Authors: Heath Pfaff
A thought occurred to me.
The conference rooms were all interconnected, I realized as I stood staring out into the simulated image of space. I could run parallel to the main hallway by passing through the interlocking doors between the rooms. I'd have to walk around each of the rooms, or down the aisles between the chairs, but I could make progress that way, and it would keep me out of the main hallway. While perhaps not a shortcut, it was certainly a better idea then facing the nightmare creature waiting for me out there.
I smiled, feeling a little better. Alright, I had a plan. Having a direction, a goal, made me feel somewhat like my old self again. Wandering around aimlessly left me too much time to think and worry. I would find my way to the comfort center, and from there I would decide where to go next. It wasn't a long term plan, but it was at least something to aim for.
I washed my face with cool water once more, and then dried my hands with the hydronic surface repeller before stepping back out into the conference area.
The room was quite large. There were sixty rows of seats total, with a walkway between the 30th and 31st rows, and there were at least sixty chairs per row. Having to walk the rows of the conference rooms would slow my journey a bit, but it wouldn't be too bad. With the rooms all empty, I could still make good time. I oriented myself with the door that I needed to exit through, which was to the far left of the room, and began walking. I moved around the outside of the room because it made more sense than walking down between the rows from my current position.
I'd covered perhaps a third of the distance to the side exit when I heard the door directly opposite of my intended destination slide open.
"Oh, there you are." A female voice spoke casually from behind me. My heart already knew the truth of the situation, but I glanced over my shoulder to be certain I was really hearing reality and not just hallucinating. The grotesque crewmember that had chased me through the corridor, with her pale blond hair and twisted, tortured body, was shambling her way across the room in my direction, knocking over chairs as she cut a route between the rows. I hadn't thought to lock the side doors to the chamber, only the main entrance.
An inarticulate cry of shock slipped between my lips as I burst into a dead run towards the opposite door from which the monster had just entered.
“HELP ME!” The female voice screamed from behind me, only it was inhumanly loud, as though it were being projected through human vocal chords by a creature five times the size of a man so that the sound crackled and tore around the edges. I could hear chairs falling over at my back, but I didn’t dare glance around again. I dove for the bulkhead leading to the next conference room with the intent of locking it in my wake, but even as the doors slid open and I rolled through, the deformed crew-creature was atop me, its massively unhinged jaws snapping at my heels.
I kicked out with my legs, trying to force my boot into its gullet, but I wasn’t watching my aim and I missed by a wide margin. Its jaws clenched down on my calf. Searing hot pain exploded through my leg. I lashed out with a fist, but a spindly, disjointed limb snagged my arm and forced it to the ground. The digits at the end of the limb were barbed, hooked fingers made of bone, and they tore into my arm as the thing pinned me down with an alarming display of power.
It wasn’t easy, but I managed to swing my free leg around enough to kick the monster in the side of the head. The “face” of the creature ripped off with the impact as though it had been haphazardly glued in place, leaving a smooth, slick white surface behind. It looked like an oblong sphere of glistening bone, broken only by a jaw that was unhinged as wide as a snake consuming a rat. The musculature connecting the jaw to the bone was bloody and exposed. As my kick connected with its head the monster’s jaw convulsed, briefly ripping deeper into my calf and then releasing its grip. The creature staggered, momentarily dazed. I pulled my leg away as the bite loosened and managed to get it free, but not without feeling an uncomfortable tearing in the muscle. As the monster regained its composure I lashed out at the hold it had on my arm, kicking and throwing my fists at the clawed limb until that, too, tore free. I was injured and bleeding, but I made a mad scramble across the audience hall on my hands and knees.
