave the security guard a shove to catch his attention.

  That was all Vincent could take. He jumped from his position and shoved Eric all the way back to the opposite wall and pinned him there. His arm pushed against Eric’s throat to ensure that he had the younger man’s attention.

  “You need to hold it together, soldier. They’re messing with you, they’re messing with all of us. I’ve seen this before.”

  “What...what are you talking about? You’re just…”

  “The space squids are messing with our minds.”

  “But what...how?”

  Vincent shook his head. “I don’t completely understand it myself. But what I’ve heard is that they are telepathic.”

  “They can...they can read our minds?”

  Again Vincent shook his head and as he did, he released Eric from his grip.

  “No, I don’t think that’s the case. From what I’ve heard, they communicate to each other on some telepathic level. I’ve even heard that it might be pheromones or perhaps some combination of the two. No one really knows for sure. But the squids have found out that our systems aren’t compatible. It’s like a receiver not tuned correctly to the right frequency, all you get is static. They’ve figured out that if they get within a close proximity to us and start communicating to each other then it will mess with our minds. We can’t handle it and it drives people insane.”

  “Some people can tolerate it and others can’t. Me? I feel what you’re feeling, trust me. It makes my skin crawl, my nerves scream, and my muscles jump. I want to scream and yell and tear something apart. But I know, that as soon as I give into it, I’ll be doing what they want me to do, what they want all of us to do, to turn on each other, to kill each other. They’ll let us do their job for them.”

  “You have to keep it together, just a little longer. It doesn’t last too long. Once enough adrenaline pumps through your system it will drown out their effects and you’ll have your fill of it the moment they come down that corridor. Trust me, they’ll be coming through that door anytime…”

  The clank of metal against metal, the sound of the airlock opening, caught their attention. It seemed to ring throughout the entire ship as if it were the sound of death coming. For one moment, for one eternity, there was nothing but silence. Then, with no further warning, all hell broke loose.

  Chapter: 24

  The sight and sound that came next struc
k both Eric and Vincent with such awe that they stood there dumbfounded as if to not be able to register as what they saw was real. There, coming from the down the hall, from the airlock came a swarm of something that they hadn’t been prepared to see.

  The creatures were no more than about a foot in diameter and as black as night. From their core bodies came eight small tentacles that were connected by a membrane that looked more like bat wings, and by the way that they were working, it seemed as if they were acting like them. The creatures, the flying octopi with their surrounding bat wings, would span their appendages out and then bring them back in very quickly, like something trying to “swim” through the air. This seemed to propel them and they came down the hall in a thick mass reminiscent of a bat swarm, only with plenty of tentacles.

  Eric’s and Vincent’s shock was only brief. They turned their weapons toward the oncoming swarm and opened fire. Their weapons hummed with power and shot with a vengeance.

  Red and blue bolts of superheated gas flew from their weapons and streaked down the long hall. They struck with power. Anything and everything that was hit was blasted. It wasn’t hard to miss any of the flying squids since they were so thick in numbers.

  As each flying alien was struck, it exploded into a blot of goo. Black and green ichor, ebony colored, rubbery body parts, and tentacles flew everywhere.

  Even when the plasma bolts did manage to miss, as infrequently as that was; they bore into the ship's hallway, leaving either darkened scorch marks where they had skidded along or holes where they had blasted through.

  It was a few of these holes that had caught both Vincent’s and Eric’s attention. They had to be careful not to blast a hole through the left side of the hallway. That was where the airlock was. That was where the outside of the ship was and it would be where another unexpected and unwanted portal to the unfriendly and unforgiving environment of space.

  The hall was now full of sounds. The blasters made their presence known with each discharge with a low pitched explosion as each plasma round left the blaster. They made a second sound as they struck their target with a burning sound as the plasma ate through each flying alien or melted part of the ship.

  Then there were the sounds of the flying creatures. Their tentacle “wings” beat and created the sound of leather brushing up against more leather. This in itself wasn’t very loud, but the hundreds of flying creatures that seemed to be pouring into the hall, each with their constant beatings, was a torrent of sounds all their own.

  To add to this, each time a space squid was hit, it gave a squeal of pain before its body exploded into a shower of ichor. This was similar in sound to the squeal of a rat or perhaps a seagull or the sound a lobster would make when it got dumped into hot boiling water.

  These flying squids were not like anything Vincent had heard of before. He had heard of, and had even seen the crawling version of the space squids and these he was ready for. He was set to blast the closest one and keep a safe distance while falling back. Now... now they were overwhelmed and outnumbered before they even got started and these bugs were now on a whole new plane of battle. Instead of just left and right and forward and back, now he had to worry about up and down as well.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” Eric commented. “There’s more than just a dozen.”

