Red Company: First Strike!, page 20
“Gods,” Dr. Sharaf said, peering through the glass. “I wonder how long he’s been trapped in there.”
Quinn shook his head. “Maybe he can tell us if we let him out, but he sure is acting weirdly.”
Dr. Sharaf frowned at him. “You’d be acting strangely too if you’d been trapped for months in a ship like this.”
“I can only imagine what he’s been eating…” Corporal Tench added.
We all wrinkled our noses in disgust. We watched as Dr. Sharaf’s team began to work. Say what you will about them being nerds, they knew how to operate virtually every control system on the ship.
They quickly sealed off either end of the passageway then raised the temperature and pressure. Eventually, it equalized enough so that Dr. Sharaf instructed us to open the door.
I couldn’t help but notice that Sharaf and her team backed away significantly when she gave this order. What were they worried about? I couldn’t fathom it. Whoever this guy was, I was pretty sure he wasn’t dangerous. He was probably starved and raving mad.
While the repressurization process was going on, we tapped on the glass and the door, making various sounds in an attempt to gain his attention. We hoped maybe we could get him to turn around and face us at the very least.
None of our efforts worked. He continued to stare fixedly at the wall opposite us.
At last, the door opened.
Quinn frowned, looking at the strange man and the even stranger surroundings. “Are those bodies over there?”
Indeed, they were. We hadn’t really been able to see them through the small round portal in the door, but there were a number of bodies strewn around the room. The only one standing was that single man…
Quinn waved for me and Ledbetter to move forward. “You guys found him,” he said, “he’s all yours.”
We moved into the chamber reluctantly. At one time, this had probably been the crew quarters, or perhaps a meeting area for lower deck personnel—but now it was a garbage-strewn mess. There was only debris, a few dead men—and one weird guy standing with his nose in the corner as if he was punishing himself.
I turned on my external speakers and tried to talk to him. “Hey, buddy! Are you okay? We’re here from Borag, another mining rig just like yours. You’ve been rescued, man.”
“Yeah,” Ledbetter said. “Try to act grateful.” He seemed to think this was funny, but I shot him a glance of disapproval.
“Ah, jeez,” Ledbetter said. “Let’s just grab him.” So saying, he marched forward and put a heavy glove on the man’s shoulder.
This caused an unexpected and violent reaction. The man whirled around, facing us. For the first time, I saw his face. I was instantly sorry we’d made the effort to come in here and check up on him.
His face reminded me of the twisted pain we’d seen in the dead man’s face a couple of passages back. Apparently, he wasn’t frozen or dead—but that didn’t make him any happier to meet us.
He whirled around and made a slashing motion with his hands. What was in his hand? What was he holding? At first, it seemed like it must have been a bundle of knives, but no, it wasn’t that. It was a set of long, razor-sharp claws. The lunatic slashed at Ledbetter’s armored chest and drew lines across it.
“What the hell?” Ledbetter said. “Back off, buddy. Stand down, stand down!”
Ledbetter had his gun out, and he was backing away in alarm. I had to admit, I was doing the same.
Lt. Quinn, back at the doorway, was shouting orders at us, but we could barely hear him.
That face. It wasn’t quite human. It was the face of a man who’d already suffered death and was still thinking about it every waking second. It was a face of unrelenting pain.
The man was a rock-rat, that much was easy to see. He was powerfully built, and although he wore a bulky spacesuit, you could still see the muscles bulging and rippling underneath.
A strange, menacing sound was coming out of him as well. I wouldn’t call it a growl, not quite. It was more of a rattling sound, but it sent a sudden chill down my spine in any case.
The man didn’t heed our warnings. He went for Ledbetter again, thrusting this time, stabbing with those long claws. He caught Ledbetter’s leg just above the knee.
To my surprise, that unarmored spot was punctured. Spacesuit fabric is quite tough and multi-layered. Those claws at the end of his fingers must have been extraordinarily sharp to have penetrated it—either that, or he was wielding them with unusual strength.
