Му meager craft hurtled through space - bathed in darkness with only the ambient glow of distant galaxies filtering through the gold-screened viewports. The faint illumination of flashing red and green switches mocked my sober, tireless gaze. All the cabin and instrument lights were off — part of my latest attempt to micromanage power consumption. However, the lack of photons had only robbed me of my most precious time killer.
Sleep remained my favorite method of passing time on long stretches like this. You didn't have to think about it. The standard eight hours of shut-eye burned up almost a third of the average twenty to thirty-hour days most inhabited planets shared. But traveling long distances in low light ruined that.
Now I remained wide awake after only three hours of dreamless sleep.
My stomach growled though I wasn't excited at the thought of the remaining rations from Eureka 9. I switched on the cabin lights and unbuckled myself from the control seat. A few gentle pushes directed my weightless body towards the back half of the spacious cockpit.
The second empty chair was ice cold as I braced against it to reach the overhead storage bin. My chest tightened at the memory of my navigator. Her smile and glowing complexion teased my aching mind. "Sorry." My verbal apology buried the thought.
The food supply had seen better days. I imagined cobwebs in the empty corners of the bin as I looked over the week's worth of rations — I could make it two if I ate one every twenty-four hours. That was more than enough time to find a planet or station to restock.
Floating back to the control seat with a ration in hand, I began manipulating the frequencies on the communications panel. A fragmented signal came through. Thanks to the translator I picked up on Rowlia, I could interpret the message. It was a commercial for a new mining colony. Based on the signal's decay, I figured it was at least a few years old if a day.
By the time I arrived, it could already be well established. Jobs were seldom short in places like these. I could swing in, earn the supplies I needed, and carry on with my mission. How different could drills and excavators be from ships and propulsion systems? I just hoped the work wasn't completely dead.
The unique drive crammed into my craft’s engine bay turned lightyears into hours. Despite that advantage, my more primitive instruments forced me to take pit stops every quarter parsec to re-triangulate the source of the mining colony's signal. I nearly passed it along the edge of what my star chart called the Seven Sisters, a hepta-star system. A ninety-degree correction to port brought me in line with the star-lit side of the lonely dwarf planet — almost a hundred kilometers away.
The commercial signal was gone. All the other frequencies hummed with quiet static save one. I locked in on the lone broadcast from my position. It cycled through a series of repeating sonic signatures, each one more unique than the last. As I listened, one set of all too familiar tones jumped out at me.
Dot. Dot. Dot. Dash. Dash. Dash. Dot. Dot. Dot.
My attempts to hail them proved unsuccessful. None of my pings bounced back; they were broadcasting but not receiving. So I recorded a message with my translator and sent out the loop cycling through all the languages at my disposal, hoping at least someone understood.
My computer scanned the dwarf planet upon my approach. It was drifting away from the Seven Sisters, but maintained its horizontal rotation — from my perspective. Each of its days looked to be about six hours, by the math in my head. A shimmering speck rolled over the horizon. It looked like a satellite or space station in orbit, except it was attached to the surface below.
This was not the first atmospheric elevator I'd seen, but it certainly was the largest thus far. Once close enough, I could make out the four shafts tethering the hexagonal structure to the planet. Artificial gravity wheels laid still at each end of the orbiting hub, adjacent to mazes of docking stations and cargo bays that looked like a game of Tetris gone wrong.
After another half hour of failed communications and visual searches, I hooked up with a compatible airlock. My computer detected a safe atmosphere, if not a little oxygen-rich. Still, I donned my environmental suit just to be safe.
The moment I set foot inside the hub, saturated waves of alien advertisements flooded the coms in my helmet. I didn't waste time sorting out their collective, incoherent din and instead switched off all channels save for my suit's external microphone.
The immediate silence left me alone with my own raspy breaths, amplified inside the suit. Faint music crept in. It grew louder as I propelled myself through the twisted halls in zero-g. Tracks lined the walls, carrying crates filled with equipment, but there was no one around to move any of it.
Finally reaching the center of the hub, the music crescendoed from loudspeakers. Mall music, I thought. It sounded like smooth jazz sung by the offspring of a theremin and a dot matrix orchestra. It sounded pleasant, but I found myself hard-pressed to enjoy it as I drifted around loose tools and crates — floating about the sterile and lifeless space.
"Hello?" I cried out, even scanning several frequencies, but nothing replied.
I made my way to the galley, but the pantry closets were empty, and the synthesizers were all bone dry. People or no people in distress, I needed supplies, and the surface of the planet was my next stop.
The elevator bay took up most of the hub below deck. Each of the doors looked as big as a large aircraft hangar. A catwalk along the ceiling oversaw the modulating magnetic tracks holding a plethora of shipping containers to the floor. Following the catwalk, I found an active terminal. My translator helped me navigate the mostly intuitive system. A grid popped up showing three red squares and one green.
One elevator remained online. My craft’s ion-thrusters were only good in orbit; I doubted the fuel reserves of its rockets, and the drive was too unpredictable for so short a jump. My stomach growled, but I swallowed my anxiety. Just a quick trip, I told myself, down and right back up. I ran the sequence to prepare the elevator.
