by Joshua James
“Sir, it’s over here.” Rollins led Saito over to the remains of the creature who’d disguised itself as Sousa.
Saito looked down at something truly grotesque. “Sousa” consisted of a blackened, charred glob of bone, muscle, and twisted limbs. He counted what must’ve been five arms and at least as many legs sticking out from what looked like a pile of cooled tar.
“We still have no idea what it is. But what we do know is that it doesn’t like extreme heat,” explained Rollins. “The private here hit it with a powered torch tip.”
Saito looked up. “Humans don’t react well to that kind of heat.”
Ada winced and reached for her shoulder. “Yes, sir,” she said. “But this thing basically self-immolated on the spot in moments.”
“So it’s any extreme temperatures? That’s these things’ weakness?” Saito asked.
“Yes, sir,” Rollins said. “It appears so.”
“All we need to do is find more torches,” Saito said. “Or make some more. I want every member of our crew that’s left to be armed with one. Then we need to prepare defenses here.”
He turned around to find Washburn and that sheriff of his.
“Defenses, sir?” Ada asked. “Don’t we need to worry if there are any more of these things among us?”
“I want to,” Saito said. “But there’s no time.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I’ve seen this multiple times now. The play is always the same from them. The initial acts are always distractions.” He thought of the bombings in Annapolis. The attacks that had taken Bev. “All of this was a distraction. First there’s the suicide bomber, meant to draw people’s attention away from the creature already among us. The thing pretending to be Sousa was just the tip of the spear, and another distraction as well. It keeps our attention away from…shit.” Saito hurried back over to Mayor Washburn.
“How can I help you, Captain?” asked Washburn as he sat on a metal crate, rubbing his temples. He didn’t look up. “How can I help anyone,” he muttered.
“This isn’t over, Mayor.”
Thirty-Eight
Lee
Washburn looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“All of this,” Saito said, indicating the hanger. “All of it was just a distraction.”
“That so? What were they distracting us from? Goddamn civility? Not being murderous monsters?”
“What happened earlier, that your man the sheriff was talking about? With the cult this morning?”
Washburn shrugged. “There was some kind of riot. They were screaming about the Abyss coming. Rejoicing in it. They’re nuts, but harmless nuts. At least, until today.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“I know where their temple is, of course. The members are free to move about the station, as any other citizens.”
Saito felt the anger rising inside him. “But they aren’t any other citizens. You must see that now. You have to round them up this instant. Before it’s too late.”
He was sure that it was already too late, but they had to try.
But Washburn shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. We’re a sanctuary station. We welcome everyone, no matter their race or religion.”
“Bullshit,” Saito said.
“Until an investigation is conducted, we can’t be sure—”
“You can be sure that they are a part of this. Those creatures might be our big problem. But those damn cultists are working with them.”
Washburn scoffed. “How’s that possible? You said they were monsters.”
“I don’t know,” Saito said. “But we shouldn’t wait to find out.”
“So what do you propose I do?” asked Washburn after a long sigh.
“Contain them,” Saito said. “Do you have a safe room? One that cuts off wireless signals, making their HUDs useless?”
“Out of the question. I’m not going to discriminate against any group on my station just because of what one of them did.”
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Mayor. You don’t understand what’s happening here. This same thing happened to us, and look at our damn ship. Look how that all turned out. Remember the ships I told you about? The ones that attacked us on our way to Vassar-1?”
Washburn nodded, but said nothing.
“They’re distracting us from the real attack. It started with the suicide bomber. That was step one. They wanted to draw attention away from the secondary attack, the creature that tore apart my crew indiscriminately. Both were meant to draw our eyes away from the real threat, away from the bridge and the radars.”
“Away from the radar? Why would they want to—” Washburn paused suddenly.
Saito knew enough about HUD interactions to know he’d just seen something. “Message?”
Washburn nodded. “From the monitor team.” He turned to look Saito squarely in the eyes. “They see something out there.”
Washburn sighed, then tapped right above his eye. Instantly, the image in his HUD was broadcast outward. “Say that again, Sallers.”
The man in the image seemed to take a moment to adjust to the new view in his own HUD. “Uh, ships have arrived. Looks like AIC ships. A whole lot of AIC ships.”
Washburn frowned as he spoke. “Understood. If they try to make contact, let me know, and patch it in directly to my HUD. Until then, contact every member of our defense forces.” He paused, looking again intently at Saito. “Activate the Berthas,” he said.
“All of them?” Sallers asked.
“Every pulse cannon we got. Get ‘em up and targeting.”
“But sir, they haven’t fired yet.”
“They will,” Saito said.
“Just do it, Sallers,” Washburn said. “Mayor out.”
“Those might be AIC ships, but those aren’t AIC men in them,” Saito said firmly.
“I guess we’ll see,” Washburn said, then started coughing violently.
“What is it?” Saito asked as he watched Washburn wipe blood from his mouth.
“Some damn mutated form of cancer they can’t stop. Funny, I always thought it would be one of my ex-wives that would kill me.”
