The Genesis
Foxtrot_Uniform
Join Date: 2003-06-12 Member: 17328Members
Join Date: 2003-06-12 Member: 17328Members
<div class="IPBDescription">---------------</div> <i>The Genesis</i> by Foxtrot Uniform
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The vessel was an intricate spider web of halls and conduits. They were pathways that crossed and paralleled one another. They were the trails that we had to take, lined with steel tubes and pipes that hissed like snakes in our ears. They leaked steam, as hot as the very flames of hell, onto our helmet visors and our body armor. We were a squad of twelve men navigating those hissing halls. Marines, sent to retrieve information. A quest for knowledge, one might say. But we were cast into the fog and steam without direction. If it weren’t for our Shepherd, we would have been overwhelmed by that place. He helped to guide us on that mission. To this day I thank him for his sacrifice.
[
The vessel was an intricate spider web of halls and conduits. They were pathways that crossed and paralleled one another. They were the trails that we had to take, lined with steel tubes and pipes that hissed like snakes in our ears. They leaked steam, as hot as the very flames of hell, onto our helmet visors and our body armor. We were a squad of twelve men navigating those hissing halls. Marines, sent to retrieve information. A quest for knowledge, one might say. But we were cast into the fog and steam without direction. If it weren’t for our Shepherd, we would have been overwhelmed by that place. He helped to guide us on that mission. To this day I thank him for his sacrifice.
Comments
I halted my squad’s movement. I’d hoped we were advancing but unfortunately, their guess was as good as mine. We’d boarded the vessel through an entrance in the ship’s greenhouse, a place where they grew fresh fruits and vegetables for the crew of the entire ship. The heat and water system must have been damaged because a veil of mist loomed amongst the greenery. Potted plants thrived in the carefully controlled environment, covering the paradise in leaves. It was truly a beautiful garden.
Knoll had called out to me, and when I went over to him, he was pointing at a plump, perfectly ripe apple hanging from a tree. Water had condensed on the shiny red flesh and was sliding off in droplets. I warned him that it could be contaminated, but the hissing of the steam pipes must have masked my voice. He plucked it from the tree and took a big bite. He’d had a look of satisfaction on his face until he dropped our navigation device by accident. Our hand held electronic map fell into an irrigation ditch full of water and shorted out. Knoll was apologetic, of course, but he couldn’t undo what he’d done. We had to leave the greenhouse without any sense of direction whatsoever.
“We don’t even know the right direction, sir. This ship is too large to navigate blindly,” said Nolan, negative as always. If there was one soldier that could get under my skin, it was Nolan. “We’ll never find our way without help.”
“
I know it’s a big ship. We just need to focus,” I explained. We were wasting time. “You’re all keeping your eyes open for the computer labs, right?”
“Yes, sir!” they chimed in. I could hear their actual voices as well as their voices over the radio.
At that point, we’d been on the ship nearly four hours. We were tired and hungry which only exacerbated the situation. The computers that we searched for contained vital information on the alien race. A threat that was discovered shortly after deep space explorations began. The information would aid the entire human race in their defeat. There was data based on months of research contained in the computers. The Genesis, from what we’d been told, was the first station to actually contain a hive and provoke it to give birth.
“Good work, Pratt,” I responded, shouldering my weapon and releasing the safety with my thumb. We carried standard issue, lightweight machineguns. They used 50 round magazines but small caliber ammunition. They were sturdy, reliable firearms. “We could have hostiles ahead, boys. Look sharp.”
We moved together as a unit, highly trained at Concord Station. Our movements were swift and precise . Enders, Nolan, Druven and Stenler had our six. Pratt remained in the center, the place of greatest protection, to ensure that we didn’t lose the motion detector. Horton and Rob took the flanks, making sure no alien life forms took us from the sides, and Vikers, Knoll and I led the way.
“30 meters, sir,” whispered Pratt. The team quieted down substantially and the sound of our footfalls gave way to the ships whispers, hissing from pipes above and below. Hot steam blew over our armored suits and condensation beaded on our visors. The longer we went along the pathways of the ship, the further the steam pervaded our suits, sliding between the cracks and penetrating the pores of our skin. I felt naked and helpless against it.
“20 meters, sir.”