That was enough for Ledbetter. He unloaded probably ten percent of his battery’s charge, blazing away with his carbine until his attacker was left in a tangled, smoking heap.
There were laser bolt holes, charred and deep, riddling the body. The crewman twitched a bit, but he didn’t get back up again.
Quinn walked up then, putting his hands on his hips. “Outstanding,” he said sarcastically. “Here we find our first survivor in this entire rig, and you go and blow him out of his boots. What have you got to say for yourself, Private?”
Ledbetter turned and displayed the cuts in his spacesuit’s legging. Quinn looked shocked. Stepping forward, he nudged at the corpse and splayed out the curved claws at the fingertips. “That’s really weird,” he said. “Where’d he even get those things?”
“Sir…” Corporal Tench said, “Sir, I think we’ve got a problem!”
Lt. Quinn turned and saw Corporal Tench standing over one of the other bodies. It seemed to be stirring, beginning to squirm on the deck.
“What the fuck?” Quinn said.
“Out, out!” Dr. Sharaf cried from the doorway. “You’ve got to get out of there. The heat of your bodies and the warmth of the air are waking them up.” She gestured wildly, urging us to retreat.
“They’re waking up?” Quinn backed away, noticing more men were beginning to stir and rise onto their hands and knees.
Shock and disbelief transformed into fear as we all realized we were in grave danger. Quinn gave the order to retreat. We quickly ran out into the passageway, not needing any further urging.
As we slammed the door behind us, several former rock-rats from the Teklution crew rushed after us, groping and tearing at the doorway.
Quinn spun around and marched over to Dr. Sharaf, looking as if he was going to grab her and give her a good shaking, but he controlled himself.
“What the hell’s going on in here? What are these things? Zombies? Monsters? Some kind of experiment?”
“None of those things, Lieutenant,” she said. “They are mutations.”
“Teklution mutants? How did you know we’d find something like this? And why didn’t you tell us about it?”
“They are only men,” she said, “men who’ve been exposed to something we don’t quite understand.”
“This is what we flew all the way out here to investigate, isn’t it?” he asked. “And somehow, you knew they’d be here, didn’t you?”
Dr. Sharaf gave a dismissive shrug. “Something killed this ship,” she said. “What did you think we’d discover when we came out here? This ship didn’t malfunction or crash. It was overwhelmed by… something.”
Growling and dissatisfied, Quinn turned back to Ledbetter and inspected his injuries. There was some blood seeping out, but it wasn’t too bad. We patched up the skin and the suit and called him fit to serve.
Lt. Quinn made sure the door we’d found was sealed tightly. “I think we’ve seen enough,” he said. “Something happened to this crew. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t want to know. I’m getting out of here. You can stay behind if you want, Dr. Sharaf.”
She complained bitterly, but in the end, when we marched out of the ship, she followed in our wake. Not even Dr. Sharaf, with all her arrogance, was willing to stay alone and unarmed aboard this strange, haunted vessel.
As we were leaving, Quinn began his report, speaking directly to Captain Hansen herself. He didn’t bother to encrypt the transmissions, so we were able to overhear. I guess that was probably because he was in a hurry to get back to Borag.
“Repeat that last statement, Lt. Quinn,” Hansen ordered when he was midway through his explanation.
“Can you hear me, sir? We encountered something aboard this ship—something strange. Dr. Sharaf claims they’re mutants. We got into an altercation with a few of them. We had to put one down because it attacked Private Ledbetter. But now that we’re exiting the ship, I think that—”
“Let me understand this,” Captain Hansen interrupted him, “and I want you to be perfectly clear, Lieutenant. Did any of your people come into physical contact with these survivors?”
“Yes, ma’am. One of them seemed to have claws of some kind. It slashed at Ledbetter, cutting through his suit. He’s bleeding, but it’s not really a serious injury. We’ve got the suit sealed up again. There’s no oxygen loss, so—”
“Lt. Quinn,” Hansen said, cutting him off again. “This changes everything. Unfortunately, there are protocols in place which I cannot alter, and which I must follow. I’m sure you understand.”
