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00:08
Ford slipped onto the Remmick with as much stealth as when he’d exited hours earlier. The ship was ghostly in its deserted state, and he found it easy to maneuver through the halls, even with his cargo.
He almost ran into Imari as he approached the fourth pod, but saw her in time to duck into an alcove until she limped past, preoccupied with data on a reader. Once she was down the corridor and out of sight, he resumed his journey to the pod. Ford stowed the zombie in the hydroponics bay, making sure he turned on all the lights and focused them in the thing’s direction. The artificial UV rays would freeze her even more effectively than the sedative they’d provided, according to the accompanying instructions. The plant that had caused all the trouble went into deep stasis during its daytime rotation, when exposed to sunlight for months at a time. The scientists had determined, by whatever means, that sunlight had a similar effect on the zombies. He chuckled at the irony. If only the Remmick had crashed on the day side of the planet, the crew would have been safe. Of course, he’d carefully calculated the trajectory to ensure the opposite happened, since one component of his mission was to ensure no witnesses remained.
Once Adam had secured his cargo, he slipped off the pod to finish the last step of his mission. It was easy enough to rig the airlock not to close, but he experienced another pang of remorse as he did so. It wasn’t disloyal to question how casual HAA was with the lives of others, was it?
Reluctantly, he conceded it was disloyalty to his rank and uniform. Not to mention, to his father. Captain Ford hadn’t shied away from anything requested of him, and Adam was determined to live up to his dad’s legacy. He shoved aside the doubt and completed his sabotage of the main airlock. It wouldn’t be long before zombies flooded the ship. He had picked up a trail of them behind the rover, and it wouldn’t take the creatures much time to catch up, even on foot with their shuffling gaits.
00:21
The sheer number of zombies made Kate’s bowels weak, and she had to clench her buttocks while willing away the unpleasant urge.
“Jesus H. Christ,” said Faber. For a man who rarely cursed, his expletives should have had a shocking effect, but it seemed to barely register with any of them. Kate could see why. Not much else could rattle someone once they found themselves staring down a cluster of mutant freaks at least fifty thick.
“What do you think, Sergeant?”
Faber appeared to mull over her question for a long minute. “There’s no nice way to do it, Commander Daniels. We’re going to have to go through them. They’re blocking the entrance, and I don’t think we can distract these things without bait.”
“Which isn’t acceptable.” Kate checked the charge on her rifle, dismayed to find it below ten-percent. It wouldn’t be long before she had to switch to her sidearm, and then the backup relic of her grandfather’s.
They had sheltered behind a partially erected wall. It had probably been the start of a greenhouse, but the project had been abandoned before completion. The prefab was okay to shield them for the moment, but once the zombies became aware of their presence, the wall wouldn’t do much to hold back a throng of them. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Take out as many as you can until they become aware of us. Once they start heading in our direction, we’re going to meet the fuckers head-on. Duck when you can, and try to avoid direct engagement, but keep moving toward the entrance. That is our goal, people.”
“I have a better idea,” said Jen.
Kate wasn’t used to having her orders countermanded, but she bit back the automatic chastisement. “Like what, Dr. Pharr?”
“Bait,” said the scientist with eerie resolve.
“We’ve already ruled that out.” Kate didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence before Jen was on the move, running toward the hoard of zombies. She waved her arms and screamed at them, though that wasn’t too effective because of the E-suit. Still, she caught their attention, and when she veered away from the entrance, the group shuffled after her, their moans carrying to Kate’s ears even through the buffer of her suit. “Damned fool.” It was a crazy, reckless thing to do, but she couldn’t help admiring Jen’s spunk. Not many would have sacrificed themselves for others. She refused to let it be in vain. “Go, everyone. Shoot as you run.”
Kate followed her own advice, aiming and firing on the few zombies still blocking the entrance as she hoofed it for the blast doors. Laser fire lit up the night as they moved toward the entrance, dropping zombies as they went. By some miracle, and Jen’s sacrifice, they reached the blast doors without anyone else being bitten.
Beck Randall went to work on the outdated entry panel as they provided cover. Kate didn’t want to look, but couldn’t resist the compulsion to turn her head in Jen’s direction. Not much of the carnage was visible, but the enthusiastic grunts and moans, coupled with the chewing sounds reverberating through Jen’s mic system, left no doubt they were enjoying their meal of astrobiologist.
“Got it,” said Beck with evident delight. The doors rumbled open with a tired groan, sticking halfway. He gestured the others in, but Kate remained at his side as he tapped the keys. “Well, fuck.”