The steam was thick. It was blinding. Swirling in front of my eyes and distorting what lie ahead. The pipes looked alive; like writhing snakes.
“10 meters.”
Through the mist, a light became visible, shining through the fog like a star. It was intense and pure. It was a red light that guided us through that metal desert.
“5 meters, sir.”
“Sir, It could be an alien.” Horton warned from within the group. He was a nervous, smaller man, even though his argument was valid. This was his first mission so he was the jumpiest. Some of the men were keeping watch on the halls, squinting through the haze but most had turned their attention to the door.
“I know it could be an alien. If I need someone to state the obvious, I’ll ask, alright?”
“Yes, sir.”
I took a deep breath and stepped back from the hatch and said: “Escape pods are small, so I’m only gonna need two guys to come in with me. Any volunteers?” Stenler and Enders stepped forward. They were arguably the best guns of the team. “Alright, you two follow me in. I’m taking the point. Rob, I want you to open the door on my mark.”
Rob trotted over to the right side of the hatch, holding his hand over the big red button. I counted to three and the door slid open, squealing loudly as metal grinded against metal. The temperature gauge on my visor immediately went up, reading that it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit inside the pod. I stepped in with Stenler and Enders close behind and my weapon at the ready, tracing the attached flashlight over the surfaces of the pod. The walls glistened. They were wet. Moisture was condensed on everything.
Stenler and Enders were peas in a pod since they were kids. Growing up in the rural south, they worked at a chicken farm together, shooting coyotes with bb guns to protect the precious poultry of farmer Brown. They hunted together when they were older and even went to their high school prom with farmer Brown’s twin sisters. They’d been with each other and with guns all their lives, so they felt comfortable on the mission and in combat.
They whispered, “clear”, after discovering no hostiles crouched along the curved walls or shelf units of the pod, and then regrouped with me for the final door. There was a keypad on it, on which I quickly dialed an override code, and the door slid open. It was even hotter in this chamber, about 98 degrees. The main bridge was lined with computers for navigating the escape module once it detached from the main ship. A large window gave a view out into space. The ceiling and walls came together as one dome shaped sanctuary for a man who lay nude in the center of the floor, curled in a fetal position. Our flashlights shined light on his soaked body.
“What the hell?” Stenler asked, staying behind me. His sudden outburst made me realize that the silence was pure inside the pod. The fog and steam were gone. The only thing that remained was silence and clarity.
“You two grab this guy,” I ordered. I noticed his clothes were bundled up on top of a chair and a backpack lay on the floor next to them. “I’ll grab his crap. Let’s get him out of this oven.”
The men were surprised to see a wet, naked man appear from the pod when we emerged. Stenler and Enders laid him down on the metal floor after stepping back into the fog and steam.
“Jesus…” someone muttered.
Druven kneeled down while a few others leaned over to get a good look. Druven was the closest thing we had to a medic. He knew basic first aid, and maybe a trick or two. Space Combat Medics had become less and less desirable as nanotech became more and more advanced. ‘Med packs’ were now the preferred method of administering medical assistance since they were faster and more effective than any medic. The Genesis, however, was on nano gridlock. Druven placed his hands on the body, and looked up at us, “Well, he’s got a pulse and he’s breathing. Maybe he’s dehydrated or something.”
“It could be heat exhaustion. It looks like he’d taken off his clothes because of how hot it was in the pod. Almost a hundred degrees,” I explained.
“Does it really matter, sir?” Nolan asked stubbornly, “This isn’t a search and rescue. Our mission is to retrieve computer data, not pick up any stragglers.” It was hard to hear Nolan over the hissing steam pipes.
“It does matter, Nolan. If you hadn’t noticed, we’ve been lost ever since we boarded this vessel. Surely this guy knows how to get to the computer. He’s a member of the crew, so he should know the way.”
Druven got out his canteen while Nolan and I debated. He sat the man up, and poured the water over his head. His face was soft and fair. It seemed to be the face of a gentle man, and when the cold water baptized his warm flesh, his eyes burst open and he shot up to his feet. He stood for a moment, running his hands through his wet, brown hair, spitting the water onto the floor, and then looked at us. “What happened?”
We were quiet for a second. We stood exchanging glances while he stood. I approached him slowly, giving him his clothing. He quickly put them on, and slung the backpack onto his shoulders.
