Grendel Unit

by Bernard Schaffer

  Sonjiin came up beside him and peered down at the computer screen, seeing nothing on the thermal display. "What is it?"

  "I think I know what happened," Belosh said quickly. He burst through the foliage, running until the men were forced to follow the crunching sound of his body breaking through the branches ahead to find him. Sonjiin called out for him to slow down, but then the vines opened up to reveal the edge of the ridge and the desolation that lay beyond it. Belosh lowered his arm and said, "It's this."

  Sonjiin stared down at the massive crater beneath the ridge and realized he wasn't standing on a cliff at all. He was standing on the outer circumference of a hole driven into the ground by an asteroid larger than their spaceship. The massive chunk of rock stuck halfway out of the ground and each of its crags and sharp points caused the terrain around it to crack into long grown-over canals and deep trenches.

  "The impact must have been devastating," Belosh said. "Perhaps it rendered the planet uninhabitable for so long that everything died off. Nyular was probably never even settled."

  Sonjiin could not look away from the ball of stone. It was so ancient that trees had begun to wrap their roots around its corners and it was impossible to tell where the surface of the planet began and the intruding asteroid began. "That's impossible. It could never have driven all life off of the planet. There aren't even any insects. Your theory must be flawed."

  Belosh laughed indignantly, "And I suppose you have a better one−wait a moment−look here, brothers." He closed the computer screen on his forearm as he saw something crawling past his wrist. He turned and showed the rest of them the long, thin worm clinging to his shirt. "That's not a native species to Nyular. At least, not the one back home."

  Sonjiin bent closer to look at the worm, inspected its pearl white body and oddly-shaped head, the peaks of which formed into two sharp horns. He reached for the worm and it struck at him, trying to spear him with the points, and Sonjiin recoiled and said, "Aggressive little buggers."

  Belosh smiled as he bent closer to peer at the creature, "I wonder if they came on the asteroid. Wouldn't that be astounding? An alien species survives here when nothing else could?"

  The worm lowered its head and dug into Belosh's shirt, prodding the fabric like a bull scraping its horns against a tree. "What's it doing?" Sonjiin said.

  "Just looking for a place to hide." He bent down to the ground and held his arm closer to the dirt, trying to wiggle the worm off. "Here you go, lad. Into the dirt with you."

  The worm refused to come loose, no matter how Belosh shook it. He finally tried to flick it off and the thing stabbed him so fiercely it drew two fine dots of red blood on the tip of his finger. "Bastard!" Belosh said. He whipped his arm down again, but the worm slithered up to the cuff of his shirtsleeve and spun, coiling its body into the air momentarily and then corkscrewing its body downwards at the flesh of Belosh's wrist, using its horns. "It's going inside of me!" Belosh screamed in horror.

  Sonjiin was too stunned to react at first, watching half of the worm's body vanish into Belosh's arm before he forced himself to grab for it. He pinched the thing between his fingers and pulled, tearing its body in half, but even as he cast the wriggling severed section into the dirt and stamped on it, Belosh clutched his arm and cried out that he could feel the thing moving under his skin.

  "Back to the ship!" Sonjiin shouted. "We need to get him to sickbay, now!" The men all turned to run back the way they'd come when Sonjiin and all of his men saw the horrible truth. They were covered in the things. Worms crawled across all of their backs and shoulders and clung to their hair. "By the gods, we need to move!"

  The men saw them as well, and began to panic, trying to flick the things off of themselves, but one by one, the worms attacked. Vilik suddenly grabbed his pants leg and shrieked like a woman, clawing at his thighs and begging for help. "To the ship!" Sonjiin demanded. "We need to get off this cursed planet!"

  He felt something slide past his right eyelid, momentarily blocking his view and gumming up his eyelashes like the crust of a deep sleep. As he reached up to wipe it away he felt something wet drag itself across the lens of his eye and gasped, seeing the long white body of the worm stretch itself out for an instant, then drive directly through the soft flesh of his eyeball.

