by Joshua James
Lee didn’t hear the initial crunch, nor did he feel it. But when the Shapeless monster who’d managed to get his free arm in its mouth started to thrash, oh, he definitely felt it.
The pain was indescribable as Lee screamed out in agony. Then with one hard turn of its head, the Shapeless ripped off Lee’s arm just above the elbow. His blood splattered onto the glass below as he looked at the ragged meat-and-bone stump that used to be his left arm.
Lee took care of the Shapeless that took his arm by emptying his last three incendiary shells into it. It fell, writhing, shrieking, its body drying up and cracking as it died. Knowing that he was thoroughly screwed, Lee took out two white phosphorus grenades, his last ones, and armed them.
In order to try and keep the alien monsters back, Lee made sure to position the grenades around them as they burned. Too scared to get singed, the Shapeless stayed back. Quickly losing blood, the former captain finished summoning his ride. Then he prepared himself for what he knew he had to do, as unpleasant as it would be.
Lee got down on one knee, trying to avoid looking at the pool of his own blood that slid across the slick glass. He put the shotgun down on its butt and leaned it against his bent knee to keep it stable. Then he loaded it up with explosive shells and used his remaining arm to cock it.
With a shaky hand, Lee aimed at the grenade he’d dropped next to the Herald Stone. He fired. And even though he missed, that kind of round left some room for forgiveness.
The grenade near the Herald Stone blew up, taking a good portion of the large rock with it. In fact it, blew it in half. The top part fell into the glass, instantly breaking through it and into the oil.
All the Shapeless around Lee started convulsing, shrieking, rapidly and wildly changing their forms. Recognizing an opening, Lee jumped forward onto his stomach. He crawled a foot or so, held his breath, and then pressed his bloody stump against the bright, still-burning white phosphorus grenade.
Lee managed to simply grit his teeth, wanting nothing more than to scream as his own grenade cauterized his bloody stump. As much as he just wanted to lie there and recover, the grenades only burned for so long. Considering they were the only things holding the Shapeless back, he needed to move.
“Ship, hover two meters above my location, extend loading ramp.” Lee looked up at his AIC stealth interceptor, waiting close by. It followed his orders, extended its loading ramp, and hovered right above his head.
Lee pushed himself up off the glass with one arm. The glass cracked under his weight, all braced on a single hand. Once up on his feet, he jumped, grabbed the ramp, and started to climb.
“Ship, rise three meters.” Lee fought to get the words out as he struggled even harder to climb up aboard his vessel. He wanted to get out of the Shapeless’ reach. At first it seemed he succeeded, and had gotten himself out of a situation thought to surely be fatal. Then he felt something grab his leg.
Lee was dragged by the leg by an extended Shapeless tendril. It pulled him off his feet. He landed face-first on the ramp. He just barely hung on with his remaining hand, wrapped around the hydraulic that helped extend and retract the loading ramp. No matter how much he kicked and wiggled, Lee couldn’t get out of the Shapeless’ grasp, even when he ordered his ship to rise higher. Never one to give up, though, he came up with a new solution.
Lee figured that in order to still hang onto him, the Shapeless must’ve elongated its tendril by quite a bit at that point. The best soldiers and officers figured out how to use the enemies’ advantages against them. That was exactly what he planned to do.
“Ship, pitch right to left, one hundred and eighty degrees, repeat six times. Increase speed with each pitch.” Lee had to hurry. He could feel his grip slipping.
The AIC stealth interceptor was a machine, and always followed orders. It pitched back and forth six times, getting faster with each one, and on the sixth pitch, the Shapeless’ body was lifted off the ground. It anchored itself, but its tendril, the one holding onto Lee, swung over into the path of the engine exhaust and was burnt to a crisp.
Lee, having not fully thought his plan through, swung back and forth as well with each pitch, somehow, some way hanging on and not being thrown off his own ship. Once the tendril was burned by the engine exhaust, he was finally free.
With a loud exhausted and thankful sigh, Lee dragged himself aboard and crawled into the interceptor’s pilot seat. He looked out over the ground below, which was now covered in Shapeless, all wanting nothing more than to kill him. The thing was, the feeling was mutual.
Lee did a half loop out and away from the Shapeless, the glass ground, and the Herald Stone. He activated the ship’s weapons systems. They included two large-caliber cannons meant for ship-to-ship combat, and there was a payload of ten missiles and the one nuke. Obviously he’d save the nuke, but a couple of those missiles were definitely going to be utilized.
With a heart full of hate and vengeance, Lee made a run at the Shapeless using an assisted pilot mode to compensate for his missing arm. He opened up on the Shapeless with the cannons, sending glass and alien body parts flying all over the place, but this wasn’t blind violence for violence’s sake. He was clearing them away from the Herald Stone. Missing arm be damned, he wasn’t leaving Archeon without a piece of that rock.
“Extend tow cable,” ordered Lee. A cable fell out from the bottom of the interceptor. On the end of it was a clamp, meant to attach to another ship in distress and pull them to safety. Only in this case, he was going to use it to grab a chunk of the Herald Stone.
Lee carefully lowered his ship. The Shapeless he’d just shredded had already started putting themselves together. He had to be quick.