She arched a brow. “What’s the problem, Beck?”
“It’s stuck, all right. No opening or closing, I’m afraid.”
Kate shrugged. “What difference does it make? I have a feeling there are more than enough ghouls in this building to be a pain in the ass, even if we could close the doors again to keep out the others.”
He nodded, falling into cautious step beside her. The others fanned out, though clearly awaiting direction. “I’ve downloaded the schematics into my E-suit databank, but I’ve memorized the layout. Our best bet for anything useful will be in the generator room, or possibly in the storage hold. Thankfully, they’re both on the same level, just a few meters apart.”
“Which level is that?” asked Joe with a faint tremor.
“The third, of course,” said Beck. “You know it couldn’t be easy.”
“What’s between us and those areas?” asked Delta.
“Ghouls, lots of rooms, and the crew quarters.”
Kate flinched, once again recalling the horror of putting down the zombie child. It chilled her to imagine facing even more of those things, but there was no other option. “Let’s go, everyone.”
The rest of the group fell into a line as they headed down the corridor. Faber took up rear guard position, and Kate made sure she walked beside Delta. Her friend’s ashen complexion and labored breathing offered no hope that she had avoided the infection. “How are you holding up?” she asked in a whisper, to avoid attracting attention of the others.
Delta’s weak smile couldn’t hide her suffering. “Just peachy, Commander.”
They passed several closed doors as they made their way to the lift, and she left them in that state. Kate had no desire to see what the closed doors shielded. As they neared the elevator, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she tensed, preparing for something.
Rounding the corner, they almost walked into a nest of ghouls. She brought up her gun to fire, cursing when it flashed red and shut down after just two shots. As she took the standard-issue sidearm from her holster, taking comfort from its familiar weight, she noticed the others were all down to sidearms too. “Be efficient with your shots,” she snapped at Joe when he missed.
“Yes, ma’am.” His next blast took out the forehead of a female ghoul, along with a chunk of her brain. The rest spattered against the metal wall behind her, along with strands of the sickly green hair that had sprouted tenuously from the zombie’s head.
With a nod of satisfaction, Kate returned to zombie execution, dispatching two more before lowering her weapon as Beck and Faber took out the last of them.
A gargling sound had Kate turning, weapon at the ready. She’d expected another ghoul to have sneaked in behind them through the half-open main door. Instead, she saw a maintenance worker shuffling toward her, still clutching his mop. His features were distorted from mutation, making it impossible to identify anything about the zombie. If not for the name patch on his uniform, telling her his name was Nathan Lyle, she wouldn’t have even known the thing’s gender.
Kate lined up the shot and blew off its head, experiencing a surge of dark glee as the thing fell silently and slumped to the floor. The thrill of savagery at killing the zombie shocked her, and she took several deep breaths to regain control. It wasn’t conducive to their mission to dwell on the thought that the GeneTech employees had once been as human as she, because it would have hindered her ability to deal with the creatures. That didn’t excuse her from feeling remorse and regret at the necessary ending of the zombies’ lives. It rattled her to enjoy killing the things.
Once certain she had regained control, Kate turned back to the others, finding them in a cluster, all awaiting her next orders. “Let’s enter the next level of Hell, people,” she said as she punched the button for the lift.
Amazingly, the equipment still functioned, though she was leery of entering the car for two reasons. The first was mechanical failure, and the second was facing any previous occupants. To her relief, the cab held a lone zombie, which Joe shot and dragged out without her having to say a word.
Almost as one, they boarded the elevator. Kate held her breath as the door slid shut when Beck pressed the “3” button. The elevator rose smoothly, and she exhaled, unwillingly impressed by the quality of the machinery GeneTech had installed. Apparently, they only cut corners when it came to people’s lives, not their equipment.
A sharp screech and a jarring jolt accompanied the snapping cable that interrupted her musing. The elevator slammed to a stop, dangling precariously sideways. The five of them toppled off their feet, sprawling into a tangled heap against one side of the cab. “Fucking figures,” said Kate, once she was capable of breathing again. Heart hammering in her ears, she grasped the rail on the wall and swung herself up to a half-standing, half-leaning position. “Anyone hurt?”
A chorus of negatives greeted her question as each person slowly extracted themselves. The others gained their feet, but Delta just dragged herself into a seated position against the wall. Kate assessed her condition, but didn’t verbalize her concern. What could she do for the doctor? Nothing.
“Where are we?”
“Stuck between the second and third level,” said Beck, after he consulted the reader in his suit. “There aren’t any sensors in the elevator shaft, so I can’t give you an exact reading of what’s wrong with this thing, but here’s an educated guess. We’d better get the fuck off, and soon.”