Metal groaned as the great accordion doors parted to reveal the cargo hold and the passenger bay above. On my way down, I could see several containers still loaded up, each marked by signs with atomic diagrams. I recognized gold and lithium, but none of it helped me – especially without the means to process or transport it.
One container was marked by red paint scribbled across its side. My translator roughly interpreted it as "Abriltar (title) development processing. Hold for Yumahe (name) Institute." Curious, I peeked inside the already open personnel hatch, switching on my helmet's lamp.
Aluminum crates lined the walls up to the top. I singled out a loose one and popped open the latches to see its contents. The foam lining inside held an assortment of rocky fragments in place. My suit's Geiger counter lightly clicked out the indication of perfectly safe background radiation, but it fell dead quiet the moment I picked up one of the fragments.
It looked like cement but machined into a perfect square with stippling similar to a golf ball. On the other side, an etched eye with three irises stared back at me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It creeped me out, so I put it back and sealed the container. It wasn’t food, so I proceeded with my descent to the planet.
Rows and rows of vacant seats lined the passenger bay, back to back. I buckled into the operator's chair off to the side and continued the descent sequence from the terminal. Once again, everything groaned as the doors closed, sealing me in near darkness split by my helmet’s lamp and the green lights lining the corners of the room. Whirring motors sprung to life, and the whole compartment lurched downward. There were no viewports or windows, but a set of projectors in the middle of the ceiling cast the starry surroundings on the walls and the nearing surface on the floor.
The compartment lurched again, and the green lights flashed red. The intercom blared, "Pristat! Khana et trona britz!" I didn't need my translator to know I was in trouble. The straps of my seat began to dig into my shoulders. I was falling. Looking only for the word “brake" on the terminal, a diagram of the compartment illuminated four panels in each corner of the room.
I loosed myself from my restraints and held onto a guide rail. Every inch was a fight against inertia to pull myself toward the nearest emergency brake. “Lousy design!” I cursed. The emergency brake’s transparent plastic cover ripped right off, and I punched the lever inside to the downward position.
Gravity returned with a fleeting vengeance, slamming me to the floor. The brake slowed the platform down a little, but it was still falling. I caught the rail before floating away and hauled myself back to my seat to buckle in again, bracing for the impact.
The projection of the planet’s fast-approaching surface made me sick, and my heart jumped when the image went black.
White light flooded my vision upon the cacophony of buckling metal, and inertia racked my body. Adrenaline flooded my senses, but the shock subsided when I felt my toes and fingers moving. I tried to move, but I was stuck. My arm managed to wiggle its way through the suffocating white surrounding me and found the latch to my restraints.
It took all my effort to squeeze out of the seat. The white parted and I saw it was a series of airbags illuminated internally. Clawing out of this womb of safety, I checked my body. Everything remained attached and accounted for. I was shaken but alive. A few moments of concentrated breathing cleared my head enough to take count of my surroundings.
Nearly half of the airbag cocoons failed to deploy. I considered my luck and didn't dwell on the odds any further. The low gravity combined with the now uneven floor caused me to stumble at first, but the all-terrain grip of my suit's boots allowed me decent footing.
Thankfully the compartment hadn't pancaked, and the planetside doors opened with some persuasive commands from the terminal. The air hissed around me, and my suit's heaters kicked in. My ears popped as my suit’s pressure automatically stabilized. Stepping out into the ground hub I saw stars through jagged openings all around. The other three elevators were charred, black. I barely made out the controlled blast marks.
"What happened here?” I finally asked myself.
A new task jumped to the top of my priority list. Supplies meant nothing without a way back to my craft, but curiosity intruded the house of reason. There were no bodies in sight. Where did everyone go?
I pressed onward through one of the openings in the hub. A small city of interconnected macro-habitats sprawled out across the planet's surface. The earth and stone were overwhelmingly gray and dark, a stark contrast to the network of bright white structures. Approaching the nearest cylindrical habitat, I noticed the modular paneling looked almost brand new. There was hardly any meteorite damage or carbon scoring.
Low red lights flashed in the windows of the city, but nearby a short domed greenery lit up like a lighthouse. I turned on my coms. The ads from the hub were gone, replaced by static. "Hello!" I began broadcasting to anyone that might be around. "Do you read me? Hello, is anyone there?” I approached the greenery, listening for something — someone.
A voice broke through, "Machuke? Tama suy, ersh? Tama suy ersh?”
"Hello! Hello, I’m here!" I found an open airlock beside the greenery and stepped inside. "Do you have, uh, casete, um caster un vocadite? Trukable? Translator?" I sealed the exterior door hatch and the chamber automatically began to pressurize. Dust stirred up all around me, clouding my vision.
A green light followed a chime, and the inner door opened itself. Before I could step through, something struck me square in the chest, and I fell flat on my back. The next thing I knew, I was staring down the end of a gun barrel. My eyes followed its length to the hands wielding it and a pair of blue eyes glowing in the dark.
"Tanza, gwe suut. Ah, kaboom!" The hands pulled some mechanism back that clicked.
I held my hands up above my head. "Don't shoot. Don't shoot."