The tow cable was never meant to be used anywhere other than in space. Little air cannons on it were meant to aim to clamp at the end, so it could grab another ship. Here, with almost Earth gravity, it was a little trickier, but Lee managed. As soon as he saw that the thick steel clamp had hold of the broken-off piece of the Herald Stone, he ascended up out of harm’s way.
“For your troubles.” Lee turned and armed two of the missiles. He fired them straight into the heart of the Shapeless hoard.
Then he flew away.
Seven
Return To The Underground
Sydal ran as fast as he could. Which wasn’t very fast at all by normal standards, but considering the bullet wound to his thigh, he was doing pretty well. He needed to be either faster or more clever, though, if he was going to outrun the Shapeless in the station with him.
“Even after becoming one of you, your kind, I still don’t understand it,” the Shapeless wearing the form of a UEF soldier bellowed to Sydal, his voice echoing in the station as Sydal scrambled for his life.
Sydal wanted to go for the front doors of the LTA station, but he knew that the monster hunting him probably figured that’d be his go-to move. If he went for those doors, he’d be gobbled up before he even reached them. No, he had to be creative. How was he going to get out of here, out of this?
There weren’t many options other than the windows, but they weren’t easy to get to. By his estimate they were about ten feet off the ground. He wasn’t that tall, nor did his old knees have the padding left to jump, though he could get to one across the service station’s hangar-like building. How? He’d have to climb up onto a bus and jump from one roof to another until he reached the window that was right above one on the other end.
“You’re hurt, tired, I can smell it. Why not just give it up? Relax. All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable.” As the Shapeless soldier babbled, Sydal climbed. It was hard because he was hurt, he was tired. But he managed to make it up on top of one of the LTA buses.
Sydal did his best to psyche himself up as he looked at the task ahead of him. There was about a six-foot gap between the buses that he’d have to jump multiple times in order to reach the window on the other end of the service station.
Okay. You got this. Move fast and be careful.
S
ydal took as much of a running start as he could and jumped the first gap between buses. His injured leg felt like it was on fire from the time he jumped to his landing. He did his best to ignore it and prepared for the next one.
“Where did you go, little one?” said the Shapeless playfully, like a cat toying with a mouse. Sydal looked around to make sure that it wasn’t close before making the next jump.
The second landing was much harder than the first. That burning pain turned sharp, like getting stabbed with a knife. Sydal almost fell down from the unexpected agony.
“I wonder…” the Shapeless continued.
Sydal heard a loud crunching noise. He looked behind him. A tendril had shot up from the station floor and anchored itself in the ceiling high above. He knew that whatever was happening couldn’t be good. It was imperative that he kept moving.
Now under the clock, Sydal tried to ignore his leg and went for another jump. He really wasn’t ready for this one, though. As soon as his foot hit the top of the next bus, the impact and load of his weight hit his hurt thigh, and he collapsed.
“There you are. Oh no, it looks like you’re hurt.” The Shapeless had lifted itself up along the tendril attached to the ceiling. It hung there in midair, smiling at Sydal with a twisted grin full of beastly teeth. It just barely kept the form of something that resembled a human being at that point.
Sydal pushed himself up to his feet. He looked up at the Shapeless creature, which turned its arm into another tendril, anchored it in the ceiling, and used it like monkey bars, drawing closer and closer.
It doesn’t end here, asshole! Who cares that it hurts.
Sydal had to make three more jumps. Knowing that if he didn’t, he’d be turned into a human kebab by the Shapeless that was after him, certainly helped as far as motivation went. Knowing what to expect as far as pain went when he landed helped him prepare for each one.
Though it hurt like hell, Sydal managed to stay on his feet when he landed on the next bus. Leg shaking, he looked back; the Shapeless quite casually swung towards him like a nonchalant shapeshifting monkey. He had to take advantage of this creature not taking him seriously.
Sydal successfully leaped to the second-to-last bus. His leg did buckle a little, but he managed to stay upright. That was when he saw a possible solution to his alien pursuer problem.
There was a refueling station conveniently in the Shapeless alien’s path. It must’ve been a sign from God, or from the devil. But the detective took out his pistol.
“That’s a good little piggy. Finally accepted your fate? Good. It’s a good fate. I’ll make your transition quick.” The Shapeless kept coming, seconds away from being right above the refueling tank.
“I hope your ‘transition’ is slow,” said Sydal, too quietly for anyone but him to hear.
Then he shot the fuel tank.
The tank exploded right as the Shapeless swung over it. The monster let out a terrible shriek so loud it made Sydal’s ears ring. It fell from the air, landing in the fire below.
Sydal made a point to stand there and watch the alien burn. Not only was it satisfying to see a monster die, but he saw that it was possible to kill one. All it took was some fire. Though as far as weaknesses went, that wasn’t the easiest one to exploit.
Satisfied that the otherworldly creature was dead, Sydal took his time making the last jump. Then he carefully climbed up and out the window in the nearby wall.
Sydal landed as gingerly as possible after jumping out the window. Even then, he still found himself on the ground. Once he got up, he was confronted by the sounds of sirens.
