Manifest Destiny

by Allen Ivers

  Something told Leo that Kieran was apologizing but he didn’t know why it was inappropriate to tease about lip-locking with an alien horror. The dark side of situations always slid right over Kieran’s thick dome.

  He means well, lightening the mood, but there’s a time and a place for gallows humor. And that’s usually after everyone has escaped already. And the person that was sitting in the gallows is usually the one allowed to crack the joke. Poking fun at the guy with his head in the noose is just mean-spirited.

  This individual prefab was a barren, unfurnished space. The cold egg-white walls were almost medical, but for the soft hint of blue that comes with the edge of darkness. Every action, every movement, echoed off the walls like they were stepping on the skin of a drum.

  Set against one wall, a desk was built in, but no drawers or other adornments. It was like the single bush to hide in at the center of an open plain.

  Conspicuous and obvious.

  Leo edged over to it, afraid of the Jack-in-the-Box encounter that would surely arise once he passed a certain fuck-you radius known only to the Trickster Gods and asshole roommates. It was either bravery or exhaustion that pushed him forward, a depressed form of surrender to whatever way the dice fell.

  He placed one hand onto the desktop. Cold, harsh enough it seemed to push back against his skin.

  Unconsciously shaking his head with each and every poor decision, Leo stooped to see underneath the desktop. Shrouded in black, not even ambient light was able to reach back into the corners of this low-budget molded aluminum nook.

  Leo waited for the longest moment of his life, for the inevitable jump-scare.

  Maybe because it tagged him already in the Docking Collar, it simply refused to leap out. Maybe it had a sense of dramatic irony and was simply biding its time for when it would invoke the most terror. Or was it smart enough to predict the actions of its hunters, wait for opportune times to strike?

  Stare into the eyes of the tiger and wait to see who blinks first?

  Radio crackle, “Leo!”

  All that pent up spring tension unleashed and Leo cracked his head into the underside of the desk. It felt like he’d popped his head into the side of a cast-iron bell.

  There was Kieran and his goddamn snicker again.

  Rook tapped the radio pinned to his shoulder, “Did you find it, Piotr?”

  “No such luck, Rookie-Cookie. But rest easy.” How exactly were they all going to do that? Do tell. “I’ve got creepy ooze up on here our end.”

  Leo could watch the stress leak right out of Rook’s ears, shoulders drooping and head coming to rest on his chest.

  Kieran looked back and forth. “What? What does that mean?”

  Leo let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “It means the evil jellyfish is on their end.”

  “Oh.” Rook sounded like he was going to gag, but somehow happy. Was he actually going to vomit out of joy? “Oh, that’s good.”

  Thank God he wasn’t transmitting that particular notion. Just so pleased that servitude to an alien invertebrate is trapped on the other end of the ship with all their friends and colleagues.

  Leo understood that sensation, safety granted to them, but it was in exchange for danger to their friends. A real King Solomon moment – enslave yourself or your friend?

  “So yeah,” Piotr’s voice quaked a bit, absorbing all of Rook’s excess fear. “Kinda freakin’ out.”

  The hairs stood up on the back of Leo’s neck, snapping to attention like gazelle that can sense the lion nearby. “Piotr, where are you right now?”

  “The piglets’ little barracks.”

  Plenty of places to hide in there, from lockers to beds. Fuck. There was a small refrigeration unit, but it had a fairly proper seal on it. With any luck, it was trapped in that and they could just vent a piece of furniture and call it a day.

  “We closed the door behind us. Make sure it doesn’t slip out when we ain’t lookin’.”

  Leo looked up at Kieran, who looked at Rook, who simply looked up at the ladder. Without a word, Rook reached up and flipped the toggle, clacking the hatch shut on their own compartment. In just a moment, they all made a silent pact to deny they were ever so stupid as to leave the goddamn door open for the second goddamn time.

  “What’ve you guys got? Talk to me.” Behind Piotr’s call, Leo could vaguely hear Doc Gamble hushing him. Leo wasn’t about to leave his friend hanging.