A second being knelt beside me and took my translator from my belt. “Klass. Kayor. K'sash. Miltesh. Ni’hau. Ole. Olah. Halo. Hello."
"Hello." I responded.
The second being plugged my translator into another device, and a loading bar scrolled across its screen. A smooth electric voice began, "Proceeding test. Proceeding test. Languages, other, proceeding to do reference crossing."
"Hello." I tried again. "Can you understand me?"
It handed my translator back and tapped a few buttons on the wall, triggering lights that illuminated his face. He looked mostly human with a pinkish-gray complexion and white hair draped over crimson eyes. "Rest easy, fellow.” He pat my shoulder with a four-fingered hand. “The danger is being passed for the now." The English words echoed out over his native tongue from a speaker clipped onto his right breast pocket.
The other one lowered her rifle and scowled. "Ain’t that just great. Another body to drag around." She spoke plain English without any mechanical aid, but her accent sounded like a toss-up between South African and Australian. Lighter tones broke up her copper skin like tiger stripes, and her ebony hair was tied into a tight bun behind her head.
"How do you know English?" I asked her.
She gave me a hand and pulled me up. "Known En’lish since I was a tass on Xandia. Grew up with Terrie colonists. But your Terrie speak sounds like those Mericanoes."
"American, yeah."
"Whatever, Terrie. You any good with a gun like your Mericanoe brothers?"
I held back a chuckle. "I'm familiar, but I don't really care for them."
She muttered something incoherent before blurting out, "Then what vetukin’ good are ye to me?" She disappeared down the hall, leaving me with her cohort.
"Did I say something wrong?”
"Pay no minding personal, Smith. It is to do but her second of language being cynicism showing through. Come. Let us to do providing sustenance."
I followed him down the hall into the greenery, where I shed my suit to take a breather. He introduced himself as Doctor Tseaton, a Pinekran of the Myrxhellum Union. From our spotty conversation I learned that the Myrxhellum was an intelligent fungal superorganism that lived in symbiosis with multiple host races between planets.
"So, to be calling you, what to do we? How came to do being here, you?" Tseaton handed me a steaming plastic mug of something he called Choffee, a protein energy supplement.
"You can call me John, and honestly, I was looking for work, but things seem a little slow around here."
A throaty click preceded a hum, in what I assumed passed for laughter from his homeworld. “Well met, John. I suppose an explanation to do I be owing you."
"I'd appreciate that." I sipped on my choffee. It was a bitter brown ooze that smelled of burnt metal, but it filled my belly and brightened my spirits. "What happened with the mining operation?" Smith watched us from afar, and I couldn't help but draw the comparison of a wild cat stalking her prey.
Tseaton laid out a tablet and scrolled through the maps of the planet. "Here, it was being, location quadrant twenty-three. Operations halted. Finding, to do they unique cave. Met against obstacle your other Earthborn men would be calling, a snag."
"What kind of snag?' I glanced over the map of the cave and scrutinized the sonar imaging. Massive symmetrical shapes and square-edged patterns populated the antechamber. "Ruins?”
"Affirmative." He brought up pictures of the structures. The exterior looked the same as other primitive architectures consisting of pillars, archways, and vaults. Deeper in, the style morphed into something on the border of non-euclidean. Murals spread across concave walls depicting what I could only guess were astronomical events and phenomena. The warped carvings looked more like invasive ivy than chiseled stone.
Smith cleared her throat. "Tell 'im about the coffins, mishtan." Her last word stung. My translator couldn't decipher it, but I'm sure it was nothing good. "Go on," she spat, "Go and tell our new friend what you and your an’orks felt so inclined to ignore."
Tseaton took a deep and steady breath. "Superstition having to do no basis with in science." He brought up a detailed scan of one of the aforementioned coffins. Its design was reminiscent of an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus but carved from this planet's stone and inlaid with obsidian. I recognized the central symbol, the eye with three irises.
I scrolled through the rough interpretation of the glyphs scrawled on the lid below a slit-nosed face. "Beware to all interlopers who disturb these consecrated. Your curse shall be to be raven as the beasts in the sixth underworld. Woe eternal to the bearer of this pestilence." It was very biblical and not so dissimilar from the Egyptian warnings I'd read about. Even on other worlds, the tradition of curses to sway tomb raiders and robbers was not uncommon.
"What was in the coffins?”
Smith stepped over Tseatons words. "Aside from corpses? A virus."
"We not could have knowing the truer risk."
“The damned box warned you, and as the warrant officer of this operation, I advised you to wait until proper equipment arrived. Instead, you chose to ignore my order. You just had to go and open it, you ghieu t'ewi bastard!" Fire flared in her eyes, so I jumped up between them.
"Hey! None of us can go back and change the past. Believe me, I've tried. And jumping at each other's throats isn't going to help anyone get out of this. I’m stuck with you both, too. So, take a walk, calm down and we'll plan something. But only with level heads! Understood?”
A grin poked the corners of her scowl. "Sir, yes sir." I felt my fists clench as she turned away. “Watch yourself around the shroom.” She slung her rifle over her shoulder and took off.
"Soldier?" Tseaton asked.