The crew thing was apparently temporarily stunned by my blow, because it didn’t immediately resume the chase. I was back on my feet and running with a severe limp before it raised its voice in a moan of either rage or pain, I couldn’t be sure and honestly didn’t care. After a few moments it stopped crying out and was charging after me again. I knew it would be on me before I could make it to the next bulkhead, and I wasn’t sure if I could fend it off again. I likely wouldn’t get another lucky shot. Worse, I was already being slowed down by the searing pain streaming through my leg from the nasty bite in my calf. The entire wound was on fire as though I’d doused the damaged flesh in hot oil.
I grabbed on to a chair and turned to face my pursuer, holding the piece of furniture up like a last wall between myself and death. The thing stopped, growling and hissing at me from across the length of the chair. It was still dressed in the remains of a crew uniform, and even still had the body of the female crew member, though it was twisted almost beyond recognition. Its uniform hung open at the collar, revealing large breasts that seemed the last normal vestige of its once-human body. In any other situation I might have been very interested in those curves, but the fleshless, hissing head full of jagged teeth coated in my blood kept the situation in clear perspective.
“What the fuck are you?!” I shouted at it, waving the chair threateningly.
It sprang forward so quickly that I didn’t have time to react. I tried to bring the chair up to a more defensible position, but I was too slow. The crew-monster-thing landed atop me, slamming the chair between our two bodies, but not in such a way that it kept the razor sharp teeth at bay. It snapped its head forward and struck at my neck. I managed to twist far enough out of the way to avoid having my jugular ripped out, but the teeth bit deep into my left shoulder, and instantly the flesh there was filled with the same terrible burning pain I’d felt in my leg. I screamed and punched at the smooth head with my right fist. The punch was as good as it could be from a prone position and in my current state. I focused the blow using everything I knew of physical combat, knowing it could be a matter of life and death.
My hit was solid. Too solid. I felt like I’d just punched the steel wall of the ship, hard and unforgiving. My knuckles cracked and I felt the distinct sensation of my bones splinter from the impact. The creature froze and I dug my way out from under it, clutching my aching right fist. I’d stunned it again. Hitting the monster in the head seemed to slow it down, at least temporarily, but I couldn’t afford to break bones just to buy myself a few seconds.
I changed my course. Instead of running for the next conference room I ran for the door back into the main hall. It was closer, and I was about out of juice. My leg had stopped burning, but it was beginning to feel numb instead. My shoulder was on fire where I’d been bitten, and my right hand was aching and beginning to swell. I knew I was finished unless I could reach the door to the hall and lock down the room, trapping the damned thing inside.
I was at the bulkhead when the crew-thing grabbed ahold of my injured leg and pulled it out from under me. The door slid open as I toppled through face-first, kicking and clawing at the cold metal floor.
“Oh, there you are.” The female voice echoed up through the throat of the monstrosity as it lurched over me. I struggled to roll myself over so I could attempt to hit it in the head again, but its forelimbs slammed down on my back, pinning me in place. I was laying half in the hallway and half in the conference room, but it didn’t matter; I wasn’t going anywhere. I felt a bright, explosive pain in my back and knew that the creature was ripping my clothing to shreds and slicing effortlessly into my flesh with its strange bone-claws. I screamed, a mixture of pain and terror bursting forth from my very being.
If you’ve never faced imminent death, it’s difficult to describe the feeling that overwhelms you as you realize you’re not going to escape from the situation you’ve found yourself in. As the flesh on my back shredded beneath razor-sharp claws and the creature began to lap and gnaw at my back, I knew with a certainty that I was on the threshold of my own end.
I didn’t even hear the approaching footsteps, and I barely realized that my attacker was, itself, under assault until its weight slipped from my back and fell to the ground at my side. I reacted on instinct, pushing myself to my feet with tattered muscles. Blood trickled down my back. As I regained my senses, the scene before me clarified into a macabre vision of violence and madness.
A huge man with short shaven hair and muscles that seemed to crease every inch of his exposed flesh had appeared, and was presently swinging what looked like a heavy steel bar with both hands and pounding the crew-thing into a mess of red mush and white chunks. From his throat came a roar of such rage that I almost found him as terrifying as the thing he was destroying. I considered running.