  “I’ve got an empty room, with a desk and a plate window. Probably going to be somebody’s living quarters, or maybe a small lab. Whatever they need, I guess.”

  “Not a lot of places to hide, at least.” There was a stutter in that, as Piotr laughed out some of his nerves. Leo wished he could be with him, or at least that Piotr was in any other room. Just seal the little prick up in the bridge. It’s not like anybody else could fly the Murci or the shuttle if…

  Everybody’s expendable but Piotr, really.

  “Alright, we’re moving on,” the sourceless voice of Piotr said. “You should too.”

  “Okay,” Leo croaked, “What’s next for you?”

  Kieran and Rook hung near the hatch, like they were afraid to open the door without Piotr’s permission. Which did not come for a long moment.

  When he finally spoke, it was with the rushed urgency of someone remembering they had to push the button to be heard. “The Maintenance hatch. Right next door.”

  The Maintenance Hatch.

  That’s when Leo heard that effervescent tinkling of cracking glass. He didn’t want to look, because he knew what possible horror was absolutely latched onto the outside of the window frame.

  How it survived the vacuum, the cold, and the radiation were fascinating mysteries -- did it even need to breathe? -- But he could picture it, exposed to the vacuum of space, tentacles wrapped tight against the clear glass.

  Just like they had against his helmet. Little licking fingers scouring the porous surface for weakness, pressing harder than should be possible, splintering a surface designed to take the impact of a small meteor.

  Well, their plan to eject the little sucker was clearly a piss poor idea that needed careful revision.

  Board up the windows. A storm is coming.

  “Thermals!” Leo bellowed, a one-word command for Kieran to get his sculpted ass in gear. A single toggle by the door would drop a lead-lined metal shutter over the window -- a holdover technique from the first space stations, to protect from solar radiation spikes.

  Imperfect solution to the original problem, but life-saving at this particular moment.

  Kieran flipped the window toggle and cranked the compartment hatch open in one fluid motion. He clearly had no interest in remaining in the room.

  But his hasty retreat paused when he saw the result of his action. The thermal shield had dropped onto the Starfish’s gelatinous edge -- and found enough resistance in the creature to warp the metal.

  White lines of cracking webs reached and sprawled across the glass, like an early morning frost.

  Kieran’s large palm grabbed Rook by the rear and pushed him up the ladder, his hurried words turning into grunts when forced through clenched teeth.

  He was moments away from punching Rook up and clear. No time for caution or sensitive egos. Even with the lower gravity, Rook’s hand over hand climb was like they’d oiled him up before, with each overhand grip slipping off the bars. His anxiety was about to get them all killed.

  It would never have been enough. The glass sang as it shattered, but was quickly drowned by the howling torment of evacuating air.

  Leo had no idea what happened to the Starfish. Because the sudden rush of equalizing pressure whipped his torso backward, shoving him over and dragging him towards the hole.

  The wind whistled by his head, blistering against his skin as the temperature began to fall in kind. If anyone was calling out, in pain or concern, he’d never have heard it over that roar. It was like someone had taken a maelstrom off the ocean and shoved th
e entire thing into the room with him.

  Kieran and Rook hooked onto the ladder with their arms, holding on for dear life. An entire aft section of the Murci’s air supply was trying to scream out a two square foot hole as fast as possible. Wisps of the air danced white in the room, as what little moisture in the air instantly froze into a winter’s gust, a tracer highlighting the road to the abyss.

  It was only a moment before the thermal shutter managed to clamp down over the hole, providing an emergency seal, but the bent edge of it only managed to downgrade the damage from tornado alley to nasty weather.

  The air was still pushing out through the smaller hole, desperate to equalize pressure between vacuum and atmosphere. No way to know how long that would hold.

  That’s when he felt it, like fingers grabbing onto his stomach, that cold grasp of a scolding parent gripping onto his wrist or an angry lover’s hot palm pressed against the back of his neck. It wasn’t a twisting arm or a tug at his hair, it was softer than that. Firm but urgent, an instinct swelling up inside of him, trying to force him to the exit.