"Doesn't matter now."
“Man to do being of science?”
I nodded. “More accurate.”
"Understanding I.” He waited for Smith to walk out of earshot. "I find obligation. Knowing you to do must. Her home, Xandia, past being occupied by Earthmen colonists. Earthmen current bring war, war directed with my kind. My presence to be causing contention."
"So Smith hates you and half my guts. Good to know."
Tseaton shrugged, "As Earthmen say, emotions are high. And I be to do feel great responsibility." He rubbed his eyes, brushing out flakes of dried spores that were the same potent red as his irises.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it.” I thought for a moment, and had to know what we were up against. "What exactly does the virus do to people?"
Tseaton explained that the symptoms were benign at first – increased appetite – so nothing painfully obvious. The issue slipped right under the radar until a string of connected miners and scientists began to behave erratically. Anxiety turned to short tempers, and short tempers led to bouts of rage. The medics gathered the first victims.
The virus they found matched nothing in their database. They almost mistook it for a parasite given the way it affected brain chemistry and consumed the proteins in the host. After numerous tests and sample observations, they found the evidence of cellular takeover and replication.
Everyone showing symptoms was rounded up and put into quarantine. A high-protein diet slowed the effects, but it was only a temporary solution as the supply of supplements began to dwindle. The infected turned violent. Tension between the groups in quarantine escalated to riots and soon cannibalism.
Tseaton pulled up the past security feeds throughout the city. I shuddered at the images unfolding on the tablet. Swarms of frenzied beings scrambled in sprints through halls, chased fleeing individuals, pinned them to the ground, and ripped them to shreds.
I closed the recording and looked at Tseaton. “How does it spread? Is it airborne?"
“No. Not to do air spread. Fluids, body. Yes. Blood. To do bite, spread epidermal break.”
“Did anything slow them down or stop them?”
He nodded. "Cold and heat of extremes. Vacuum space dark. Also-." A long sigh escaped him. "Total to do severance, brainstem separation. Officer Smith to do use rifle accomplished effect. However no stopping viral replication. Cure. No."
Smith returned with packs of supplies in tow. "Found us some more rations. Ammunition. Radios. And this." She tossed a polymer case at my feet. "Since you don't like guns."
I popped open the case and pulled out the small red tank and the hose connecting it to a wand. It only took moments to connect the cartoon flame on the case with the design of the device. "A flamethrower?"
"It's an old defroster, but I think you can use it to make a wall between us and the infected. Eh, Terrie?"
My stomach churned at the memory of burning flesh and agonizing screams. This was worse than a gun, I thought, but given the circumstances I didn't have much of a choice. "Hopefully, I don't need it."
"We'll see." She mustered a weak smile, but her face soured the moment Tseaton spoke up.
"Plan to do having you, for escape?” He offered her the tablet, and she yanked it from his grasp.
"Here." She pulled up a map of a hangar and showed us both. "The emergency shuttle bay. There are suitable crafts that could get us off this Eovahn-saken rock.”
I chimed in. "When I entered the hub, there was no one on board, so we'd be safe there. I have a two-man craft that could fit the three of us, and I could take you wherever you needed to go. But there were no supplies or food."
Smith nodded. "We could combine the fixings from the other shuttles. But!” her sapphire eyes stung like daggers, “We ought to stay in the hub until we're sure none of us has contracted the virus.”
“Of course.” I nodded.
Her scrutinous gaze lingered before snapping back to the tablet. “The major issue at hand will be the total lockdown sequence."
"What's that?" I asked.
She explained, "In the event of a terrorist attack, insurgent take-over, or in our case a contagious outbreak - the lockdown grounds all vehicles, disables the elevators, and cuts off all communications." I remembered the distress signal but said nothing of it. “Without the override codes, we’re stuck.”
“Perhaps I am to be doing assistance." Tseaton took back his tablet. "Possible it being, that I to do construct program decoder of override. Lifting active lockdown."
"Alright." I agreed. "Let's not waste any time then."
We loaded up. Tseaton extracted as much data as he could from the nearby terminals, plotted a course to the hangar, and sorted out the rations between us. Smith triple-checked her rifle, slinging it over her back with a makeshift bandolier full of loose ammo. I packed down my environmental suit into its built-in duffle bag. The compact flamethrower buckled nicely around the waist of my flight suit, and thanks to the low gravity of the planet I was hardly encumbered.
The creep along the city’s connecting halls proved long and laborious. Every entrance and exit doubled as either escape or danger. Tseaton explained that the infected responded to sound and movement, so we tread quietly to avoid unwanted attention. He paired his tablet with every security terminal to check for their movement. These readouts influenced our path, guiding us around the roving packs.
Several times we were forced to hide anywhere we could. We holed up in utility closets, offices, and even the commissary’s freezer. There was nothing we could do but wait in these hiding spots until the danger passed. It slowed our advance. What would have been a long jog turned into days of extreme avoidance tactics.
It kept us alive, but we also needed time to rest. We took turns taking watch, and my altered sleep schedule enabled me to stand guard more often. If any infected approached our position, I would wake the others if they tossed or talked in their sleep. Smith had a problem with the latter, verbally fighting some unseen horror in her dreams.
