Expendable Heroes, page 16
“What does that mean?” Stephen asked Nina.
“He does that when something happens that he doesn't like.”
“Like, he’s afraid we might leave him?”
She was going to explain more, but at that moment, a harsh screech made Steven’s hair stand on end.
CHAPTER 23
“What the fuck was that?” Luciane called out. She grabbed her laser.
Rollo did the same.
They ran along the tongue of land until they reached the ruins of the alien stone and mud building and took cover behind the pillars.
Gork made a high-pitched undulating sound. His body had gone bright yellow.
Yellow, the colour of fear.
Nina ran to him, grabbed two of his tentacles and dragged him across the smooth floor to a spot where they could shelter in the shade of the overhanging balcony.
They waited.
Deep thrumming sounds came out of the doorway that Gork had left open. The same doorway that led to Nina’s room and Gork’s pond, and that Steven and the others had come of out earlier.
A breeze wafted across the open area and brought a stench of rot and death.
“Urgh, what the fuck is that pong?” Luciane said.
“It’s like someone opened the pits of hell,” Nina said. She was patting Gork, whose body had faded to orange.
“Or Jack farted,” Rollo said.
Steven held his breath, mentally calculating the distance between their position and the ascent craft.
Could they make a run for it?
Maybe, but then again, they would need to start it up, warm the engines, check everything. It would take too long.
“Will you the fuck look at that!” Luciane whispered.
With slow, slapping footsteps, a large creature came out of the door. It was dark in colour, with six long gangly limbs and a small head. It walked on four of its hind legs while waving its front legs in the air. It looked like a giant praying mantis.
Steven noticed the long nails on the forepaws before he noticed anything else. Shining black and at least twice as long as his hand.
“Here’s your were-tigers,” Rollo said.
The creature moved in a way that was reminiscent of a crab and also a lizard, a kind of scuttling shuffle, dragging its abdomen and tail over the ground. Its skin was dark brown and shiny. From a spiky carapace extended six legs, four strong ones like a grasshopper’s that it used to walk and two with fearfully long claws. The creature had a small head with long spiky mandibles and four eyes on stalks: two short ones and two long ones that bobbed as the creature walked. A single eye in the middle of its forehead emitted a beam of light.
Stupidly, all Steven could think about while it came towards them was This doesn’t look like a tiger.
“What do we do now?” Nina asked.
“Fucking shoot,” Luciane said, fear in her voice.
Gork made a soft whimpering sound.
The alien turned its head in their direction. The light beam tracked over the floor. It made soft zapping noises and threw up little eddies of dust. There was a small zoom sound and then a white light beam sliced across the space. It hit the pillar in front of where Nina and Gork were hiding. Sand and bits of stone rained down from the balcony.
“Fuck,” Rollo whispered. “He’s got built-in lasers.”
He raised his gun and aimed.
Luciane said, “Rollo. Hold fire. We only get one chance at this.”
Steven couldn't see Jack, but assumed that he was still inside the craft. He sent a message, but his battery was low and reception poor. He didn’t think Jack received it.
The creature advanced into the open space. It walked slowly because one of its hind legs was bent at a strange angle. The top segment—the one that would hold the muscles or equivalent—displayed a patch of rough growth like it grew hair. The creature dragged this leg through the dirt.
“Look at that, it’s infected,” he whispered.
This was the same stuff that they had seen growing out of of the bodies of Gork’s companions. It was the same stuff that grew in the bodies of the dead scientists.
What was the bet that the disgusting smell came from similarly affected dead aliens in the dark space where this creature had sheltered? That this individual was the last or one of the last left?
This place was a death trap.
The creature crawled and crawled. Its feet slapped on the ground. It dragged itself forward, and then placed its feet further forward. It was slow but determined. Steven wasn’t sure if the lasers would even harm it.
“Did you know these things were here?” Steven asked Nina.
“No idea.” Her eyes were wide. “I’ve never seen them before.”
“Except for the skeleton.”
“That’s been there for a long time.”
“What about those strange sounds at night? Could they have made them? Could they have built this building?”
But no, he didn’t think so, because these creatures didn’t look built for climbing big steps either.
Maybe there had been older aliens even longer ago. And then these ones had replaced them. Then Gork’s kind had arrived, or maybe the people had come first.
Either way, each kind tried to use each other to get out.
Gork’s kind had tried to use the crab-alien’s square-box technology. The crab aliens had tried to use—but destroyed—Gork’s craft. Then Gork had tried to use the ascent craft, but maybe only after other aliens had already tried to use it. And he’d failed because his fellows had died.
And each type of alien had done this because their own technology had failed when it became infested with plants, and eventually all were on the verge of death because none of the groups had enough individuals left to get off the planet.
This place was a graveyard of alien culture. Like a babushka doll, when you peeled off one layer, you found another underneath.
But whatever what was wrong with this crab alien didn’t mean it was no longer dangerous.