“We’re United States Marines. I’m Thomas Cletch, commander of a mission to retrieve computer data contained on this ship. Are you a member of the crew?”
He looked down at the floor and brushed the stubble on his chin with his hand. “Yeah, I’m a member of the crew. My name’s Daniel Shepherd. I know where the computers are.” Daniel was of a normal build and appeared to be Middle Eastern. Thick eyebrows rested on a creaseless face and he had a broad nose.
“How did you get away from the aliens?” asked Nolan accusingly. As if he suspected Danny of conspiring with the enemy (which was ridiculous). “The rest of the crew is dead.”
“Soldier, you will not make another outburst,” I declared. Nolan was hard to handle at times on missions. He was smart and he was good at what he did, but he questioned authority far too often. I was trained on the Concord long before any of my men, but I’d heard of things Nolan had done during training that were very inappropriate. He had quickly established himself as the drill sergeant’s least favorite cadet. They were constantly at odds with one another. Several times, Nolan had apparently gotten the upper hand by lacing the sergeant’s dinner with catalyst packet fluid. As a result, Sergeant Key would be awake well into the morning hours, unable to sit still. At one point, Nolan had managed to deprive Key of so much sleep, Key thought he was getting a sort of space sickness and was transferred.
There was an awkward silence. Nolan looked at Danny with a sort of loathing, but Danny’s expression remained passive and at ease, despite his situation. I grabbed Nolan shoulder and spun him to face me. “You understand? You follow my orders, cadet.”
“Yes sir,” Nolan snarled.
Danny pointed down a path, and then looked at me. “We can take the route through the dormitories. It’s the quickest way to get to the labs.”
I looked at the men. Steam swirled around them, but they could see through it. They had to see through it. “Alright, team. Danny stays in the middle with Pratt. We’re going to move out,” and with that, I led the team through a hall of slithering pipes and hissing heat.
There was a long passage that led from the escape pods to the dormitories. It was much like all of the other paths, pipes strung above and below, hissing and whispering to us, but everything seemed much less offensive with Danny nearby. We’d been helpless without him. To be honest, we probably would have died on that ship without him. The Genesis was a monstrous, coiled mass of conduits and shafts, with one computer lab located somewhere within. The twelve of us, highly trained frontiersmen of the TSA, would have been as defenseless as lambs and the steam would slowly close in like a pack of wolves. Walking with Danny and glancing back at him, I noticed that the steam had no effect on him. He could over power it. He could see through it, even though it swirled and churned in front of me. He was surely our shepherd.
The steel grating gave way to a solid, steel floor. A sign that hung from the ceiling read “Dormitories”. We kept a steady pace. The walls became solid, rather than being made of pipes and wires, but I could tell that they were still there. They were under the floor and inside the walls. Hidden, but inescapable. From the ceiling, hung a line a fluorescent lights, bathing everything in a horribly unnatural light.
“Movement,” Pratt whispered. I rose my fist and everyone halted. Danny glanced around coolly. I turned and consulted Pratt. “There’s three blips on the screen. They’re about 40 meters ahead. Not moving much, but they’re moving around alright.”
“Ok, team,” I said, whispering, but trying to sound as in control as possible. “These could be hostiles. In fact, I’d bet the farm on it. If they’re in a dormitory, we’ll just try and sneak past, but if we’re spotted, we’ll have to take them out.”
“Alright! Some action!” said Vickers excitedly. He cocked his weapon enthusiastically. Vickers was as brave as they came in the TSA. He’d participated in recon missions all over the Arm. None of these turned into combat missions, but Vickers was always willing.
“Keep it quiet, guys. Danny, you gonna be alright?” I asked. He didn’t seem to be concerned with any of what was happening, but I wanted to ask anyway.
“Of course.”
I led a slow advance down a hall of shut metal doors on both sides. I could still hear the hissing of the snake-like pipes, but I tried to listen to Pratt, rather than the ship’s whispers.
“We’re within 20 meters, sir,” whispered Pratt, sliding a pistol from his holster and clumsily pulling back the slide. His hands were shaking.
“You nervous?” Stenler whispered, “It could be a human, you know?”