He came to an upsetting conclusion. Of course someone heard all that gunfire and the explosion. They’re coming. You don’t have a ride. You’re going to have to go back down.
He needed to go back to the sewers and tunnels under the moon’s surface. From there he could go back to Aitken Basin, find a vehicle, and make it to the UEF Army post. It was a bit of a long shot, but there was no chance he’d last much longer aboveground.
Next, Sydal had to figure out how to get back underground. He couldn’t emerge from the same spot he’d escaped from before. That was on the other side of the Lunar Dome, and he’d be shot, skewered, or captured before he got there.
“Hey you!” Sydal heard someone shouting at him. He looked over and saw a soldier pointing his rifle at him. But there couldn’t be any surrender. Not until he got Matthew back.
Without putting much thought into it, Sydal shot back as he limped as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Of course the soldier returned fire, forcing the detective to shoot wildly while ducking bullets.
Sydal was thankful in that moment to have lived on the moon for years, because he knew it like the back of his hand, even the industrial sector. He wasn’t blindly limping into alleys or warehouses, hoping that there was an exit or cover. In his mind, he was mapping out a path while trying to avoid getting shot in the back.
As he quickly limped along, Sydal looked for a drainage grate or any access point to the underground. It was his only chance. His haste was made only more desperate with bullets flying by and overhead, hitting the walls and ground around him.
Sydal had to stop for a moment, catch his breath, and maybe wrap a tourniquet or something over his thigh right above his bullet wound. That was hard to do, considering he was being chased, but he knew where he was better than they did. He knew that just up ahead was a water treatment plant. He couldn’t think of a better destination, chock-full of hiding places.
When he reached the water treatment plant, he was surprised to see that the normally locked gates were wide open. He chose to ignore the bloody handprints on said gates and went inside, closing them behind him. At least for the moment, he was safe.
Sydal slumped against the inside of the tall razor-wire-topped concrete walls around the water treatment plant. He was hidden. If all this had occurred just a year earlier, he would’ve had no sanctuary. Those walls had just been chain-link fence with a couple of signs warning against trespassing.
Without many options, Sydal took off his belt. He wrapped it around his thigh, just above his wound, and pulled it tight. It took all he had not to yell out in pain. Instead he just bit his lip to the point that it bled. Once the belt was tight enough, he tied it off and eased his worries about maybe, possibly bleeding out. At least the bullet that had taken a chunk out of him hadn’t hit an artery.
Sweaty, tired, hurting and depressed, Sydal soldiered on after resting only about five minutes. He headed straight towards the first door he saw that led into the labyrinthine water treatment plant. Confident that no one was watching and he wasn’t being followed, he headed inside.
It smelled really bad. But it was a water treatment plant, so sewage and waste came through the facility all the time, and at first Sydal wasn’t surprised. Under the stench of sewage and grey water, though, he smelled something far more foul. He smelled death.
Having never been here before, Sydal had no idea where he was going—not a clue. He knew what he was looking for, just not where it was. His logic was simple: if this was a water treatment plant, then there had to be access to the sewers, which would give him access to the moon’s underground. And if he got lucky, he could find a way into the UEF Army base on the moon without having to drive up to their front doors.
There were signs all around the dark plant. Only the occasional emergency light was on, and small slices of light bled through openings in the pipes. Navigating was hard, but there were signs that helped point the way, holographically projected in his HUD..
To add to the uncomfortable nature of the water treatment plant were the corridors Sydal had to walk down. There was an elevated grated walkway above a series of pipes. There were pipes everywhere, and it was enough to make a person claustrophobic. Add to that the sounds of water rushing through them, and the heat, and for the first time in a very long time, Sydal was happy that he’d chosen to be a cop and had never worked in a place like this.
Sydal figured there would be a map here he could download to his HUD, a map to the moon’s sewer systems. Something like that would tell him if entering the UEF base from below was even an option.
Sydal froze. He heard a sound he really didn’t want to. It was a shriek, similar to the one he’d heard come from Fredrich Bausman and the Shapeless he’d burned to death in the LTA station. But was it a monster, or was it simply the natural sounds of the plant playing tricks on his paranoid mind? Sound got so twisted in here. Either way, there was no turning back; it was his only option, so he continued forward.
The water treatment plant’s control room consisted of a lot of panels and computers that Sydal had no idea how to even approach, let alone use. There was a wall-sized window that overlooked the rest of the plant, including a large pool of water. Bodies were littered all around, killed where they were sitting at their posts.
“That explains the smell,” said Sydal out loud to himself as he stepped into the control room. “HUD, search for available networks.”
Sydal tried to connect to anything that would give him access to a map of sewer system. By this time he was so numb from seeing so much death that he simply sat down next to a dead woman on a chair and searched through his HUD.
Bingo! Sydal not only found what he was looking for, but he found something better. With a little snooping, he’d found one of the water treatment plant director’s personal files. Inside that was a navigation system used by workers to find their way through the sewers. He downloaded it to his HUD.
Where is it? Sydal searched desperately through the navigation system for anything that even mentioned the army base. There was nothing.
Then he found the only sewer access hatch without a name or label.