It went for the ascent craft in deliberate strides. Both Luciane and Rollo held their lasers aimed at its head.
Luciane mouthed soundlessly, Wait, wait, wait.
Rollo’s hands trembled.
Then the door to the ascent craft opened, and Jack came into the opening. He said something, before realising what was happening. He ducked back and slammed the door. But in that moment, the alien jumped and scuttled across the open space much faster than Steven had thought possible.
Luciane yelled, “Now!”
She and Rollo discharged their weapons at the same time. One charge hit the creature in the shoulder and the other in the back, but it didn't fall. It stopped running and stood swaying for a moment. Then it let out a bone-chilling screech, followed by a couple of deep, resonating thumping sounds that vibrated through the ground and knocked the air from Steven’s lungs. Yes, that was definitely the sound he’d heard reverberate through the building last night.
Then it turned around. With deliberate strides, it now came towards them.
Luciane’s laser was better than Rollo’s. It had already recharged. She shot again, this time hitting the alien in the head, but again, the creature just kept walking.
Rollo yelled and ran to the shelter of the doorway in the structure behind their backs.
The door to the ascent craft opened again. Jack jumped out and ran across the open space, bouncing on his springbladed legs. He was carrying one of the rough lasers Rollo had made.
The next moment a second alien crawled out of the dark opening.
Steven realised that Jack must have seen this earlier.
The second creature was slightly lighter in colour, and the hairy infection had spread across most of its body. Threads of yellow slime dripped from its limbs.
Urgh, the stench.
It couldn’t walk properly, but it dragged itself across the ground at an astonishing pace. Its laser eye burned a path into the ground.
Nina and Gork huddled up together. Neither of them had any means of fighting these violent creatures.
“Come, over here,” Rollo called to Nina.
His shelter spot was more secure than theirs.
Steven helped Nina along. Gork appeared to be frozen in fear. Steven pushed against his soft body until he had pushed Gork into the egg-shaped entrance.
Then he turned on his weapon, and crouched behind the nearest pillar.
He waited.
He could see Jack from his position, on the other side of the open space. Luciane was at his back. Rollo inched along the wall behind him.
Both aliens came closer.
Jack held up his left arm and gestured with his right hand at his ribcage under his raised arm. What did he mean? Shoot the alien in that spot? Shooting at the chest and head had been useless.
“Jack says to aim at the side of the body under the arm,” he whispered to Luciane and Rollo.
Both nodded, their faces grim.
They had one chance.
They waited.
The aliens came closer, and closer.
The putrid scent of disease wafted on the breeze.
A shaft of sunlight speared between the clouds, hitting the alien in the back.
Steven saw what Jack must also have seen: the carapace was thin and let through the light, showing the creature’s internal organs. It was thinnest at the side.
The sun went behind a cloud again.
The creatures came closer, and closer—
“Now!” Luciane yelled.
She sprang up and fired the laser and ducked when the alien returned fire with the laser beam.
Steven ran to the side, took aim at the second, sick, creature and shot it right where he had just seen its organs move.
It froze. It uttered a squeal that echoed over the clearing and made Steven’s ears hurt.
The first creature turned around. It grabbed its mate in its front paws. Luciane fired her laser at its vulnerable spot, but she missed.
The alien turned back. It now carried its mate in its jaws. Trails of yellow slime oozed from the body.
The alien shook the body.
Slime flew outwards.
“Urgh, it stinks!” Rollo said.
Gork whimpered.
A glob of slime fell next to Steven. It bubbled and hissed as it dissolved the stone underneath.
The alien shook and shook and slime flew from its dead companion.
Oh crap.
“We have one chance, right?” he called.
Luciane crouched ready for action. Rollo was waiting for his weapon to charge.
But it was Jack who came running towards them. The alien turned around and Steven, Luciane and Rollo fired at the same time.
At least two, if not all three, shots hit the vulnerable underside of the alien’s body. The creature let out an almighty squeal, and squirmed.
Steven yelled out, “Run!”
He grabbed Nina’s hand. She scrambled to her feet.
They ran. A moment later, an explosion rocked the ground.
A spray of foul slime debris flew out.
“Run to the craft!” Jack yelled. “We’re getting out.”
And behind Jack, Steven could see the reason why Jack had come running in their direction: at least five or six other aliens had crawled out from the entrance. All of them looked sick, but they now knew how dangerous those creatures could still be.
Luciane and Rollo ran.
“Come on, run!” Jack called.
“No, wait! We can’t leave Gork!” Nina said.
Inside the egg-shaped opening in the wall, Gork had flattened himself into a corner. His entire body pulsed with yellow.
Nina pulled his tentacles. “Come on, Gork!”
He didn’t move.
“We’ll have to carry him.” Steven couldn’t see how Gork could run even if he wanted to.
“Oh, fuck,” Luciane said.
“Come on then, help me.”
Steven grabbed hold of two of Gork’s tentacles, and Nina took a couple on the other side.
