Ganked In Space

by N M Tatum

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sector 12 Transgalactic Station

  The station had somehow grown even eerier since they’d left. Sector 12 Transgalactic Station felt larger, hollower, full of death. It had become a tomb. The guys reminded themselves that the only dead things in it were the thousands of ShimVens that they had killed. The bugs were the noobs here; they hadn’t made a kill yet. The Notches were the ones to be afraid of.

  They were amped. They felt like killers. They felt like badasses.

  But the ShimVens must have gotten their own inspirational speech. They weren’t content to linger in the bowels of the station anymore. They came rushing out of the vents and up through the elevator shaft as soon as the Notches stepped off Sonic.

  These seemed different than the ones the guys had faced before. These new hatchlings were faster, fiercer, younger and hungrier. They blurred together into one solid wave of legs and pincers.

  “Incoming!” Sam yelled.

  The Notches may have felt like badasses, but seeing Sam in action showed them what a real badass could do. She was a killing machine. She swung her pulse rifle around from her back into her arms like a heavy metal guitarist. She unleashed a barrage of blaster fire, tearing dozens of bugs apart in seconds. She charged at the swarm, punching several of them with her free hand, the other firmly on the trigger.

  She cut a swathe through the swarm, her personal energy shield lighting up around her. The bugs closed ranks behind Sam, cutting her off from the Notches.

  “We lost her,” Reggie said.

  “But we just got her,” Joel lamented.

  “We can’t leave her in there,” Cody said. “We don’t stand a chance without her. We need to—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, a mist began to build rapidly in the heart of the swarm. A moment after it appeared, it exploded. A rush of chemicals washed over the bugs, petrifying those closest to the source of the explosion. Traveling out from the epicenter, the bugs were statues or hit so fiercely by the chemical grenade that they fell into a state of stasis-like coma.

  The sculpture ShimVens began shattering as Sam cut her way back to the Notches.

  She smiled when she reached them. “The pyrethrum grenades work like a charm.”

  If there was any doubt left regarding Sam’s competence, it was gone completely at that moment. She nodded for them to follow, and they did without pause, their grenades at the ready and their minds set on victory.

  If you were to ask the Notches to describe the following hour, they wouldn’t be able to in any detail. They would say that they fought like madmen, cut down hundreds of bugs, maybe thousands on that main level of the station, but they acted on instinct. They blended together like the bugs did, into one unit. They moved together, killed together, parts of one whole. They would say that their minds were empty of rational thought, and that when consciousness returned, they were covered in bug blood and standing on the corpses of their enemies.

  Cody collapsed from exhaustion. Reggie fell against the wall to catch his breath. Joel held his rifle up with great effort, ready for the next wave, though it never came.

  Sam looked like she’d just gone out for a casual morning stroll. “Level complete,” she said with a smile.

  They regrouped in one of the abandoned offices. They took stock of their supplies, which hadn’t depleted as much as they would have thought. They were still good on ammo; for all the hell they had just caused, they were still in decent shape to cause some more.

  The group refueled with some dried ration packs. Half an hour passed, and the guys’ strength returned. Sam was the first to her feet. She hadn’t needed to recharge before returning to the fight—she’d only paused the mayhem to allow the guys some rest. Now enough time had passed that she was beginning to get antsy.

  “Can you locate any more of these bugs, Cody?” she asked.

  He checked his wristcom. “Heat signatures indicate a sizable swarm on sublevel seven. Then there’s nothing besides one very large signature on sublevel eight.”

  “The big mama,” Reggie said.

  “Don’t worry about that right now,” Sam said. “Focus on the enemy in front of you, the ones that can kill you now. Not the ones that can kill you later.”

  The Notches stood, checked their weapons, and shook off the stiffness that had begun to set into their muscles and joints.

  “How much time we got?” Sam asked.

  Reggie checked his watch. “Just under an hour.”

  Sam laughed. “This’ll be a goddamn cakewalk.”