  “I can see that. This isn’t a typical scout ship and I haven’t seen or heard of this version before. Just keep your post and use short controlled bursts!” Vincent shouted as he turned and let off and few more rounds.

  Eric almost had to laugh at that. He might not have had Vincent’s experience, and probably not even the fullest extent of his training, but he wasn’t a novice either. He understood about needing short and controlled bursts. Anything else would be a waste of time and firepower.

  The flying “Dumbo octopus” like creatures exploded by the dozens. Their bodies continued to explode in all directions. Yet, their numbers continued and would not relent.

  “Cover me!” Vincent yelled over the noise.

  Eric was confused for only a brief moment as he wondered what Vincent was doing that needed cover and how in the world was he going to cover him anyway? The squids were gaining ground even when the both of them were shooting. Any amount of time that Vincent took to be away from their defenses would be more ground given to the intruders. Yet when he saw what Vincent was doing, he understood that they didn’t have a choice.

  Vincent let his finger find the release button and once he activated it, his empty ammunitions clip dropped and clanked on the metal floor. Yet before the empty clip had finished its fall, Vincent had already reached into one of his pockets and pulled out another. Within a heartbeat, Vincent had slapped another clip in place, was back into his defensive position, and was able to take up the slack and then some.

  Eric pulled his trigger and nothing had happened. He had immediately come to the realization that he had to follow Vincent’s lead, he had to change his clip. With a quick flick of his release, the clip fell and before the clip had fallen, he had slammed the new clip into place and within a heartbeat he was back in action.

  More flying space squids were blasted away left and right, up and down. Their entrails and ichor continued to decorate the ceiling, walls, and floor. Yet for every one that exploded into a mess of goo, there seemed to be two more that took their place.

  “We can’t keep this up!” Eric shouted. “We’re overwhelmed. We need to fall back.”

  Vincent nodded. He had already come to the same conclusion. They would run out of ammunition long before they ran out of targets. But it was more than that; the swarm would reach them long before that point. They needed to fall back if only to postpone the inevitable.

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  The hurried sound of boots striking against the metal flooring of the ship echoed off of the walls. This was mixed in with the scream of near insanity that followed it. Panic and fear, paranoia and frustration announced the woman in flight.

  “They’re coming! They’re here! Kill them all before they invade Earth! Don’t let them come with me! Don’t let me take them! They want to follow me home! Kill them all!”

  Cleo felt like her mind was fried and that someone or something had taken control of her body while she sat inside and watched. She felt totally out of control. She had no idea where she was going or what she was doing. Her mind was swimming. Her heart was racing. Nothing made sense.

  She rounded one corner and then another. Quickly she turned into a room and stopped. Was this really where she wanted to be? It looked so familiar. Why was she here? Then it struck her.

  “No! No! Not here! Not here!”

  She remembered that the specially made container, the one that she was supposed to catch an alien with, was located here in the cryo chamber room, the room that she woke up in. It was in the compartment under her cryo chamber. It was put here to hide it from any prying eyes and away from the main cargo and supplies. She was supposed to make her way back here and secure the container, secure a specimen and then return home with it.

  The only problem was, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. There was supposed to be an army to back her up. There wasn’t supposed to be a boarding, an invasion. And they weren’t supposed to be in her head.

  “Shut them up! Shut them up!”

  Cleo flew across the cryo chamber and started to knock everything off of the counters that wasn’t secure. Laptops crashed to floor. Lab equipment was shattered.

  “There you are! I’m going to…”

  The female voice made Cleo spin in place. She gave a quick pull of the trigger. The sound blast rippled through the air and struck the individual that had followed her into the room.

  Tracy’s body spun once before she crashed to the ground. The sonic blast had only clipped her and yet still hit her like a fist. She was sure that she would be bruised on her thigh where she was hit, but that was going to be for another
time. She was going to kill Cleo. With murder in her eyes, Tracy sprang back up from the floor quicker that had been expected and charged her attacker.

  “No! No! I won’t let you … make me take them! No!”

  Cleo tried to fire off two more rounds to no avail. The kickback from the first blast had nearly knocked the weapon out of her hand. She was now off balance and was off on her aiming. The next two shots had gone wild sending shockwave s of sonic blasts through the room and into one of the cryo chambers. Shards of glass from the cover flew everywhere upon impact of one blast and electrical circuits exploded sending a shower of sparks in all directions from the second blast.

  Tracy’s body slammed into Cleo sending the both of them sprawling to the ground. It was Tracy who came on top. Her arms immediately went to the sonic blaster and tried her best to pull it from Cleo. She had every intention to yank it from her stubborn hand and shoot her with it time and again. She wanted the biologist to know exactly what it felt like. She wanted Cleo to know how much it hurt. And when she was done shooting she would smash Cleo’s head in with the butt of the weapon until her skull cracked open.