Faint vibrations stalked us. Tseaton confirmed that the rest of the city’s power stations and backup generators were beginning to break down. Those distant rumblings came from those that failed catastrophically. The blackouts would reach us in time, but Tseaton reassured us. He explained that the life support systems switched over to an independent grid of solar arrays and battery banks in the event of total electrical failure.
My first and closest encounter with the infected thus far came when we hid inside the fitness center. Tseaton and I scrounged around the triple-weighted dumbbells and found a few foam mats to make beds from. We switched off the lights, and Smith took the next watch, but sleep evaded me. Her icy nocturnal gaze made me anxious, so I turned away and curled up beside the door, beneath the viewport window.
Scraping steps of the migrating infected passed right by us. Their labored breathing pierced every crack and crevice like a hundred crusted billows dusting the hall. Their rancid smell permeated the air vents and turned my eyes watery. The dim light from the window over me was blotted out by the silhouette of a head looming large, and when it turned sideways, I could make out the jagged outline of where a jaw ought to have been.
Its stump arm bumped the cracked glass, smearing red across it. Smith switched off her rifle’s safety. I glared at her — my eyes begging her to stand down. A shriek echoed from outside, and the creature in the window moved on.
The following night, as we camped in a medical station, sleep found me while on watch. Dreams of the ruins came. I shrunk before them as they grew and twisted. Far away, objects looked colossal, and things up close turned miniscule. Fractal inverted curvatures warped the linear. It took six ninety-degree angles just to circle back to where I started. They found me. The three pupils of the all-seeing eye engulfed my body as it folded in space. Rotten voices in an unknown language morphed between pitches and tones. Screams flooded my head, but it wasn't part of the dream.
A gunshot jostled me to full consciousness. My hand ghosted over my waist for a gun that hadn't been there in decades. I looked up and saw Smith standing over a cowering Tseaton with her rifle's muzzle in his face.
"Don't you touch me, you bastard! Keep your thallus fingers to yourself, you hear!"
I leapt to my feet and shoved the barrel up and away. Smith's finger slipped on the trigger and set off the gun, shattering a nearby terminal screen. "Stop it! What happened?”
Smith practically hissed at Tseaton. "The damn shroom! Had his fingers all over my face and in my ear!"
"Calm down!" I shoved her aside and turned to Tseaton. "You okay? Tell me what happened.”
He wiped a small viscous pool of pearlescent blood from his temple, revealing a minor split. "Explanation. Apologies." His translator buzzed in delay as he stumbled to his feet. "Apologies. No harm to do be intended. Was action to do, checking on Miss Smith. Stir to being in sleep. Self possessed concern." He reached up to the corners of his crimson eyes and wiped away more flakes of spores.
I looked at Smith. "Were you having a nightmare?"
"So what?" She barked.
"Nothing." The visions of my dream faded, and I shook my head. "See, nothing. He was just waking you up because you were tossing and turning in your sleep. Is that what happened, Tseaton?"
He nodded before sticking a bandage over the split. "Misunderstanding. Apologies. Understood, I."
A muffled boom shook the walls around us. The lights cut out, plunging us into the dark. The door hissed and swung ajar.
Tseaton brought out his tablet, and its screen bathed us in its ghoulish light. "Failure of power, being in junction present." He swiped over to a map of this hall showing our three signatures. His fingers zoomed out and revealed a cluster of dots heading toward us.
Smith shouldered the door open the rest of the way. "We have to move!"
We scrambled into the hall, running for the other end as the banshee cries of the infected grew louder behind us. A blast door cut off our escape, and the controls were dead. Smith jumped at the manual override and frantically cranked the wheel on the wall, inching the door open bit by bit.
“To do faster going?” Tseaton asked.
“I’m trying!” Smith roared back.
I stepped towards the footsteps rapping our way, dreading the decision at hand. “Okay.” I untangled the flamethrower's wand from my belt, ignited the pilot light, and opened the tank’s valve. A steady pull of the trigger released a scorching stream of fire into the dark. The hall lit up bright orange and revealed the crowd of infected; I laid down a blazing barrier between us and them.
Their cracked and dry gaunt faces contorted into feral expressions. The humanoids with hair had begun to lose it in patches. Blood soaked the shirts around their necks. Black eyes glistened behind the fire. One of them looked right at me, an insectoid standing still amidst the ravenous pack. Its dripping ivory mandibles spread wide as though it was smiling at me.
"John! Come on! Door's open!" Smith pulled on my shoulder and shoved me through the narrow opening. She turned and aimed at several infected who leapt over the wall of fire. Her rifle boomed with an electric twang, spitting out aluminum casings from the top of the action. “Get the door!” I found the control and cranked it shut as she slipped through.
The closing gap left us in the dark again. For a while the rasps of our heavy breaths were the only noise I could comprehend. Then another distant boom shook the ground.
Red emergency lights clicked on, illuminating this new section. It was populated by shelves and shelves of hand tools, carts, track equipment, and yellow industrial EV suits. The terminal beside the next set of blast doors flashed with bright amber warnings.
Tseaton rushed to the terminal and pulled up the map. "No. Expletive!"