  “Hell yeah,” Joel said. Cody looked at him accusingly. “What?” Joel responded. “When she says it, I believe it.”

  They piled into the elevator and made their way down to sublevel seven. Though the level had been riddled with carnage during Reggie’s last visit, it was largely empty of bug guts now, seeing as most of the carcasses were swallowed up in the incinerator.

  Having burned up a portion of the festering garbage swamp, the smell wasn’t as thick in the air as before, but it was still enough to trouble the stomach. Cody gagged the moment he stepped off the elevator. He only managed to breathe after he stuffed wads of tissue, which he’d found in his pocket, up his nose.

  They moved as a unit through the level, Sam at the lead. Reggie warned them of the incinerator and the conveyor belt floor, but neither should be a problem, since Cody needed to activate the incinerator remotely, and doing so while standing directly over it would be rather foolish.

  They reached the back of the trash level without encountering any ShimVens.

  “You wanna check those readings again?” Sam said to Cody.

  He checked his wristcom. “I have. Still reading the heat signatures of a swarm of bugs. Maybe…” He looked up. “Those chutes,” he said to Reggie. “Those connect to each floor?”

  “Yeah,” Reggie answered. “That’s how the trash gets down here from all the other levels. The last time the pests came at me, they came pouring out of that like—”

  His voice was swallowed by the skittering of thousands of bug feet. The chutes rattled and exploded like roman candles, and the bugs came shooting out like so many sparks. They were creatures of habit, apparently, the ShimVens.

  “Defensive positions!” Sam yelled.

  The Notches pressed their backs together, forming a four-sided death cube, each one unleashing a torrent of blaster fire.

  “On me,” Sam ordered.

  Maintaining their form, the group moved toward the nearest wall. Once there, they broke ranks and all pressed their backs to the wall, protecting their rear flank.

  They were a firing squad of four, cutting down attackers. The bugs dropped like garbage from a torn open trash bag, not funneled down and neatly deposited in one convenient location as before, now that the chutes were destroyed.

  “Grenades!” Sam shouted.

  Each one of them plucked a grenade off their belt. They didn’t bother to look and see what kind. They just activated them and tossed them into the swarm. A few seconds later, the mass of bugs burst like mini volcanoes, bug guts spewing instead of lava. Some of them flash froze from pyrethrum chemicals. Others were encapsulated in solid rock as the ground elemental grenades exploded. Pockets of emptiness had been punched into the swarm, giving the Notches some breathing room and allowing them to focus their fire on the still living. When a pocket reached them, they all turned and concentrated their fire in one spot. Then they would turn again when another pocket arrived. It became a dance.

  Soon, the dance was over. The last of the bugs had fallen. Each of the Notches, even Sam, fell back against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor. They were completely wiped. Their arms were heavy and felt like alien things hanging at their sides, not like they were parts of their bodies at all. As their hearts slowed and their breathing leveled off, their eyelids grew heavy. They needed to rest.

  Reggie wanted to climb into a hot tub and never come out. Cody wanted to use mouthwash, floss, a water pick
, and repeat. Joel wanted to eat an entire pizza and crash on the couch while binge-watching a procedural cop drama. Sam wanted to finish the job.

  “Don’t get too comfortable, boys,” she said. “Not done yet.”

  Joel groaned. “Can’t we just sit a minute? We just went full Duke Nukem for, like, an hour.”

  “Exactly,” Sam said. “An hour. How much time we got to finish this job?”

  Reggie wiped the bug guts from his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes.”

  Sam used her rifle like a cane to stand. “Then we best move our asses.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sector 12 Transgalactic Station

  There was no sense of looming suspense when they entered the engine room. No wondering if their enemy was lurking in the dark, waiting to strike when the Notches’ guard was down. The big mama was there, in the open, to welcome them.

  They stepped off the elevator and were almost crushed immediately. A massive leg came slamming down toward them. Sam shoved Cody and Joel in one direction, and then tackled Reggie in the opposite. They would all have been turned to people paste had she not had the fastest reflexes in the universe.