“It just doesn’t feel right,” answered Pratt. It was understandable that he would be nervous. He was a nerd in the truest sense of the term. He grew up on a research station and was highly educated in civilian and marine technology. He even played a small role in the development of the personal phase gates that were being used by the TSA. Some of the guys had a bet going. They were trying to guess whether or not Pratt had ever been laid. I had my doubts.
“What door is it?” I asked. The hallway was still just a line of doors. Each was numbered to designate a different residence. On the wall was a small splatter of what appeared to be blood, but there was no time to investigate.
“Three down on the left.”
Three hatches down was room ‘246’ and as we approached, everyone’s attention fell on the door. I held my breath and eased my grip on the Cx10. My hold on the pistol grip was so tight that my knuckles were aching. Danny didn’t seem worried, though. He was quiet, but he didn’t even look at the door. He kept his eyes straight ahead.
We moved on silently. Enders, Nolan, Druven and Stenler watched our backs again. The path led to a split in all four directions.
“Which way, Danny?” I asked, looking down all three paths. Some of the lights that hung were out and others blinked and sparked.
“Movement…” whispered Pratt nervously. “Lots of movement…” he stammered. He started spinning in circles, pointing the MD everywhere. The motion device began to click wildly. “Sir, we’re in trouble.”
Room ‘246’ opened violently, and a four legged creature darted out from inside. It resembled a sort of dog or wolf, but with talons for feet and greenish, wet flesh. Its eyes glowed red and it’s teeth glinted as twelve flashlights fell on them. Its mouth was dripping red blood onto the floor.
It slithered towards us, but we only stared. None of us had actually seen an alien before. We’d seen them in pictures and on paper targets in the firing range, but nothing could have prepared us for the way it slithered with such agility.
“Shoot it!” shouted Danny suddenly. Loud enough to break us from our trances, but not so loud that he was panicked. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t helped us shoot that first alien. We were tempted by it. Its red eyes that glowed in the failing hall light were evil, yet compelling. It hissed like a snake, loudly and angrily.
I took down the first creature while the others watched in awe. A long burst from my weapon brought it to a bloody halt about twenty meters away. The shots were muffled by the noises of the hall. Its eyes dimmed, and its stomach ceased to rise and fall. Its forked tongue rolled out of its mouth and lay lazily on the floor. In a fluid motion I ejected the magazine from my gun, allowing it to clatter to the floor, and replaced it with a full one.
The halls were now alive with the sound of claws sliding and digging into steel. Below all of that, the steam pipes whispered in my ears.
He looked at me calmly. “That way,” he said, pointing down the darkest, most forbidding path.
“That one? Are you sure that that’s the quickest?”
Nolan grabbed my arm and spun me around, his face was sweaty and his eyes were bloodshot, “How do you know we can trust this guy?” he asked, breathing hot breath onto my visor. It was as if there was steam inside of him. He had a look on his face I can only describe as ‘crazed’.
Danny looked at me when I turned back to him and this time his eyes were warm and caring, deep brown and all seeing. “You have to trust in me. I know the right path. You have to choose whether or not you’ll take it.” I didn’t hesitate even though Shepherd’s words struck me as strange in that particular situation. We moved like a herd: swiftly, trotting down the dark, hissing conduit. Our boots clanked against the metal floor and steam swirled around our feet. I kept Danny at an arms length. I wanted to convince myself that I was protecting him, but deep down, I think he was protecting me.
“Six o’clock!” shouted Enders from the rear, and the popping of gunfire followed. It echoed up and down the hallway. I glanced over my shoulder to see another ‘skulk’, chased up a wall by Enders’ excellent aim. The creature managed to gain some ground on the group, but its wounds caused it to drop from the ceiling and roll to a halt. “Got him,” reported Enders.
The hall began to darken, save for lamps that blinked like strobe lights. It was nearly impossible to decipher what was right and what was wrong. The fog, the darkness and the hissing in my ears were almost impossible to ignore.
“We’ll have to take that elevator to get to the labs,” Danny advised me, his voice piercing the rest of the noise. The elevator came into view around the next bend. “Down five floors.”
The elevator was more of a lift: A flat bed with some rails going down a slightly oversized shaft. Crude elevators such as those were rarely found on civilian ships because when the elevator wasn’t on your floor, you could go right over the rail and down the shaft, but the Genesis was an old vessel. It was just our luck that the lift was on our floor.