  Sonjiin screeched as he clutched his face, digging into his own skin with his fingers, trying to tear the thing free. He could feel it boring through the white meat of the eyeball and he grabbed for the person nearest him and cried, "Get it out of me!"

  The men punched and scraped at one another, trying to beat the things away, but their screams only seemed to stir the creatures. Sonjiin felt his boots tug and slide away like he was standing in the ocean and the current was pulling him away from the shore, only to look down and realize it was a stream of worms, arriving to feast on them. He ran blindly then, no longer hearing the screams of his men, no longer caring.

  He made it back inside the ship in time to race to the nearest mirrored surface and peel his eyelids open to see the last of the worm's tail wiggle as it burrowed into his eyeball, leaving nothing but a small bloody hole. He groaned and pounded his fists against his head in outrage. "This can't be happening," he cried out.

  His legs gave way beneath him and he slunk to the floor's cool surface, shuddering in fear. He could not feel anything physically wrong except a dull ache in his right eye that was already receding. The thing could be digging a hole through his frontal lobe and he would not have known it. Perhaps I'll start randomly shouting things out and singing old folk songs if it carves out the wrong chunk of my grey sponge, he thought bitterly. Perhaps I'll forget how to pilot this ship in mid-flight and tumble out of the sky.

  Alone, he thought. Utterly and completely alone. In this place of green death where I'll be eaten alive from within by this godforsaken parasite! He smashed himself in the forehead again and groaned, rolling around in despair until he heard something call out for him, low and desperate. "Sonjiin," the voice called again. "Help."

  He sprang to his feet and raced to the door, hammering the lift's button until it came just a few inches off the ground and he could see the supine form of Belosh collapsed on the ground. His body was covered with red holes on his face and throat and arms. Their tail ends were digging into his nostrils, only to disappear, and it was all he could do to lay there and moan. "Help me, brother," Belosh whispered.

  Sonjiin grabbed Belosh by the shirt sleeve and dragged him into the ship, then quickly pounded the lift's emergency button to snap the door shut once more. "I can feel them eating my insides!" Belosh gasped, clutching his sides. "We must escape this place. We must go back to where we belong. Before it is too late."

  Sonjiin spied a loose worm sliding across the man's shirt, its sharp white horns quivering in his direction, and he scurried backwards on the floor. He ripped a decontamination hose from the wall and twisted its nozzle, releasing a jet of harsh white foam onto Belosh, soaking him from his feet up to his head. Belosh gurgled and choked on the foam as it filled up his nose and mouth but Sonjiin was merciless as he kicked his friend over and jumped back, seeing a dozen more of the beastly little creatures clinging to the back of Belosh's shirt. The worms shriveled up under the chemical bath and fell to the floor like small lengths of greasy fried onion.

  Once he was satisfied Belosh was cleansed, he stripped out of his clothes and held the decon nozzle over his own head and showered himself in the chemical. It stung and stunk but he made sure to cover every inch of himself with it. He saturated his clothes and kicked them toward Belosh, making sure to keep everything that might still be infected together in one place.

  He stood naked over Belosh and inspected his friend. They'd grown up in the same village under the Kreskus Mountains. Their fathers herded fingwog in the great fields of the Southern Forest together. He looked down at the man with his one good eye and took a deep breath. The things had reacted to the decon chemical. They were vulnerable, he thought. But how to remove them from
inside the body?

  Sonjiin felt his right upper cheek twitch involuntarily and cringed, knowing the creature must be moving through his tear ducts. He imagined the thing laying eggs throughout his body, depositing a thousand more of the wretched beasts as it went.

  Something must be done, he decided. We did not come all this way to acquire the one thing in the universe that could give us our just reward, only to be felled by a few hideous worms. He turned and looked at the radiation chamber holding the Sun Hammer, and his mind began to assimilate a plan.

  He bent down over Belosh and took him by the shoulders, "Can you move, my brother?"

  Belosh groaned and turned his head toward him, opening his eyes to reveal their blackened surfaces that dripped with grey slime. "I cannot see, Sonjiin. What have these things done to me?"

  Sonjiin steeled himself at the sight and said, "Everything will be fine, my brother. I am going to take care of you."