  It wasn’t safe here and he had to get up. Now. His stomach turned upside down, and his eyes couldn’t focus, like the worst case of vertigo he’d ever had.

  Oxygen deprived to his brain? They’d done something similar to him when first preparing him for space travel, but nothing this potent. He would throw up right here but for sheer willpower.

  Now was not the time to double-over, vulnerable to the elements. You have to get to your feet, pull yourself up, crawl if you have to. That window wouldn’t hold forever and there was only one way out of the room.

  You have to move. Now. Or freeze to death.

  But he couldn’t shake the stare Kieran and Rook were giving him, mouths open like they forgot how to work them. Blindly, Kieran started pushing Rook up the ladder again, one hand still on the compartment door’s lever.

  Were they going to leave you? Really? After all this, Kieran and his boundless optimism stretched right up until crisis point. Panic had issued an edict and Kieran was ready to cut losses and leave you to die.

  Rook pointed with one shaking hand, “Kieran!”

  “I know! Leave him!” Kieran bellowed over the wind, pushing both hands into Rook’s backside.

  Leave him. Are you going to let them?

  Leo wasn’t going to die here, waiting for each blood vessel to burst, to drown in his own freezing blood, a slush of choking fluids in his lungs.

  Rook would abandon Leo without even a look over his shoulder, and would cry to Doc Gamble about how frightened he had been, and about how he twisted his ankle in the escape. There was nothing to be done, not by a coward like Rook.

  The self-centered son of a bitch…

  Pressing his palms into the floor, Leo was able to heave himself up. He scrambled forward on all fours, the wind having less purchase against the smaller silhouette. He must’ve looked quite odd with that kind of spider-walk, because Kieran didn’t look relieved at all. More shocked, with his brow twisting and furrowed.

  You must’ve beaten expectations.

  Rook was slow going even more than before. While most of the air had evacuated in the short breach time, there was still a nice wind-tunnel right out through the small hatch. The temperature dropping was probably turning his tiny hands blue. And this man wasn’t calm or quick under good circumstances. Under duress, he was basically a sloth on Quaaludes.

  As Leo approached the ladder, Kieran blocked his way. The big man looked like he had been formed from clay, a golem that can only ape human interaction. This standoff was just a result of programming, a thing somebody was supposed to do in this bizarre time and place.

  The look on Kieran’s face, twisted forehead and darting slate-gray eyes, betrayed that confusion underneath, a conflicted mix between responsibility and instinct. His blonde hair whipped about, wrapping his perfect jaw and broad dome like a medieval warrior in a squall.

  But those eyes were just leaking with the terror that filled him, that paralyzed him.

  They tried to sacrifice you for their own safety. If you escaped, you might sing a different song; counter their mad tales with a story of your own.

  They can’t let you out.

  Leo lunged for Kieran’s giant head in what could almost be described as a pounce. The much shorter Leo was actually airborne for a brief moment, feeling wind buffet around Kieran’s broad frame.

  Kieran wasn’t ready for it, his hands out wide to grapple and hold, not block a single thrust. Leo’s outstretched hand gripped onto Kieran’s face and squeezed hard, getting a nice solid grip on the Adonis’ perfect jaw.

  Panicked, Kieran stiffened and pulled away from the grapple. Without his center, the tower of golden hair toppled backward into the handlebars of the ladder.

  It sounded like a dropped melon, barely detectable in the storm. A clear dent bent the bar, smeared with a gentle spackle of dark red, blood mixing with the few long blonde hairs of a torn scalp. Kieran’s eyes glazed over, the raw concussion shaking his entire world out of focus.

  Leo gave the golem another crack against the damaged handle, for good measure, this time painting the metal with a thicker solution. He could even see rivulets of blood lift off the bar, pulled towards the hull breach. Kieran twitched in his hands, still alive, but no longer a threat.

  And the vacuum of space would soon clean up this particular mess.