I caught up to him and looked over his shoulder. The next two compartments blinked red. "What was being stored in that second hall?"
He closed his eyes to rub them. "Munitions. Explosives. Now to be going forward path disabled. Breached and to being blocked. Debris heavy." He zoomed out on the map. The only way was back in the direction we came. It meant taking an even farther route, and there was no telling how long it would take for the infected to clear out.
"Line of sight. How far is the hangar from our current position?" Smith and Tseaton both looked at me like I was infected. "I already have my own EV suit. We just need to fix a couple of these here for you two."
Tseaton glanced over the map. "One mile. Shorter in distance, affirmative. Safer? Umbilical without to do me uncertain."
Smith stared at the ground, fidgeting with her rifle.
"You good?" I asked.
“Uh-. Yeah.”
“You trained for EVA, right?”
"I trained at the academy, yes."
“And you passed?” I asked.
"On my third try." She drew in a deep breath. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Tseaton and I sorted through the piles of the yellow suits, and settled on a pair in the best condition. He explained that these were the older models saved as backups, but their air tanks were primarily for emergencies — so they didn’t last as long without a tethered line. My suit’s oxygen wasn’t looking so great either. We would have to concentrate on our breathing to make the most of our supply.
Smith slipped into her suit with no problem, but I could sense the suppressed terror in her jitteringing eyes and the quaver in her voice once the helmet sealed and we tested our comms. Once we were ready, Tseaton decompressed the hallway.
“Let’s take a little stroll, shall we?" I turned the manual override to open the blast doors. The charred remains of the next hall awaited us on the other side. Navigating through the wreckage, we found an opening to slip through and down to the surface.
The hangar was clear and visible across the charcoal terrain, but over the first slope we found a sprawling network of trenches.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Excavation.” Tseaton answered. “To do being samples, surveying.”
“Should we go around it?”
“No.” Smith interjected. “We’ll cut straight through that central path.”
“Alright. Lead on.” I stayed close to her, checking her air supply as we walked.
The trenches were dimly lit by an array of work lamps. Carts of minerals lay strewn about. Metal grates along the ground made it all easier to traverse, but some of them were bent and warped like a bomb had gone off. Aluminum casings, like the ones from Smith’s gun, were sprinkled all around. Some of the trench walls to our right had collapsed under a mangled excavator that lay curled up like a dead bug.
Nearly a quarter mile in, Smith cursed and raised her rifle.
“What? What is it?” My blood ran cold when I saw the white-clad bodies standing ahead of us. Sanguine stains marred their shredded EV suits. Their arms stretched out to grab us, but none of them moved. “Wait.” I pushed Smith’s rifle down and approached one of the lifeless forms with Tseaton. “What do you think?”
Smith’s labored breath flooded the coms. “Maybe they got caught outside when the lockdown engaged.”
I checked the closest one’s suit. Its power was depleted and the tanks were empty. “Dead.” I noticed more of them down the adjacent branching trenches.
Tseaton inched near another and lifted up its metallic solar visor. The black eyed and decaying face behind the shattered glass was locked in a permanent grimace. “Infected. Space vacuum freeze. To do reminding of me, statue.”
My suit’s readout showed the temperature sat around negative one hundred and thirty degrees Celsius.
"Best to do moving on." Tseaton waved us onward.
I turned my attention from the macabre exhibit of humanoid popsicles, and sidled up to Smith. Her eyes were clenched shut, and her head bobbed from her accelerated breathing. "Hey.” I tugged on her arm and waited till she looked at me. “You coming?”
“Yeah.” She coughed. “Let’s go.”
Once we were on the move, I stayed by her side. “Could you tell me about your home? About Xandia."
"Second class world. Jungles. Savannahs. Desert. Mostly jungle."
"Good, good." I patted her on the shoulder and noticed even more bodies hidden around the corners we passed. "How about a language question?” I felt like we were being watched. “How do you say chicken in Xandian?"
“I know what you’re doing.” She hissed through her teeth.
“Yeah, what’s that?” We serpentined through another cluster of meat statues.
She sighed. “You’re talking me through this to keep me from losing it.”
Our paths crossed straight into a forest of corpses, and a wave of shivers shot straight up my spine. “You got me.” I chuckled. “Well, is it working?”
She shrugged. “A little.” Her breaths began to even out before she spoke again. "Chicken."
"What?"
“The native language is Ezi’roh, and we call chickens, well, chickens.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
"Yes!" A soft laugh escaped her. "There's nothing like chickens on my world. The colonists brought 'em. Useless birds, but not bad tasting."
"Interesting.” We neared the halfway point of the trenches, and our oxygen levels were more than optimal. “Hometown. You got one?”
"Bethland. Small town, named after a colonist's wife."
"What about your family?" Silence. "Smith?"
"Yes." She sniffled. "My birth father died in the mines. Mother married a new mate. A Terrie."
"Smith?”
"Yes. Danny Smith." She actually smiled. "Spoke horrible Ezi’roh. He could never say my name right. Mir'ashe. So, I let him call me Ashe. Good man. He convinced me to join the Inter Systems Academy." Silence again. "I hope they're safe."