“Agreed.” Kate looked at the doors, but discarded the idea. Opening the doors would be useless with them hanging between levels. Her gaze lifted upward, to the exit panel, and when she looked down again, she saw Faber staring at it. “Any ideas?”
“We’ll boost you up first, Commander.”
Kate automatically shook her head. “That’s unacceptable.”
He sighed. “You weigh the least, Commander, aside from maybe the doctor, who is in no shape to do much. We’ll get you up there, and then you can find help up the rest of us.”
She mulled over his points, but shook her head. “You have the most upper-body strength of any of us. Let’s put you up there first, so you can lift up Dr. Alvarez, and then the rest of us.”
Faber seemed like he wanted to argue, but held his tongue. “Yes, Commander,” he said with a deep sigh, clearly perturbed. She ignored the trace of insubordination, understanding he didn’t want to be the first out of the deathtrap elevator. It didn’t feel right or honorable to save oneself before comrades.
He was a heavy bastard, she decided, as she, Joe, and Beck worked together to lift Faber the last few feet to the hatch. Her muscles screamed in protest, but she refused to allow her arms to tremble under his weight as Faber balanced on their palms to wrench open the rusty panel. After what seemed like hours, it finally gave with a shriek of tortured metal. With a grunt, Faber hefted himself upward and through the hatch, disappearing from sight. His light wavered through the rectangular hatch, and he cursed quietly under his breath, though the mic magnified the sound for all of them.
“Is everything okay up there, Faber?” asked Kate.
He cursed again before answering. “I think so, Commander. It’s a tight fit with this damned E-suit and dark as night. I’m trying to get situated...” After a pause and shuffling sounds, he said, “Start sending everyone up.”
“Understood.” Kate nodded at Joe. “You’re next, Lt. Douglass.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled himself up the side of the wall as far as he could until running out of handholds and footholds. At that point, Kate and Beck grasped his feet to lift him higher. “Fuck,” muttered Kate. Joe wasn’t as solidly muscular as Sgt. Strong, but he seemed heavier with just two of them lifting him. She almost moaned in relief when Faber grasped his hands and lifted him the last few feet.
Surreptitiously, Kate flexed her shoulders as she turned to Delta. “You’re next, Doctor.”
“No, ma’am.”
With a frown, Kate said, “Excuse me? On your feet, soldier.”
Delta shook her head. “No, Commander,” she said with conviction to match Kate’s. “I’m sick, Kate. Really sick. It won’t be long now, so I’m just going to stay right here and go to sleep.”
Kate wanted to argue with her friend, and she opened her mouth to proffer reasons why Delta’s plan was faulty. After a moment, she closed her mouth with a click, finding no words came. It was Delta’s decision, and the only thing Kate might have done differently in her position was end it quickly, instead of letting the infection run its course to turn her into one of the zombies. “All right, Delta.” She walked over and knelt by her friend, taking her hand in a firm squeeze. “It’s been an honor serving with you, Doctor.”
“I love you, too,” said Delta with a small smile, offering up a feeble squeeze in return before her hand slackened, and she slumped further. “Now get out of here.”
Kate got to her feet and approached the railing. “I’ll go next, Beck. I think you might be able to lift me a little easier than I can lift you.” It killed her to admit that, but there was no time to indulge delusions at the moment. In most situations, she was probably more capable than Beck Randall, but when it came to strength, he still outstripped her by a bit.
The wall was slick, and she dug her fingertips into the metal as deeply as she could while using the railing to launch herself up the wall. Beck’s hands braced her feet when she started to slide down. After a moment of freefall sensation, she reached up and connected with Faber’s hands. The sergeant lifted her, and she joined the others in the small, dark confines, crowding in next to Joe.
“How’re we getting Randall up here, Commander?” asked Joe.
She turned her head to focus her light on Joe’s face, keeping the brunt of illumination from his eyes. “Faber and I will hold your legs as you lean down to lift Beck.”
Joe sighed. “That’s what I thought.” His lips twisted into a dour expression, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he leaned downward, gripping the edges of the hatch until Kate and Faber had solid grips on his legs. His ragged inhalation echoed in their headsets as he slowly eased himself through the opening to grasp Beck’s extended hands. “Up,” he said with a grunt.
“Working on it,” said Faber. Kate didn’t bother to waste the energy to reply. Instead, she focused all her strength on lifting Joe, cursing as she waddled backward in her awkward crouch, struggling to work in conjunction with Faber to lift the men.