  "May the gods and prophets bless and keep you, my brother."

  "Come," Sonjiin said. He helped Belosh to rise from the floor and said, "Come so that you can rest. I will take us home and get you the care you need, no matter what it costs."

  Belosh stopped, nearly sobbing, "But what of the mission? We swore an oath. We have the Sun Hammer now and must use it."

  Sonjiin patted him on the shoulder and said, "What use is saving Nyular if I cannot first save her most beloved son?"

  Belosh patted his hand and stumbled as Sonjiin kept him upright, muttering thanks as his hands fumbled blindly for the wall. Belosh knocked into a doorframe as Sonjiin moved him forward and said, "Where are we going?"

  "Just ahead. I want you to lie down." Sonjiin moved his friend through the door and stopped, watching him continue on as he groped for something to tell him where he was. Sonjiin stepped back and closed the door softly behind him, shutting Belosh in with the Sun Hammer device.

  "Brother?" Belosh's muffled voice called out. "Are you there?"

  Sonjiin turned the console's controls on and began to key in the first of the ignition sequences. The device rumbled to life and Belosh's hands shot into the air in surprise. "What is that?" he said. "Sonjiin? Where are you?"

  Sonjiin watched him carefully as he entered the code to activate the Sun Hammer's core energy supply. The ship around him dimmed and whined as the unholy device drained power from it like a ravenous vampire. "What are you doing?" Belosh cried out.

  Sonjiin walked over to the door's observation window and shouted, "Belosh! Can you hear me?"

  "I hear you, brother," Belosh said, turning his head backwards and forth to try and find him.

  "The creatures inside of you will take you over if they are not forced out," Sonjiin said. "This is the only way."

  "What way are you speaking of?" Belosh said quickly.

  "You must try and endure it."

  Belosh spun around, hands sweeping over the device as he tried to understand. "You cannot be serious, Sonjiin. Take me back home and we'll find a doctor. This is not the way!"

  "It is the only way, my brother," Sonjiin whispered softly.

  "No! No, I forbid this! I do not want you to do this! Let me out!"

  Sonjiin clutched his throbbing eye and said, "Be strong." He pushed the activation button to fire the device's centrifuge and great arcing sparks of blue electricity filled the chamber. A bright orange glow emitted through the observation portal and Sonjiin heard Belosh's voice cry out in a horrific shriek. "You are burning me alive!" Belosh screamed.

  Sonjiin could smell roasting flesh through the door and he closed his eyes and lowered his head. Belosh shrieked again and again and threw himself against the door so hard the metal dented. Sonjiin looked up at the crash and saw that Belosh's hair was on fire and his flesh was now charred and black.

  The glow got brighter and hotter and Belosh finally collapsed on the floor and stopped screaming. His clothes caught fire then, sparking with bright flames that ignited and danced across his back and arms and legs.

  Sonjiin waited and watched long enough to be sure that whatever parasites lie within Belosh would be dead. He shut the Sun Hammer device off and pressed the emergency fire protocols into the console to begin cooling the room down and ventilating the smoke and fumes.

  I'm next, Sonjiin thought.

  I will fare better than weak Belosh.

  He thought of his own hair catching fire though and wondered if that would be enough to break his spirit. Nothing can break my spirit, he thought angrily back at himself. I am the last of the raiders. The last son of Nyular with the strength to carry this device into the heart of our enemies' homeworld and set things to rights.

  Not if you do not survive, he thought.

  He pressed his fingers to his cheek and felt something wriggling just beneath the skin. Perhaps, then, it is my duty to endure this, he thought. Perhaps, then, it is my responsibility to bring the Sun Hammer to the Draxx home world and all throughout the accursed Union and show them what true terror is.

  He returned to the mirrored surface and looked closely at his face, stretching the skin flat to look for where it bulged around the body of the worm. It must come out, he thought. One way or another. He decided there was a better solution and walked over to the emergency medical station and opened the tool kit, searching through the bandages and antiseptics. He found what he sought in a sealed metal tube and twisted its top off to inspect the razor sharp triangular blade beneath. He pressed a button to make the blade vibrate and watched it, imagining what the sharp metal would do the moment it touched human flesh, then carried the electroscalpel back toward the mirror, firm of heart and intent.