"Wars don't last forever, kid. Trust me."
She nodded in her helmet. “What about you?”
“Me?” Her question caught me off guard.
“Friends? Family?”
I remembered the empty seat in my craft and my ongoing voyage – deeper into space. “I had a navigator for a very short time. But I lost her. Time just sort of got away.”
“You’ll find another.” Smith pat me on the shoulder this time. “Just don’t cheap out on help.”
“How do you mean?”
“Don’t rush to fill the position; you might get stuck with a lousy candidate. Take time to find someone qualified. You don’t want a navigator that gets you lost all the time do you?”
“No,” I agreed. “I suppose not-.” My eyes drifted toward movement. The frozen infected to my left wobbled slightly. Then looking closer, I saw its outstretched arm drifting down. I checked my suit’s readout. The temperature was rising rapidly. “Tseaton!"
He saw it too, and pointed ahead. "Sun, being nearest!"
Light from the closest star crept over the horizon, illuminating the frozen infected behind us. Gas wafted from their broken helmets as the frozen flesh began to sublime. Stiffened joints broke free, and legs lurched forward into their first steps. The one to my side raised its other arm, gloved fingers reaching for me.
"Run!" Smith and Tseaton took off in a bounding stride, but I fought both the lighter gravity and instinct just to sprint without falling.
A crowd of infected filled the direct path to the hangar, forcing us into the labyrinth of trenches. Others followed, and our new pursuers grew into a horde. Even more popped out from around the corners ahead.
Smith brought her rifle to bear. Its trigger guard hinged open to allow her gloved fingers access. She tapped a button on her wrist control. Sharp cleats shot out from the suit’s soles. They sank into the earth and platforms, giving her the traction to fight the gun's recoil as she blasted the faces of every obstacle. “We need to get out of here. Up and out!”
A ramp came into view. We climbed it, but it ended atop one of the inner trench walls. I echoed Smith’s command to jump and hopped over the top of the maze – white-gloved hands clawing for my feet below. I saw the end and leapt for the unbroken ground ahead.
Smith followed, but Tseaton tripped on his final jump and cried out as he fell face-first against a rock. I slid to a shaky stop and turned back to hoist him up. “You alright?”
The lamination of his visor saved him, but the impact left a massive spiderweb crack. “Help! See to do can not being!”
“Smith!” She helped me drag him as we dashed for the hangar.
The fatigue of unfamiliar muscle work began to bear down on me. In the mirror on my suit's wrist I caught a glimpse of the infected. They spilled over the trenches, some crawling while others dove into a four-limbed sprint to catch up. The next few minutes felt like an hour, as though the hangar also ran from the swarm at our backs.
At last, we reached the airlock, but as Tseaton squinted through his cracked visor to access the controls, Smith began to choke on short rapid breaths.
I grabbed her shoulders. "It’s okay. You’ve done this before.”
“God, hjeisek.” She glanced at her air with bulging eyes and turned from the line dipping into the red.
“It’s fine. What did you do to pass on your third try?”
Smith bobbed her head before throwing it back and holding a deep breath. She let it out slowly while counting. “Urcha… dacha.. Kacha…” Another deep breath. “Urcha… dacha.. Kacha…” The reflections of the infected grew closer in her visor. They were right behind us.
"Open!" Tseaton slammed the panel, and the door hatch swung open.
Smith hopped to her feet and dashed through the airlock. Pushing Tseaton in after her, I grabbed the door to close it behind me. A crooked hand snuck in, wedging it open. My desperate stomping failed to remove it, so I pushed the door open enough to slam it shut, severing the thing’s fingers.
The door's mechanism engaged automatically and flooded the airlock with fresh air. Smith pulled her helmet off the moment the pressure stabilized. Her breathing gradually returned to normal. “Yes, take up a mining post, they said. It’ll be boring. Easy commission, they said! Fakusa dekar!”
I helped Tseaton with his helmet before shedding mine. "How are we looking, Doctor?"
He shuffled over to the door leading into the hangar. "An extra snag, to do being perhaps.”
I stepped beside him and looked through the window. "What do you mean—? Oh." Stone structures like the ruins lined the back wall, varying in size, spread out across the hangar floor in fractals. "I'm guessing those weren't there before."
"Affirmative." Tseaton pressed his glove against the glass and smiled. "The present possessive appearance suggests growth, manifestation."
"Like crystals." I turned my attention to the shuttles. "Is it safe to go in there?"
He tapped on the control panel and brought up the atmospheric readout. "It is to be possessing, to do appearance set on normalcy. Best suggestion, to be doing, ruins contact avoid."
“You don't have to tell me twice." I turned the handle and pulled open the door. Stale air filled my nose, but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary about it. "Alright, let's get to work." Tseaton and Smith shed their suits, and I packed mine up before we entered the hangar.
Gathering the rations and supplies proved easy. Checks and repairs on our chosen shuttle proved more challenging. I'd adapted to working on different types of spacecraft, but this model was newer than all the others I had seen. The language barrier and constant use of my translator to figure out each proprietary part added to my frustration. Thankfully Tseaton stepped in and tasked me with running his newly finished program to override the lock on the hangar doors. I graciously accepted the offer.