“You guys hear that?” I asked over the hissing of the pipes and the clanking of our boots. “We’ve got to cram onto this lift.”
“Once we get to the laboratory floor, we’ll have to reach the computer room which isn’t far,” Danny informed us.
The thirteen of us congregated on the platform and I managed to push Danny to the back wall. We needed him to be safe. There was a control panel on the wall, with a keypad. The ship had over two hundred floors so it wasn’t practical to have a button for every floor. “Danny what floor are we on?”
Danny responded from behind my marines “65!”
I quickly typed in ‘60’ and a klaxon sounded, red lights illuminated the shaft, air gusted from hydraulics from somewhere within the ship, and the lift began a slow descent. Just as the lip of floor 65 reached eye level I could see more red lights, dancing like fireflies in the darkness. More Kharaa.
From a tactical perspective, the lift was one of the worst positions possible. The ‘skulk’ species was highly adapted to falling and navigating vertically. One of the first rules of Haverhill’s ‘Basics of Engaging the Kharaa’ is to avoid CQC (close quarters combat) with them at all costs. But our mission objective overrode any such danger.
“Sir, I don’t think this is such a good idea…” Pratt stammered. I’d managed to ignore the wild chirping sound that the motion detector was making. Chips in our armor stopped his device from reading us, so there were obviously a lot of unidentified blips on the screen. “There’s movement on every floor. Multiple blips, sir. They’re closing in on our position.”
No sooner than when he finished his deadly report, a skulk poked its wolf-like head over the edge of floor 65. It’s eyes burned red from within. It glared at us from above and then, instead of barking like I would have expected, it made a grunt sound like a pig. I had no idea what it meant but more heads appeared.
“Marines,” I said with the most confidence I could muster, “you know what to do. Haverhill says, ‘Engagement protocol is pretty simple…’”
We finished the rest of the well known saying as a team “If it moves, and it isn’t human, put a lot of lead in it.”
you must continue the story
me-> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> : <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif' /><!--endemo--> <-u
Genesis is such a great story. I know that as fanfic writers, eventually we come to a point where we feel very tired. We think that no one appreciates what we does, or that we are too lazy to continue writing.
Don't think that way! Your story is great, definitely worthy of continuing to write. If you are tired, then take a break for a few days. But make a personnal promise with yourself to continue when you are ready.
Ok? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Nolan was staring directly at Danny. I could just barely see his eyes through the foggy visor of his helmet. “Nolan,” I said “defog your visor, soldier.”
“The defogger is broken,” Nolan said back, tapping the side of his headgear. The glass was supposed to remain at a substantially higher temperature so that no condensation would form. “It hasn’t worked since we got on. Maybe if the TSA could spare a few more bucks we could get better equipment.”
I had no time to respond to Nolan’s comments about the poor TSA funding. Something fell from the floor above us like a sack of bricks, crashing down on top of Stenler, who went down firing. Stray bullets sparked up the wall as Stenler went over backwards. It was a skulk.
Enders was the first to act, dropping the Cx10 he held and diving across the platform, tackling the creature like lineman sacking the quarter back. They rolled to the edge of the lift. My men quickly formed a sloppy protective formation around the edges of the lift while the two wrestled. I grabbed Danny and pulled him next to me.
The skulk writhed and snapped wildly. CQC training took control over Enders almost instantly. He hugged the beast tightly, avoiding both the claws of the skulk and the razor teeth that glared in the light of the elevator shaft. The beast and him were chest to chest, its legs peddled wildly on both sides of Enders. He slid his hand to his knife and in one quick motion, yanked it from the sheath and plunged the blade high into the flank of his opponent. The alien screeched in agony as Enders gutted it alive, raking the blade down the side of its body and spilling a soupy pool of yellow blood and lumpy organs.
I shot a glance back to Stenler who was flat on his back and saw that Druven was already hovering over him. The top of floor 64 came into view beyond the side of the lift and I thought to myself ‘we’re not even halfway there’. I looked back up to floor 65 which was pretty high up, considering that each floor was several meters thick, and I could see skulks stepping into the elevator shaft, scaling the walls effortlessly. About six of them started to slither down towards the lift, saliva dripping from their mouths and onto the platform. They hissed loudly.