  Cody and Joel were back on their feet in seconds, adrenaline powering them past the fatigue that had plagued them only minutes ago. They ran along the outer perimeter of the room toward the engine, the biggest source of cover.

  Sam allowed her momentum to carry her forward. After landing on top of Reggie, she rolled over him to her feet and then sprinted toward a grid of control panels for cover.

  She yelled to Reggie over her shoulder, “I saved your ass, but I’m not carrying you the rest of the way.”

  He scrambled to his feet and followed her.

  Now split into two teams on opposite sides of the mama ShimVen, they took turns firing at the beast. Joel and Cody shot, drawing the monster’s attention. Then Reggie and Sam fired as it was focused on the others. It would have been a good plan if their rifles had any effect on the creature.

  “Our shots are bouncing right off,” Joel said through the comms.

  “It appears that the big mama has some sort of exoskeleton that the little ones don’t,” Cody said. “Fascinating.”

  “What would be fascinating is a way to kill it,” Sam said. “Any ideas, Brainiac?”

  Cody’s mind raced for a solution. “We need to find a weak point, some chink in its armor.”

  Sam checked her ammo. Her pulse rifle would be empty in minutes at her current rate of fire. “We’re likely to run out of ammo before we get lucky enough to do that.” But she had two fire grenades left. And an idea. “Hold your fire. When I give the word, Joel and Cody, get its attention.”

  “What are you going to do?” Reggie asked.

  “Kill this bitch,” Sam answered.

  She signaled for Joel and Cody to begin firing. As soon as the blaster fire began ricocheting off the beast’s side, Sam darted out from cover. Big mama turned toward her attackers, leaving her flank wide open.

  Sam didn’t think of herself as an impulsive person; she believed the word implied a quickness to act without thought. She was quick to act, yes, but she did not do so without thought. She could understand how one might think that, though, considering what she was about to do. Surely, one would not do something so brash, having carefully considered the outcomes. She wasn’t impulsive. No. But she might have been reckless.

  Sam leapt and grabbed with both hands the scaffolding that snaked up and around the engine. The techs used it to get to the higher points for inspection and repair. She flipped up and landed on the first level catwalk. She jumped and did the same to reach the second level. And again to reach the third.

  Sam was high enough that she could look big mama in the eye. Or, rather, the mouth. She ran toward the edge of the catwalk, planted both her feet, and jumped. She was weightless for what seemed like forever, just floating like a piece of dandelion fluff on the wind. Then she slammed into the side of big mama’s head. She grabbed hold of the bug, snagging an edge of its exoskeleton, and dangled more than fifty feet in the air.

  “Holy crap, Sam!” Joel shouted into his comm. “You’re batshit crazy!”

  “Batshit crazy like a fox,” she answered. “Now stop firing before you hit me.”

  Joel and Cody ceased fire. Without the distraction of their attack, big mama became fully aware that something was stuck to her head. The ShimVen swung from side to side, trying to shake Sam off. The Notches watched on incredulously, wanting to do something to help but entirely lost for a way to do so. Sam clung to the beast like a tick.

  In the midst of the ShimVen’s attempt to shake her loose, Sam began to climb. She found another handhold, and another, until she was on top of the bug’s head. She was a cowgirl trying to stay on the largest and most bloodthirsty bull to ever grace the rodeo.

  Big mama stopped shaking for a moment, wheezing and clicking like she was out of breath.

  That moment was all Sam needed.

  She reached into the pouch on her belt and pulled free two fire elemental grenades. She activated them, then ran toward the front of big mama’s head. Sam planted her feet between the bug’s eyes and propelled herself forward, again into open air.

  Big mama opened her mouth to scream at her attacker, to thrash at Sam with her pincers.

  Sam did a flip in midair and threw both grenades down the ShimVen’s throat, then landed like a cat, her feet hitting scaffolding before she made a second jump to the floor, and rolled forward. She came up with her rifle trained on big mama.