The process was as simple as hooking up the tablet to the control room's main computer, but something felt off. It worked well and fast. Too fast. Curiosity gripped me once more, so I opened up Tseaton's program and scrolled through the lines of code. My knees nearly buckled; I felt flushed and found the nearest seat to fall into. I didn't believe it. Maybe it meant nothing, and I was just jumping to conclusions. Though, there was a way to find out.
I returned to the shuttle with Tseaton's tablet clutched to my chest. "Is the shuttle coming along nicely?"
Tseaton finished ratcheting down one of the exterior panels. "Affirmative."
“All the supplies secure?”
“Affirmative, Smith to do finishing being up.”
"Lucky us." I noticed Smith peeking around from the other side. "Lucky too, I guess that I investigated your distress call."
"Affirmative." His face went stoic before his translator finished the word.
"What distress call?" Smith demanded, leveling her rifle at Tseaton's head.
"Smith, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe when total lockdown is active, all communications are shut down. Right?"
"That's correct."
"You see, I found a distress signal, but I never told either of you about it. The only other person who could have known is the one who set it up.” I opened up Tseaton’s program and showed Smith the tablet. “This is a dummy program with the override codes embedded in it.”
Smith grimaced, baring her teeth at her target. “You had them the whole time!? You could have overridden everything yourself if you wanted.”
I rested against the shuttle’s wing. “I’m guessing these are only good for making it to the hub. But that doesn't do him any good without a ship. My craft."
Tseaton rolled his crimson eyes. "To do being foolish, don't. Xandian mongrel to do sewing deceptive seeds. You how be to know trust. Anger. Violence. Infection symptoms.”
I stood beside Smith. "Deflection won't save you, and never call the man that caught you a fool. It's pathetic."
A grin teased the corners of his face. "To do lost, already, having you. As Earthmen to do be saying, five steps ahead. Small battle being won." He looked at Smith. "Not, war bigger."
"Oh, God." It slipped from my mouth. "You want to use the virus as a bioweapon on the Xandians."
Tseaton shook his head. "More." He rushed to the airlock and opened the outer doors.
"Stop!"
Smith cocked her rifle. "Don't worry John, I got a bead on him."
The infected outside shuffled into the airlock and began pounding on the inner door. Tseaton's hand hovered over the controls. "Immune being, my kind. Assured, over system, victory.”
I drew the flame thrower's wand from my hip, hit the ignition, and doused him with the blazing fuel. It soaked into his clothes, lighting him up like a bonfire. I advanced close enough to kick him from the door and lay more flames over his frying corpse. My heart panged at his screams. Survival won my instincts, but I didn’t believe he deserved to die.
I turned to look at Smith, who lowered her rifle. “Sorry, I-. I couldn’t.”
“It’s okay.” I watched as stems sprouted from Tseaton’s eyes, flowering into scarlet caps and releasing spores, but the flames turned them to embers and soon ash.
A knock at the door hatch tore me from the dying heat of Tseaton's personal pyre. I recognized the face in the window. It was the same infected insectoid man that grinned my way. I ordered Smith into the shuttle before I approached the controls and activated the intercom.
"What are you?”
The insectoid man's mandibles split open, spilling crystallized saliva and blood. Its twitchy grin of spiny teeth fluttered with excitement. Around his neck, I saw it - an amulet bearing the triple iris eye. Segmented fingers brushed over it, and sound cracked through the intercom despite the vacuum of space.
"We are."
I switched off the intercom and turned my back. Somehow the speaker still screeched, but I ignored it and boarded the shuttle. I said nothing to Smith, started up the flight controls, and took us through the shuttle airlock. The whole hangar shook in our departure. The rear monitors showed that more of the hangar had been consumed by the fractal structures.
We took off and headed for the hub atop the dead elevator. Tseaton's words hung over me, burrowing into my mind. Five steps ahead, I thought, what did he mean? I shrugged it off as I docked the shuttle, burning up nearly all the fuel in the process to get a manual lock. Smith helped me line it up and unload most of the provisions.
When she began to pine for home, my heart sank.
"I can't wait to see my folks. As soon as we get there, I'll have to introduce you. My mother makes the best gharjon pie. It's to die for."
"Sounds delicious. Come on. Grab that last crate, and we can get there sooner." I waited till she was in the back of the shuttle before I took her rifle from where she left it and sealed the door on my way out, locking it.
"John? What's this? Is this a joke." Her nervous voice chuckled over the intercom. "Come on, open up so we can leave and ditch this place."
"I'm sorry, Smith." I stared at the video feed of her on the wall, her blue eyes stained by splotches of red. Tseaton got to her, planted his spores when she slept. "But, you're not the real Smith anymore, are you? Because, the real Smith would have stuck to the quarantine plan."
Her lips puckered. "You are a fool. Meddling in affairs you don't understand. You must let me out."
"I'm overriding the controls of this bay and the shuttle. Effective immediately, this will be your prison cell." I turned off the video feed, but the audio still came through.
That was a preview of Zombie! Patient Zero. To read the rest purchase the book.