“Protocols? What do you want us to do, sir?”
“Do not leave the vicinity of the Teklution ship. I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but certain precautions must be taken. Do not allow any of your men to leave the area where you broke into the ship. You are all to consider yourselves quarantined.”
“Quarantined?” Quinn echoed. He sounded puzzled. “But sir, we haven’t been exposed to any kind of—”
“Lieutenant, you have your orders. Hansen out.”
“Holy shit,” Ledbetter said. “We might have to stand around out here for a week. God damn it.” He was still grumbling as we headed down the final passageway toward the exit.
Before we left the ship, however, he paused and looked into a side passage. He appeared to be puzzled.
“Hey Starn, come over here,” Ledbetter called out to me.
I walked to where he was standing. “What is it?”
He pointed down at the deck. “Isn’t this where that other guy was? You know, the one I was going to kick before you stopped me?”
Frowning, I eyed the spot. “I think it is…”
“Do you think he got up and ran off?” Ledbetter asked. He was only half-joking.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
Suddenly, there was a commotion at the exit. We raced down the passageway, expecting to see someone who had found the crewman we’d thought was dead. However, as we burst out onto the surface of Eris, we found Lt. Quinn had his arms wrapped around a violently thrashing Dr. Sharaf.
“Let go of me, Lieutenant! I’ll have you up on charges!” she shouted.
“No, Doctor, I’m afraid I can’t do that. We are officially quarantined.”
Dr. Sharaf continued to put up a fight, calling Quinn a fool, but he held onto her. Her two minions looked on, baffled.
As I walked out onto the surface of Eris, I was confused by their reactions and those of Captain Hansen. However, I did note that the two yard dogs we’d left out here had disappeared. There were tracks leading away directly toward Borag’s landing site. They guided my eyes in that direction.
Then, I noticed something important.
“Hey, Lieutenant? I think Borag is lighting up her engines.”
It was true. All of us gawked. We couldn’t believe it.
The big ship had arrived here just a few hours ago, but now she was glowing with new power. She’d redirected her engines downward, and they were gently thrusting. Borag rose vertically another foot or two every second.
A group of people were running toward the ship from the direction of the mine. There must have been another investigatory team out there. We all winced as a number of them were incinerated. Two were moving more slowly than the rest, however. Driven back by the clouds of dust and radiation, they turned away and came in our direction instead.
Spooked a bit by now, some of our marines raised their rifles. But Quinn walked among us, slapping down our weapons. “They’re crewmen from Borag, stand down.”
Two members of the mining crew had escaped the blasting exhaust of Borag. They came trotting toward us, and I recognized them. One was Charlie and the other was the same foreman who’d tried to shock me to death some months ago.
This surprised me until I noticed Charlie was on a leg-chain. Apparently, he’d gotten himself in some further trouble since the last time I’d seen him. He was working with an escort. That must have been what had saved these two, slowing them down when the others had raced to board Borag and were burned to death.
I had to smile, Charlie had the luck of fools and drunks.
“Lieutenant?” the foreman said, “Borag just bugged out on us. Do you know what the hell’s going on, sir?”
Lt. Quinn raised his eyes up toward the spectacular sight of Borag’s belly. Fortunately, we weren’t close enough to be incinerated, but we were still closer than I felt was comfortable.
“I don’t get it,” Quinn said. “She’s actually going to ditch us out here? We’re going to be marooned on this rock forever.”
“Yes, you fool,” Dr. Sharaf said. She’d wriggled loose from his gripping gauntlets while we were distracted by the liftoff. “I should have stopped you from reporting the incident with Private Ledbetter. A direct injury is a classic opportunity for a blood-to-blood transfer. Once you admitted that a man’s suit had been breached, this sequence of events was a foregone conclusion.”
We gaped at her. “You mean to tell me this is all his fault?” Corporal Tench demanded, backhanding Ledbetter’s shoulder.