Enders recovered from his attack, sheathing his knife, and then quickly moved over to Stenler. I wasn’t sure of the situation at the time, but I heard Enders moan “Oh God…”
“Make sure none of those skulks get too close!” I shouted to the team. I looked at Danny who had an expressionless face “you stay here.” I went over to see Stenler and much to my dismay, he looked pretty bad. The skulk’s extremely deadly talons had punctured the nano armor of Stenler’s torso and from the holes leaked blood, dark red blood that contrasted greatly with his armor. His face was already pale.
Danny came up behind me and I said to him, “I told you to stay by the side,” but he just looked at me.
“Let me see him.”
Floor 64’s ceiling became visible at the floor of the lift on the same side of the shaft as floor 65. The corridor was in such disarray it was impossible to see through the thick, fluffy mist that filled the hall completely. Within the whiteness, though, I could see eyes watching. The floor was also infected with bacteria commonly associated with Kharaa presence. I looked up and I could see the skulks, clever, careful predators, descending at the same pace as our lift, keeping a distance that would prove a difficult shot. Cx10’s weren’t renowned for their accuracy, only their jam proof, high ROF system and high capacity magazines.
I constantly imagined them as snakelike creatures. Their effortless, totally vertical descent of the shaft reminded me of the way a snake coiled around the branch of a tree, preying on a robin’s nest. Their claws slid into the metal hull of the ship with such ease it boggled the mind. A skulk was of course, the most basic of all Kharaa life forms, but it was beautiful all the same.
Horton took aim at one of them and fired a single shot. It zinged up the shaft and clipped the creature in the hind leg, detaching it from the side of the shaft. It fell like pants down a laundry chute, freefalling and spinning as several Marines put well aimed shots into it on the way down. A brief sprinkle of yellow blood followed the body’s thud against the lift floor. Vikers dropped a dry magazine and replaced it.
Skulks began to fill the shaft above us. They hissed and chattered to one another, dripping saliva along the walls and onto our armor. They were patient, methodical, waiting for a sign of weakness. A glob of skulk slobber hit Nolan in the face and he whined, wiping it on his arm. “Sick.”
There were nervous chuckles.
“How did you do that?” I heard Enders say with great enthusiasm. I rushed back over to Danny, Stenler and Enders to see that the armor on Stenler’s chest was completely mended. Not only that, but the color had returned to his face. Danny, our shepherd, stood up and outstretched a hand for the fallen soldier. His eyes shot open, wide and alert, and without hesitation he took Danny’s hand and rose from the dead it seemed. Ender’s repeated, “How the hell did you just do that?”
Danny never appeared to have any intention of answering the question, but he tilted his face upward. The skulks regarded us with savage snarls. “The devil himself,” Danny observed and we all looked up as well. I could see what he was referring to. Standing at the edge of floor 65 far above us loomed a creature so large it was a wonder that it could move through the narrow conduits of the Genesis. It had a dark, muscle bound, elephant like body. The Onos knew we were staring at it, and a deep growl rumbled in its throat.
“Oh jeez,” sighed Pratt, almost comically. We were horribly unprepared to do battle with the most advanced of the Kharaa species. Cx10 ammunition stood almost no chance against the thick hide of an onos. I thanked God that he was too far to catch us.
“Danny, where are there stairs that lead between the floors?” I asked. The onos turned away and disappeared.
“Pretty far away,” he said simply.
“Are we going to run into that thing?” asked Nolan nervously. He angrily shoved a finger underneath his visor to wipe away condensation.
“I don’t know.”
“Sir why are they just following us down? They’ve got us outnumbered ten to one,” Pratt observed obnoxiously. He didn’t sound as worried as he could have been. In fact, he sounded like he’d rather give up and give in than continue fighting.
“I have no idea what they’re up to. Maybe we’re not posing a threat to their hive, so they’re just watching us…” I suggested but there was no basis for these predictions. Kharaa attack patterns had yet to be thoroughly documented or diagramed, not even by Haverhill. There was no doubt that even the skulk was a brilliant creature. They hand uncanny coordination, agility and strength. They understood what a firearm was, avoiding the line of sight of a marine whenever possible. It seemed that if they’d been blessed with opposable thumbs, skulks would be as capable as humans.