“How soon?”
Washburn shrugged. “Months, maybe.”
Saito grunted. “Well, no offense, Mayor, but I hope you die of that cancer.”
Washburn chuckled. “You’re a cheerful son of a bitch, you know that?”
“My wife says so,” Saito said. He grimaced. “Or did. She’s dead now.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m in between Mrs. Washburns myself.”
“No wife and dying of cancer?” Saito asked. “Living the dream.”
Washburn shrugged. “I guess I got all the breaks.” He nodded to a small group of Atlas crewmembers gathering at one side of the bay. “Do what you have to do down here, Captain. Take care of your crew, and I’ll take care of mine.”
“And the cultists?”
Washburn turned away without responding. “Sheriff,” he yelled out. “I need you to have your officers and those damn robots at every port of entry on the station. Prepare for a hostile boarding.”
“What’s happening, sir?” asked Wei.
“Nothing good,” he said.
Saito watched him go.
“Sir, your orders?” asked Rollins.
“Forget screening for more of those things. It doesn’t look like we have time. For right now, get to work finding anything that spits fire or can make things really cold in a hurry. Then we all need to find a place to hunker down. Try and recruit as many of the residents here on the station as possible, and do so quietly. That man, the mayor, he’s going to get a lot of them killed.”
“What about the dead?” Ada said.
“We have to leave them behind for now,” Saito said. “Right now we just need to do all we can to make sure that we don’t lose anyone else. Now get to work!”
Thirty-Nine
Ada
Ada spun around, knowing
exactly who could help her. She found the chief engineer staring down at the charred black remains of the creature.
Royce looked down at the creature that had masqueraded as Sousa. “What was that thing?”
“I don’t really know, to be honest. Something terrible, something very dangerous and hard to kill.”
Royce stared at the still-smoking corpse. “Can you do me a favor?”
Ada hesitated. “I’ll do my best. What do you need?”
Royce looked up at her. “If…if I don’t survive this, I need someone to look after my cat. Her name is Spectre, and she’s all the family I have out here. Please, make sure she makes it out of here. Can you promise me you’ll try?”
“I…”
“Please.”
Ada had two cats of her own at home, so she could sympathize. Then again, it was an absurd request, under the circumstances, but it looked like Royce might be on the edge of hysteria. Coping mechanisms come in all shapes and sizes, she thought to herself.
“Sure,” she said as evenly as she could, knowing she needed the engineer’s help. “Where do you live?”
“Main block. Apartment 254. Here…” Royce put his finger up against his temple. “I unlocked it. Thank you. Really. Thank you.”
“No problem,” Ada said. She reached out and gently but firmly took Royce by the shoulder. “But hey, if you really want to thank me, can you help us out?”
Royce nodded. “Sure, but...” He hesitated, looking at the rifle slung over Ada’s shoulder, then up at her face. “What can I do?”
“We need to find any weapon that emits either extreme heat or cold.” Ada nodded back at the high-energy torch he’d helped her fire up earlier. “You knew how that thing worked. I’m guessing you know where we can find more of them, or anything like them. You know what I’m talking about?”
Royce’s eyes seemed to light up. “I know exactly where we can find more,” he said. “Come with me, quickly. Mayor Washburn is probably gonna call for me soon.”
Forty
Wash
“What am I looking at here?” asked Washburn. He stood in front of the viewing window. The monitor on the station wasn’t that different from the bridge of a starship.
Floating right outside the range of the sanctuary station’s cannons was a fleet of two dozen AIC fighters and two dreadnoughts. None of them made any move, or any indication that they were going to attack. They just floated there.
“We counted 25 smaller fighters and two Dreadnought-class warships, sir,” answered one of the station crew.
“Have they tried to communicate with us? Have they told us what they wanted?”
“No, sir. We tried to hail them, but got no response.”
Washburn felt a sense of menace from the AIC ships. Unlike Saito, he didn’t fear them, or for the safety of the people on his station. Mostly, he just hoped it’d be over quickly.
“Fire all cannons,” ordered Washburn.
Several crewmembers glanced at each other. Sallers spoke up. “Sir? You want us to fire on them? They haven’t fired on us.”
“They will.”
“They aren’t in range.”
“They will be. Fire!”
Washburn watched the fireworks show as his station’s defenses created a literal fireball in the distance where the AIC forces idled.
“Cease fire!” ordered Washburn. “Did we hit anything?”
“Not sure. Our weapons muddled the radars.”
A wave of AIC fighters flew through the fireball, directly towards the station. Washburn ordered his crew to shoot them down, but they were too many, too fast, and none of the station staff had ever really been in a fight.
Cannon after cannon was either shot out or had an AIC fighter kamikaze them out of commission. It wasn’t long before the station was officially defenseless.
“Abandon the bridge. Go get your families and take any escape ship or pod off the station that you can find. Go now!” ordered Washburn. He yelled so loud he started to cough again, so hard it made him fall down to one knee.