“Come on, help us!” Steven called.
Luciane wormed herself under the edge of his body.
“Fuck, he’s heavy.”
But with the three of them, they could lift Gork off the ground.
Together, they ran across to where Jack stood at the bottom of the steps.
“Are you serious about bringing him?”
“He’s the reason I’m alive,” Nina said, her eyes defiant.
Jack snorted. “Fuck, we have no time for this. Get in.”
They heaved Gork into the door, and Steven clambered in and shut it.
Jack jumped into the pilot’s seat and buckled himself up while flipping switches. The engines roared into life.
Steven helped Nina drag Gork into an empty seat and put the safety harness on him as well as they could fit.
“All ready?” Jack said.
“Ready, captain.”
“Now hope this baby works as advertised, or we’re all going to be toast.”
He put on his headset. “Ramirez to Marmoset. Mission complete. We’re coming.”
“Look!” Luciane yelled, pointing at the display that showed the clearing.
The aliens outside were flinging globs of slime at the craft. More of the creatures had come out of the opening.
“Come on, get out!” Steven yelled.
With an almighty roar, the craft lifted off the ground.
CHAPTER 24
For an intense period of at least fifteen minutes, no one spoke. The acceleration made that impossible.
Steven held his breath and gripped onto the armrests for dear life, expecting the craft to disintegrate underneath him any moment. The weight of acceleration pressed on his chest, making it impossible for him to lift his head, and look out the window, or even making it impossible to breathe. He might have passed out for a short period of time.
Gork had stopped whimpering a while ago, and when Steven finally managed to lift his head, he saw that the alien’s body had gone limp and colourless. A tiny tentacle was still moving, though, so he had probably just passed out.
But Gork’s technology, the silicone-like putty, globs of which were stuck all over the control panel, worked beautifully. Whatever they did, and however the alien technology worked, it still had to overcome the same laws of physics to lift a massive object off a planet.
The acceleration grew less, and after while, he registered that Jack was talking to somebody.
Unlike the passengers, Jack’s seat had a pressure pod that had stopped him passing out.
“Is the ship responding to us?” Steven asked, his voice hoarse.
“Yes, they are.”
“You sound surprised,” Luciane said, and with one graceful movement, she unbuckled her seatbelt and floated through the cabin. She had clearly done this before.
She grabbed the back of the seat next to Jack, and looked at the screens that faced him.
The arc of the planet showed in bright azure. It looked so beautiful from up here, it was hard to imagine the poisonous despair on the surface.
If Steven closed his eyes, he could still smell the decaying stench of those alien creatures.
Who knew how long they had lived in the darkness of that structure that they probably hadn’t even built. They might have been living op top of the skeletons of yet older creatures. The ones who had built the shelter. A babushka doll of alien cultures.
Steven shuddered.
Jack said, “They say they are on their way to pick us up at the orbital station. Is everyone else all right?”
“Never better,” Rollo said.
“Nina?”
“I’m busy,” she said.
And she was.
She had pushed herself out of her seat and had opened the pack that contained the gelatinous suits for Gork.
A suit hung like a big deflated balloon in the air.
Nina was trying to worm Gork into it.
Some colour had returned to his body, a very dull dark blue.
“He’s cold,” she said. “He has a narrow range of temperature where he’s comfortable.”
Steven helped her get Gork into the suit. They had to loosen his safety harness to get him out of the seat. He almost went floating through the cabin.
The gelatinous suit was hard to handle. The layers stuck to each other. Steven and Nina unceremoniously stuffed Gork’s tentacles into the folds. It was hard work.
When they had the suit about halfway on, Gork made a small sound and a few purple flickers went over his skin.
His tentacles expanded and slid themselves into the suit. It was like watching a balloon inflate.
“Well, that’s certainly a lot easier if he does it himself,” Steven said.
They each grabbed a tentacle and pushed Gork back into the seat. The harness barely held him in place. But Gork was now alert and formed his body around the seat.
“He is happy,” Nina said.
“That’s something at least. I don't know how long he is going to stay happy once we get to the Marmoset, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.” Steven wiped sweat from his forehead and floated to the front of the cabin.
“How are we going?”
“It’s over there.” Jack nodded at the screen.
Steven noticed the bright speck of light floating in space over the curve of the planet.
"What do you think they will do with us?” Luciane said.
“It's hard to tell,” Jack said. “It is the company’s mode of operation to wash its hands off its responsibilities, so I'm finding this treatment a bit odd. I had expected them to have already left this area, so there must be a reason that they’re still here.”
“Money,” Rollo said, his voice dark. “It’s always about money.”
“They gave us their newly developed medicine,” Steven said. “Developing medicine is expensive. They would want to see the results.”
Luciane snorted. “The results are: yes you can go down there and not get sick, but a crapload of aggressive and desperate aliens will be waiting to steal your ship.”
But the true reason that the Marmoset was ready to welcome them back became apparent as soon as they came closer to the station.