  17. Suicide Planet

  Bob Buehl could feel Monster staring at him from the co-pilots chair, the primordial way a man knows someone, or thing, is watching him, but he knew better than to look up and say, "What." He focused on the navigational screen in front of him, keeping his eyes down and ignoring the beast, hoping Monster would get bored and go back to work.

  "I'm going to look at you until you ask me why I'm looking at you," Monster said.

  "Good luck," Buehl said.

  "Ask me why I'm looking at you."

  "No."

  "Ask me, or are you afraid?"

  "I'm not afraid."

  "You must be, or else you would look at me."

  Buehl sighed and turned his chair to stare Monster directly in his large, bright green eyes strewn with strands of bright crimson. "What do you want, Monster?"

  "Why did you vote to not let me join Grendel Unit?"

  Buehl's face soured and he spun back to his console, typing furiously, "I should have never told you that. Let it go."

  Monster leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on his knees and said, "But you did tell me, and now I want to know why."

  "Because I was stupid, okay? I grew up in a family that hated aliens. Three of my uncles and my older brother died in the Unification Civil War, for God's sake. We were taught from the time we were kids to hate anything that wasn't human, and to hate the people who forced us to accept them."

  "So why did you join Unification?"

  Buehl shrugged and said, "I guess I hated my old man worse. He always was a mean old bastard, anyway. Him not talking to me ever again was an added bonus along with the steady pay and benefits."

  "But your anti-alien feelings persisted, even though you knew he was wrong?"

  Buehl nodded and said, "It was just one of those things a person believes in, but doesn't know why."

  "And now?"

  "Now that I know an alien, you mean?"

  "Yes, and work with him, and fly this ship with him."

  Buehl smiled slyly and said, "I try not to hold what I think of him against all the other nice alien life forms out there."

  Frank Kelly heard the sound of laughter from the cockpit and came up the corridor, telling them, "Hey, quiet down. Vic received a Priority One message from General Milner ten minutes ago. He hasn't come out yet."

  "Looks like we
're getting our vacation time back and then some," Buehl said.

  "Have you heard anything on the intelligence channels?" Frank said.

  "Just the usual. Something's going on near the Xilin system, but that's a little bit out of our way." He looked at them both and said, "Isn't it?"

  "Depends how bad it is, I guess," Frank said. "Keep looking on the channels and see what you can find."

  Monster curled his mammoth fists and said, "By the gods, let it be something I can tear apart with my own paws. I have had my fill of sitting in this cursed ship."

  Vic's cabin door opened and he emerged, ashen-faced and stricken, clutching a half-empty bottle of whisky. His face was puffy and red, having swallowed too much of it too quickly.

  Frank looked down at the bottle and said, "Oh no. Is that the Bad News Whisky?"

  Vic lifted his hand and said, "Nope."

  "Good."

  "It's the Worse Than That Whiskey."

  "Damn. Well? Go ahead with it," Frank said.

  "You want the bad news or the really, really bad news?"

  "How about the part that sounds really bad but is secretly not-so-bad and in fact, is really kind of heartwarming and easy?" Buehl said.

  "Whichever you want, but you have to say it in a positive fashion," Frank said.

  Vic nodded and said, "All right. We're getting to go somewhere very few people will ever see in their lifetimes." He smiled thinly at them and waved his hand magically in the air, "Taa-dah."

  "And the bad part?"

  Vic took another swig, "It's a Class Five planet."

  Frank stopped grinning and said, "Bull."

  "What's a Class Five planet?" Buehl said.

  "I'm guessing it doesn't mean they party a lot and have excessively amorous females," Monster said.

  "It's a forbidden planet," Frank said. "Class Five means no one is ever allowed to go there."

  "Bingo," Vic said with a stupid grin. "Except us. I guess that means we're special."

  "Why are we going to this forbidden place?" Monster said.

  "Some sort of suspicious radiation burst."