My leg throbbed as I put my weight on the gnawed-upon limb, and through the pain I felt a rush of light-headedness that almost caused me to pass out. There were spots of black dancing in my vision. The big man turned on me, his makeshift weapon hanging menacingly from his right hand.
“You alright?” He asked in a voice that was a little higher pitched than I expected from a man of his stature. I realized, belatedly, that he was even younger than I was.
“No, not really.” I answered before thinking about it. Was he asking how I was emotionally, or physically? Either way I was in bad shape.
He gave a short, nervous laugh. “No, I suppose none of us are alright. I’m Hobbes.”
“I’m Jim Wright.” I offered, feeling a cold sweat begin to bead on my brow. I really didn’t feel good. My leg felt nearly wooden except for the pulsing pain throbbing up through the calf and into my thigh. My shoulder felt the same way. “Do you know what’s going on here?”
Hobbes sighed and shook his head. “No, and I suppose you don’t either.”
I shook my head as well. “I think I might be going insane. Maybe DSD, or perhaps I hit my head and I’m just dreaming this whole mess? I don’t know.”
“If you’re dreaming it, I wish you’d wake the fuck up. I’m tired of beating your nightmares to death with a piece of cafeteria chair.” He paused, staring at me for a second. “You don’t look so good. Did that thing get you somewhere vital?”
A shiver passed through me, causing my teeth to rattle for a second before I could offer an answer. “It bit me in the leg and on the shoulder. I think it might have been poisonous. My leg is numb, and I feel feverish.”
Hobbes reached to the belt at his waist and unclipped one of three metal tubes that were each about two inches long, and about the width of a pinky. He handed it to me.
“It’s nano-boost. I’m a Shock Trooper and they’re standard kit for us. The bugs are programmed to repair wounds and deactivate anything in your system that’s acting as a toxin. My friends and I would use ‘em to win drinking games when we hit port; at least until we were caught and were given a rigorous explanation of how much each of those little tubes actually costs. I believe it was, ‘Just slightly less than your filthy hides.’”
I took the tube hesitantly. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Hobbes. He’d just saved my life, but after the strange experience in the medical bay I didn’t trust anything. I wasn’t sure what was real and what was being made up by my mind. Another thought occurred to me.
“Odyssey is an exploratory science vessel. I didn’t think we had any tactical crew on board.” Shock Troops were generally reserved for planet-side combat. They specialized in taking and holding territory, and in making way for the troops that followed.
Hobbes shrugged. “This is my first mission out, and as far as I know this is the first time Odyssey has housed Shock Troops. We don’t even have a proper barracks onboard. We’re here to manage security for a high profile project.”
I rolled the nano cylinder in my hand. I’d seen similar devices before, though my division of security didn’t have such costly tech issued to us. I pressed the tube to my neck and squeezed the tube hard. There was a brief pause while the tech of the cylinder scanned my immune system and programmed the nano bugs, and then there was a quick and sharp pain in my neck as the nanos were injected and the cylinder cauterized the wound. I imagined I could feel the cloud of tiny machines sweeping through my body.
“Were you guys briefed on the nature of the high profile project?” I asked, wondering if perhaps Hobbes’ presence onboard Odyssey had something to do with what was going on. Why would Odyssey need a team of Shock Troopers? A science vessel with a mission of exploration generally didn’t carry anything more than a full security retinue. We were trained in repelling ship-side invaders and had the close combat skills necessary for doing battle aboard a slipspace vessel. Shock Troopers were generally ground pounders better equipped and trained for mid- to long-range fighting.
“The sergeant always said, ‘When you pull the trigger on your rifle, do you first explain to your finger why you’re pulling the trigger? You’re a soldier. When we need a trigger pulled, don’t expect us to tell you why. Just pull the damned trigger.’ I didn’t bother to ask a lot of questions.” He answered with a shrug.