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Nova carried her captain's head at her waist as a reminder of what waited beyond the blast-shield doors. The creatures cleaned it to perfection, leaving a skull acid-eaten and bone white, just as she had found it in the corridor. His body had long gone down the ventilation shaft, spread to the nooks and crannies of the ship and devoured by the enemy. All he left was his head, his off-duty flannel waving on torn metal.
She felt the skull at her side. It was easy work to slip a chain through his eye socket and loop a karabiner to her hip. She didn't know why she did it. It was disgusting, vile. It didn't feel right to leave him.
"Malloy," her comm crackled, "I see your position. Rendezvous through that door."
The voice belonged to the skull at her hip, and the captain who had once lived in it. Still, it chattered through her earpiece, a perfect rendition of his voice. She didn't question it anymore. She had seen too much; she had done too much. It was a trick, but she couldn't be sure what part. They were in her head. But which part was the trick? The voice? The skull at her hip? Hell, the entire corridor, her entire life? Was it all a dream concocted by psychedelic excretions and insect mindplay? She imagined fluids dripping from pincers just beyond the door. The more she imagined them, the more she heard them.
"Roger," Nova said beneath her breath. Her suit hummed as it tried to feed her air and failed. Her breath fogged inside her helmet. The suits were strong, but the bugs were new, their acid untested. It ate through at her waist and splashed over her view from a point-blank kill shot. She still saw the creature slump, fall, crash in a chitinous mess to the floor as she shook and cried. The glass bubbled where its acids sprayed. She could only just smell it, a sign it had made it all the way through. She popped the clasp at the back of her neck and threw the helmet useless to the ground.
The chattering of the corridor intensified and raised her skin into itching gooseflesh. She hefted her rifle and toyed with the magazine.
Her comm crackled in her ear and she smiled. "Captain," she said, voice trailing into a whisper. She didn't know if she was talking to the skull or the comm that led her to that door, through a labyrinth of confused bodies. Only one of them answered.
"Nova," her captain said. "Where are you? Requesting aid." The sounds of battle filtered through the comm in static bursts. Gunfire cracked beyond the door. Nothing was real. Her captain was dead. Her team was dead. She only smiled.
"Did I ever tell you about my brother?" she asked, ignoring the constant sounds of report. "My baby brother, Seth. He was just a kid."
She smiled down at her feed, her rifle, the scorched metal of the floor. Even with tears in her eyes, she smiled.
"He fell," she said. "Earthside. Off one of the big dams that powered the old city. We weren't supposed to be there. I was supposed to be watching him."
The comm crackled like rushing waves. She didn't need to say it. If it was illusion, the bus would only use it. If it was real she was wasting time. Still, the memory washed through her now and she needed to put words to it to explain her actions.
"I leave people, Captain. I abandon friends. I've spent my life letting people down."
Shots fired beyond the door and she stared at it as acid dripped through in tiny rivers. If she ran now she could get away. She could die somewhere else on the ship, stage her final stand anywhere else.
Someone screamed and she clenched her teeth. It wasn't real. They weren't real.
Her tears were. Her guilt was.
Nova rested her right hand on the skull at her side, fingertips burning in the light acid residue.
"No more," she said. "I'm not leaving."
She swiveled her rifle on its shoulder strap and picked up her helmet for whatever protection it was. When she slid it over her head the smell abated, replaced by rushing air as her suit attempted to pressurize. She unhooked the karabiner and set her captain's head on the floor, empty eyes watching the door.
She raised her rifle and hovered her fingers over the door's activation panel.
"See you soon," her comm crackled.
She smiled. "See you soon, Captain."
She opened the door.
***
Originally appeared in Troopers Quarterly.