When Washburn looked up, he saw that the fighters were changing their shape. Like globs of living liquid metal, they turned into something that looked more like railroad spikes instead of ships. Each of them flew extremely fast towards the station.
The spikes penetrated the shields and outside armor. Their initial impact broke the station’s air-pressure seal, but also quickly plugged the holes. Whatever they were, the enemy didn’t want to make the station inhospitable to life, not until they killed it themselves.
A single dreadnought emerged from the fireball. It seemingly headed straight towards the bridge, directly towards Washburn. Naturally he gave the ship the finger and started laughing.
“Come on, you big ugly bastard! You want this station? You’re going to have to take it over my dead body!”
As if the AIC dreadnought heard Washburn, it fired a single torpedo.
Forty-One
Ada
“How much further, Royce?” asked Ada. She tried to keep her voice even and unhurried as they ran. She could hear Saito’s impatient steps behind her. Ada, Saito, Baez, Rollins, and the twenty-four remaining members of the Atlas crew followed the chief engineer through the halls of the station’s commercial level.
Royce swallowed, out of breath from the exertion, then said, “We need to get to the elevator just down here. Two floors directly down from it is the entrance to the maintenance armory. They keep welding torches, flares, and all sorts of things that might help fight whatever’s coming.”
Royce led the way as confused residents looked out from the shops, stores, and restaurants.
All these people, poor bastards have no idea what hell is coming for them. Why didn’t Washburn evacuate them?
Ada looked back at the confused residents of the station with pity, but she also saw the determined face of Saito. She felt it, too. They needed weapons to fight the enemy, protect the crew, and hopefully be able to protect the residents as well.
Suddenly a large metal spike obliterated a hamburger spot, killing several people and blocking the way for the group. Briefly, the station lost air pressure and atmosphere, pulling residents and some of the group towards the spike, but that only lasted two seconds at most before everything was restored and evened out.
“Everyone run!” yelled Saito at the scared and shocked residents. “UEF soldiers! Prepare to fight!” Ada tightened her grip on the rifle in her hands, knowing how ineffective it was.
Part of the large metal spike rolled back, revealing the first look any human had of the creatures. It was hard putting their appearance into words. The best description Ada could come up with was that they were vaguely humanoid at times, almost insect-like at others, but they constantly shifted and changed shape. All of them looked metallic in their shine, but not in color. They were as black as the space outside.
“Fight!” yelled Saito before firing his own gun at the approaching shapeless creatures.
Only a couple of people around Ada had torches; most had guns like hers, which had already proven ineffective. They lost three crewmembers in the first thirty seconds. That didn’t count the dozens of innocent residents and bystanders that got cut down, stabbed and sliced by the shapeless creatures.
In the commotion and fighting, Ada had an idea. She saw that there was a liquor store nearby. “Baez! Come with me!”
“We getting out of here? Good idea,” said Baez.
“Not exactly.”
Baez bitched the whole way, but he followed Ada into the liquor store. They both took off their uniform shirts, revealing plain t-shirts underneath. As quickly as they could, they ripped off pieces of the uniforms and stuck them inside opened liquor bottles.
Armed with newly-made Molotov cocktails, Baez and Ada quickly lit and threw them at the shapeless creatures. As they screeched and burned, Saito ordered a retreat. They lost four more crewmembers before they got off the commercial level.
The whole station sho
ok as Royce led them in the less direct, but only remaining, way to the elevator.
As soon as the doors closed, the shaking of the station intensified. The elevator stopped after only going down one floor. All the lights turned off, and the station’s red emergency lighting was activated.
“Shit!” yelled Baez. “Why ain’t this thing moving?”
“The station is on emergency lockdown,” Royce said. “We must’ve taken one hell of a hit. Give me a second, I’ll open the elevator doors manually.” He took out a hexagonal-shaped key and put it in the corresponding port on the elevator console. “We’ll be on the residential level, but we can take the ladder down one floor.”
Everything that happened next happened so fast, there was no time to think. As soon as the doors opened, a black blade flew through Royce’s face and went out the back of his head. It nearly hit Ada, too, slicing past her shoulder before burying itself in the back of the elevator. Baez screamed and opened fire. Ada was blocked by the limp, falling body of Royce.
Instinctively, Saito snatched a welding torch from one of the crewmembers and ran forward, sticking the business end in the undulating mass of monster and opening the valve.
In its panicked death throes, the shapeless creature flailed its limbs, cutting Saito on his forehead; but thankfully, that was it. Within about thirty seconds, it was nothing more than a burning pile of tar.
Ada knelt down next to Royce’s corpse. “Jesus…”
“We need to get out of here,” said Saito. “We need to find someplace to hole up; then we’ll make a go at the maintenance armory. Any suggestions?”
Ada looked at Royce’s mangled face. “Yes,” she whispered.
Forty-Two
Lee
Saito stood pressed against a corner in the smoke-filled hallway on the Sanctuary-33 space station. Red emergency lights flashed as he checked his pistol, sliding out the magazine to make sure he had ammunition. Around him, the remains of his crew waited for him to make a move.