  He cast his eyes upward toward Walter Rook, who stared down in horror at what Leo had just done. Frozen in place, Rook was completely overtaken by his own superlative fear, an internal turmoil brought up to a boil. Was he also trying to stop Leo from leaving, or was it simply as innocent as surprise?

  Rook reached for his radio, “Piotr! It got Leo!”

  “What?”

  That voice. He had heard Rook’s declaration clear as day. That voice was just hoping a new report would be different, mistaken, or a cruel joke.

  Rook opened his mouth to speak.

  And Leo cranked the compartment hatch closed, slamming the hydraulic door shut on to Rook’s waist.

  There wasn’t a convenient method available to wash the blood off. Leo had to make do with wiping himself with a towel in a back cabin. The white cloth absorbed most of the blood, smearing the rest across his face.

  There was not a damn thing he could do about the stuff in his hair. That was going to require a proper shower. Hadn’t had one of those since Gateway. And that was months away.

  He’d have to let them know he was coming. The little shoulder-mounted radios were fine for around the ship, but for longer distances…

  Wait… how far did he really need to go? Earth was far, but hardly out of reach. A six minute radio delay between sending a packet and receiving one. The Murcielago’s radio system was more than adequate for that kind of work.

  It could boost a signal to Earth back to Mars three times over without trouble. Home wasn’t far.

  So why did it feel so very far away right now?

  Like the site of a childhood home long since demolished. Or recognizing someone in a crowd who doesn’t even blink as they pass you. Isolated and alone, betrayed by your own memory. Standing in the cold, without a house in sight, but knowing any door you found would be shut to you.

  Locked out in the cold. No way back inside.

  Then you have to make a door.

  The radio system was exclusively controlled in the cockpit, far down the long narrow neck of the Murci’s spine. Leo had countless hours of practice sailing up and down this weightless corridor.

  But to the surprise of exactly no one, he found a hatch sealed at the midsection. Caution is caution and all that, but this was ridiculous. The Starfish was spaced, and Rook and Kieran were about to leave him to die of vacuum exposure. They were physically trying to stop him.

  What were you supposed to do?

  The metal in his hands vibrated, like the ship itself got a song stuck in its heart and it just had to start humming a melancholy tune.


  The engines were firing. No stopping it now; the Murci was going home. They’d be outside the Martian sphere of influence in about sixteen hours, and then on to the solar ballet to slingshot themselves home. The team on Mars would be left to rot.

  It left a foul taste in his mouth.

  But nothing you can do about that. You have to get a message home, tell them what happened. What really happened.

  Was there a way to access the transmitter primarily, a maintenance override or external direction? Think, goddammit. You know this ship better than anyone alive.

  His shoulder-mounted radio crackled, and Piotr’s scratchy voice piped in. That boy needed a glass of water: “Leo? Leo, if you can hear me, respond.”

  Leo reached, but something gave him pause, something in Piotr’s voice. A shaking in the timbre, like grief barely held back.

  “I know you’re back there, Leo. You got to listen to me now. We know what happened.”

  No, they don’t. They know what Rook whimpered into a microphone. They don’t know what panic made that coward do.

  “We’ve got you sealed off, and we are heading home. If nothing else, you’re going to starve to death. If you manage to live off the rations in the back third, Gateway is going to kill you. That’s what they said verbatim, I swear to you.”

  Empty threats. If you get a message home, they’ll change their tune. You have to tell them what really happened.

  “Leo…” Piotr’s voice cracked, his composure breaking down. “Fuck, man. Please, man. Talk to me. Say something. Let me know you’re still in there.”

  It was going to be a long journey, but he would starve before they got all the way. He had to come up with a solution, some kind of jury rigged bullshit.

  Alright, focus. Where is the transmitter? Seated forty five yards off-center, hundred yards forward from the engines. There was no exterior access, and even if he could get to a hatch, he didn’t have a suit.

  There was no point talking to Piotr or Gamble or Romanov -- they’d clearly made up their minds. This was going to require more extreme measures.