“Captain Hansen had no choice,” Dr. Sharaf said. “Any unknown pathogen must be isolated, no matter what the cost. She can’t risk her ship—or Earth. There was no other possible outcome but this.”
She pointed a gloved hand at the rising ship. Borag was mile up by now, maybe more. The sight of the great ship leaving us filled everyone with despair.
Chapter 27: The Thing in the Cave
We tried hailing Borag, but she was soon out of range of our suit radios. We didn’t have powerful transmitters that could reach all the way up into space.
Those of us who had been left behind gathered in a dismal circle. We had ten marines, three techs and two rock-rats, one of whom was a shifty criminal. Everyone else was either dead, or riding in orbit right now aboard Borag.
“Charlie?” I said, gripping his shoulder. “Sorry you didn’t make it back to the ship, man.”
Charlie shook his head. Inside his faceplate, I could see him grinning. “Don’t worry about it, Devin. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. But… uh… do you think Captain Hansen will come back for us? Like… someday?”
“I think we’re on our own,” I said.
Charlie was deflated, but he took the news stoically. He was a man who was accustomed to bad breaks.
I checked my oxygen meter. I had about seven hours left in my tanks, provided I didn’t exert myself too much. I noticed just about everyone else was doing the same thing. We were all calculating how long we had to live.
Lt. Quinn took command as he was the highest-ranking officer there, except for possibly Dr. Sharaf. The good doctor was not in any state of mind to be organizing the rationing of the supplies we had. She was too busy delivering recriminations.
“That’s the fool,” she said, pointing a finger in Quinn’s direction. “He’s the one who brought all this upon us. Unless you count that idiot over there,” here she pointed at Ledbetter, who was limping a bit. “He managed to get himself injured inside that ship. He’s contaminated. His carelessness has killed us all.”
“Dr. Sharaf,” Quinn said in a tired voice, “I’d appreciate it if you’d shut up, or at least turn off your transmitter, so the rest of us don’t have to listen to it. Now, as I’m the highest-ranking officer, I’m going to assume command,” he said. “Let’s take stock of what we’ve got. Oxygen, then water, then food, in that order.”
We all began checking our supplies and reporting the information back to Quinn. This at least gave us something to do.
It turned out that we were going to run out of oxygen first, then power. Water and food would come later, but it really didn’t matter whether we ate and drank or not. If you can’t breathe and you’re freezing to death, you’re not too worried about starvation and thirst.
All told, we had about nine hours to live as a group. That was unless we adopted some of Dr. Sharaf’s suggestions.
“A lottery,” she said. “That’s how they do these things in a civilized fashion. A simple lottery. I’ve got a randomizer app here on my tablet. It would be best if we chose immediately who will be first.”
“The first to do what, Dr. Sharaf?” Quinn interrupted.
“Why, sacrifice themselves for the greater good, of course. That’s what,” she snapped. “Naturally, top-level officers, individuals of true merit, should be restricted from the initial lottery. Once most of the lower-deck types have been selected, if no one has returned to us with any sort of rescue package, we can move on to another round of sacrifice. If we begin the process promptly, without whining and arguments, the survivors will double their hours before succumbing.”
“You’re quite mad, aren’t you?” Quinn asked. “No one here is going to kill themselves. If we run out of air and power, we might as well all die as a group.”
“Insanity,” Dr. Sharaf snapped. “Why should all of us perish? If half of us gave up their lives right now, the other half would survive for twice as long. This leaves a reasonable chance for some of us to escape this world.”
“How exactly are we going to escape? We’re approximately 60 AU from Earth. That’s billions of miles.”
“Yes, but I’m not suggesting we flap our arms and fly home,” she said sarcastically. “We’re going to have to avail ourselves of all our resources.”
“What would you suggest?” he asked.
“Well, we have two additional sources of energy and air.” Here, she pointed toward the Teklution ship. “One is the crashed vessel. The second is the anomaly below, the structure you discovered at the bottom of this mine.” Here, she pointed toward the cave mouth.