  The ShimVen looked down at Sam like a wolf having finally cornered its prey. She leaned down, her pincers ready to snap Sam in half. Then she froze.

  The grenades exploded in big mama’s gut, charring her insides, weakening her tough carapace.

  “Fire!” Sam yelled.

  The Notches rushed to her side, and all opened fire. The exoskeletal armor covering big mama’s belly had grown brittle from the fire attack; now it cracked against the barrage of weapon fire. The cracks snaked through the bug until the armor shattered completely. Her soft underbelly now exposed, big mama shrieked as the blaster fire tore into her. Big globs of bug blood splattered on the floor until the giant bug fell.

  Big mama was dead.

  The Notches stood in silence for a while. They did not move. They just looked at the giant corpse of the mother ShimVen. The thing that had caused them so much trouble. The thing that had given birth to the swarms that nearly killed them a hundred times over. The thing that had given birth to their newfound lives as pest control experts. Killing her afforded them the reputation they needed to build their business. She was their stepping stone to success.

  It was because of that they unexpectedly found themselves offering the creature an odd sort of respect.

  “Fucker,” Joel said. He spat on the mother bug’s corpse.

  The Notches let out a collective breath of relief. The death of the giant ShimVen brought a new lightness to each of them. For an instant, they were carefree. They felt like they were safe for the first time since taking the job. For a brief moment, the fatigue was gone, but the feeling was superficial—they were exhausted, they just couldn’t feel it.

  “Why don’t we all take a minute to cool down?” Reggie suggested.

  They all agreed with grunts and nods.

  Joel explored the engine room, finally feeling like he could take advantage of the place without looking over his shoulder. He tapped at his legs as he strode, his excitement spilling out of him.

  Reggie sat down, his legs quivering from exhaustion. It felt like years since he’d last sat. His knees ached. His back hurt. He felt like his dad, and that thought may have been the scariest thing he’d faced all day.

  Sam stretched like she’d just finished a workout at the gym. No big deal.

  Cody paced. His adrenaline was still pumping. It filled him with nervous anxiety, like there was still a threat lurking around the next corner, ready to jump out and suck his brains throug
h his ear. He needed to burn off the excess energy. He wasn’t as interested in the tech as Joel, but he did feel inclined to investigate the station, now that he could do so freely. He had observed much since they’d arrived, but he’d only allowed himself to process as much as he needed to in order to survive and get the job done. Now that survival wasn’t a minute-by-minute affair, he felt like he could take it all in. There was something that didn’t sit right with him about this whole job.

  The second swarm of ShimVens had hatched and matured at an alarming rate. Faster than anything he’d ever seen or heard of. And they seemed faster somehow, stronger. No way an adaptation could happen like that from one generation to the next. Not naturally.

  As he searched the room, he came upon a stack of crates. Stamped on the side in big red letters were the words ‘LAYTON CORP.’ They seemed to glow in the darkened area. A cold shiver drifted down Cody’s back, suddenly making his teeth chatter.

  “Cody, will you double check that there’s no more bugs?” Sam asked.

  Exhausted, he pulled up his wristcom, a small smile of relief springing to his face. “Yeah, all clear.”

  “Ammo’s gone. Grenades are gone,” Sam reported, taking stock of their supplies and weapons. “We pushed the pulse rifles too hard, so they’re fried. Good thing that massive bug was the last because we can’t kill so much as a mosquito with what we’ve got left.”

  “We can restock,” Reggie said with a smile. “The money from this job will set us up for a while. Which reminds me.” He reached for his phone. “Time to get paid.”

  With the rest watching, Reggie called the client and reported a successful extermination. He was quiet for a moment as he listened to the voice on the other end. He stood and paced, excitement clear on his face.

  “Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much.” He smiled at the Notches after hanging up.

  “What?” Cody asked. “What happened?”

  “I knew it,” Reggie said. “I knew this would set us up. We’ve got another job. And it starts right away.”