Floor 60 finally arrived after about ten more minutes of waiting. The lift slowed and the whoosh of air filling hydraulic systems echoed inside the shaft. My men looked to me and I said simply “Let’s move out,” and that’s what we did. Keeping an eye on the alien hounds, we slipped out of the shaft and into floor 60. Stenler moved as if nothing had happened to him and I wanted to ask him if he felt alright, but I was more concerned about Nolan. He was wiping his visor angrily.
“I can’t see anything, sir,” he grumbled, “I’m practically blind.”
Floor 60 was like no other floor that we’d passed on the way down. The hall that led into the ship was lit with a soft blue light from recessed bulbs in the ceiling and floor. The metal was slick with moisture, shining in the azure light like ice. It was quiet.
“This is… really nice actually,” said Knoll, peering down the long, empty hallway.
“I’m starved,” said Rob. He was a healthy eater. I wasn’t surprised it was the first thing he’d said since insertion.
“No kidding,” agreed Horton.
Danny walked down the hall without a word and I followed him without protesting. He had no fear for the aliens, and for a soldier, I would have thought it was reckless or stupid, but Danny seemed to know what he was doing. His clothes flowed like robes. “There should be food in here,” he said simply, entering a room on the right of the hall.
My men looked at me for approval and I said “I guess we’re gonna stop for a bite.”
It was a small cafeteria. Probably used to feed the personnel strictly assigned to that area of the ship. It was dry inside, the lighting was harsher than in the hall, white fluorescent bulbs burned brightly. Sterile counter tops and cupboards lined the walls and in the center of the room were four tables.
“Everyone take a seat,” Danny said, turning to us as we stood in the doorway. “I know where all of the food is.”
I led everyone to the nearest table, a long, plain, plastic slab with enough chairs around it for all of us. I sat near one end, and left the seat at the head of the table open for Danny to join us. Nolan sat at the opposite end.
Danny came over shortly with a cart full of MRE suppers and tossed them onto the table. Rob snatched a vacuum sealed pouch and turned it over in his hands, then looked at Danny and said “Um, sir, this isn’t what I ordered.”
The men, including myself, burst into laughter. Danny laughed too. We knew we were nearing the end of a long journey and it was a relief to sit down together, despite the apparent danger around us, and simply enjoy a meal.
I like your character development, keep it up.
Enders sighed loudly, mentioning the onos that had been only a few floors above us, watching from a distance. “If we run into that thing, will we be able to stop it?”
“It would be impossible,” Nolan assured us all. You could always count on Nolan to be positive about things. “The only way to avoid it would be to get into tight places. Places where it couldn’t fit.”
Danny forked a piece of meat and plucked it into his mouth. He had no interest in the conversation about a powerful beast that could easily impale us all in a matter of moments. “So Danny, how’d you manage to get trapped in that escape pod?” I asked. All other conversation ceased immediately.
Danny looked out over all of us, twelve soldiers of a new army, and finished chewing a chunk of beef. There was a single, square metal ventilation conduit that ran parallel to the ceiling and went from one end of the cafeteria to the other. The sound of alien claws, the distinct click of curved talons against steel, echoed through it. Kharaa were coming.
“Kharaa infection was discovered a week ago,” Danny said, rising from his chair. “I was taken there.”
your chapter was short and enjoyable. quite descriptive. and finally, we ca find out more about Danny.
I stood up quickly, my chair tipped and clattered to the floor. It was an accident but it created a sense of urgency about my men. They stood quickly as well, gathering their equipment and shoveling one last piece of food into their mouths. “Let’s move out,” I said, grabbing my Cx10 from the table and hurrying out. I moved with less-than-sure footing into the soft blue hallway, in such a hurry that I almost slipped and fell on the slick metal floor. I’d forgotten how cold it was on that floor, condensing the moisture that hung in the air. “Careful, it’s slippery,” I remarked after grasping a pipe to regain my balance.
Pratt’s device began it’s ticking again, as if it was warning us that time was running out, or perhaps, that our time had come. Sometimes listened to that ticking and thought that it was my own heart, pounding in my ears. “The computer labs are not far,” Danny explained, taking his usual position in the middle of our team. “We’ll have to make our way through some laboratories and some medical sectors. Then we’ll be in the computer core area.”
Danny’s mysterious nature and predicament never left my mind. He was the only survivor that we’d come across on our voyage through the station. He was also completely unafraid of any species we encountered. He had somehow healed Stenler after the skulk attack on the lift. Being with him seemed to keep all of the Kharaa from attacking us. What I knew about him were just pieces, few pieces to an enormous puzzle.
All of the halls that we passed glowed soft and blue, their primary lighting had been deactivated in favor of low power emergency lights. Cold air drifted along them, passing over the metal surfaces that glistened like diamonds in our flashlights, beads of water swelled above flat metal surfaces. I noticed that I couldn’t hear Pratt’s device anymore. It was a good sign.
“These are the laboratories coming up. There are a lot of testing and experimentation areas up ahead, but I suggest that we stay on course,” said Danny. “The experiments conducted in here are most likely related to the computer data that you are searching for.”
We kept moving in a tight, practiced formation, but I kept the dialogue going. “What kind of experiments are we talking about? Weapons?”
“No,” replied Danny flatly.
I went over to one of the long windows and peered into a room. There was a plump alien lying belly up on a white, plastic table. It was still alive, I could see, from its chest that slowly rose and fell. It was restrained with straps and a tube was threaded into the creature’s mouth. It had slick brown flesh and red tentacle like feelers that protruded from its mouth. It was a gorge.
“Sir, you’d better come and see this!” cried Nolan from across the plaza. I left my window and made my way across the deserted plaza. The tables had half-finished cups of coffee, notes, datasheets, and other items that didn’t jump out as particularly important. Some other soldiers reached Nolan’s window first and turned away, groaning with disgust. “You’re not going to believe this,” Nolan warned.
He was right. For the longest time I didn’t believe the atrocity I saw through the glass. There was a man lying on the floor, naked and covered in dry blood. One of his hands was strapped to the table, so he hung from it awkwardly. He had black hair and rough-looking skin, greenish patches of fleshy growth spotted his chest and legs. His eyes were vacant but they were red, not blue or brown or the color of human eyes. They were red. His other hand was not present, and at first glance, it looked like maybe it had been severed. As I stared at the appendage long enough, I came to realize it was not a bone protruding from his wrist, but a talon. The man was half Fade.
Everyone turned to Danny, who was seated in the middle of the plaza, staring right back. The blue light reflected on his soft face. “I suppose you want an explanation,” he started but he was cut off.
“You knew about this, didn’t you?!” shouted Nolan, he began to approach Danny and pointed his Cx10 at him.
“Yes, I knew about it,” Nolan started but I grabbed his arm and stopped him from going any closer.
“That’s enough,” I said. “Danny is going to tell us what the hell is going on here. It’s time you gave us some answers, friend.”
It was like story time in preschool when Danny began to explain what was going on aboard the Genesis. Danny sat at a table alone, whilst my men and I surrounded him, an audience to his tale, on adjoining benches.
“The Genesis was meant to be a research vessel and was privately funded by the world’s largest mining company at the time, IronCore. A station like this obviously doesn’t come cheap, but they developed it on a preconceived notion that money spent on it would return to them exponentially.” Danny ran a hand through his hair and I could see that he was picking and choosing his words. I bet Nolan could see it too. “IronCore wanted to take a bite out of their competition. Corporate sabotage isn’t a new concept. Sin isn’t a new concept, deception etcetera and so on. These are the things that all of this boils down to.”
In the distance, the vessel shuttered, metal creaked and groaned. It was common for a ship of that size to warp slightly and bend, like an old house. Rob had managed to wedge a vacuum-sealed bag of applesauce under some of his armor. Since we seemed to be on hiatus, he jabbed a hole in it and began to work on sucking out the contents.
“The Genesis reached this point in space 20 years ago. At that point, their direction of study and their possible results were unclear. The ship was provided with a dangerous bacteria sample of unknown origin, supplied by the company headquarters. They were instructed to use this bacteria to develop a chemical agent that could be used to sabotage the mining operations of competing corporations. It took the science team seven years to develop a saboteur.”
“I don’t believe this,” started Doc Druven, “Do you mean to tell me that this is the birthplace of the Kharaa?”
“Yes.”