A scraping sound of nails against metal was her only warning before a hand clamped around her calf. She yelped and looked down, shining the light on the grayish hand clasped around her leg. The yelp turned to a scream when the head of the thing holding her appeared in the circle of illumination. Its misshapen features didn’t lend well to ready identification of its gender, or even species, but she wasn’t paying much attention to the face. Her gaze didn’t waver from the gaping maw and the jagged yellowing teeth sprouting from it. “Faber, you have to take Lt. Douglass. I have company.”
After a second, she released Joe’s leg and reached for her pistol as the mouth closed around her ankle. “Motherfucker, get off.” Shaking her leg, she fired the sidearm as soon as it cleared her leg, taking off the top of the zombie’s skull. It slumped against her leg, and she scooted backward, frantically examining her suit to see if the thing had bitten her. Relief made her giddy when she saw the suit was still intact, and she said a quick prayer, though she hadn’t set foot in a church since she was nineteen and renounced the Catholicism her parents practiced.
“You okay, Commander?” asked Beck.
Kate nodded, and then cleared her throat to say, “Yeah,” in a gruff voice. She gave in to the luxury of allowing herself to tremble for a moment, knowing the dark shielded the sign of weakness. “Fine.” She sounded more like herself when she next spoke. “Where did that fucking thing come from?”
Faber’s light engulfed the dead ghoul, and she winced at the sight. Its lower body was twisted, spine clearly broken, and one leg turned out at a sickening angle. “I’d guess this guy took a tumble into the shaft either before or during the early stages of infection,” said Faber. “It’s been waiting here for years. Shouldn’t the damned thing have starved by now?”
Beck jumped visibly when Faber’s headlamp focused on him. “Don’t ask me, sergeant. I don’t know how these things continue to exist. Other than a shot in the head, I haven’t seen anything that kills them.”
After a moment of silence, Kate coughed. “Let’s move on. Faber, you take point, and I’ll bring up the rear.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kate waited for them to squeeze by her. As she reoriented her position, she couldn’t help looking down into the elevator to check on her friend. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Delta slumped against the wall, head back, eyes wide open but lifeless. Death had settled on her like a heavy shroud, and she looked peaceful. “You’re going to stay that way, my friend,” said Kate, as she lined up her pistol, sighted Delta’s forehead, and shot one of her oldest friends to ensure she didn’t reanimate into one of the walking dead.
With precise movements, Kate returned the gun to the holster and scuttled forward at a half-crouch without looking back. There was nothing left to look at.
00:42
The crawlspace let out into the third-level corridor, and Kate started when she saw the door across from them was labeled “Command Center.” She got to her feet, stretching her stiff muscles by taking exaggeratedly long steps toward the door.
“The generator and storage areas are this way, Commander,” said Beck, pointing to the left.
“We’re making a detour.” No one argued with her as she tapped on the security pad, unsurprised when the door denied her access. “Deal with this, Beck.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He moved beside her, bending slightly to examine the panel. He made a sound of satisfaction. “This shouldn’t take long.”
While Beck fiddled with the security system, engaging it with his reader, Kate fell back, gripping her pistol. “Be ready for whatever is behind that door.” She expected an onslaught of zombies to come pouring out. If she’d been the commander when this clusterfuck happened, she would have gathered her people in a room vital to the flow of communication, hunkered down, and awaited rescue.
With a series of beeps, the alarm system powered down, and the door opened with a hydraulic hiss. Bracing herself, she waited half a minute for the hoards to pour out from the room, but not one shuffled through the doorway. Finally, Kate eased forward, entering the room low, with her pistol extended, as Faber stepped in behind her, covering her back.
The auxiliary power system had continued to function, and the room was well lit. She looked for signs of movement and saw nothing. Puzzled, Kate stood up fully and walked to the console nearest her. The system was antiquated, but bore some similarity to the current systems ECA used on their ships. After a moment, she was able to orient herself well enough to the controls to figure out how to turn on the system and browse the contents of the mainframe.
The vidscreen still worked, though a large crack down the side obscured some of the documents when she pulled up the work log for the site. Kate browsed the entries, finding nothing out of the ordinary until a few weeks after they started the terraforming. Within days of releasing the TF agent, the workers started acting strangely—growing ill, attacking their compatriots, and dying horrible deaths.
Kate called up Captain John Turrano’s log, going straight for the video files. She opened the last entry, dated March 16, 2209. A handsome man in his mid-forties appeared on the screen, though his disheveled state detracted from his attractiveness. “This place has fallen apart. I’ve received word from GeneTech that they’re sending a rescue crew, but it will be months.” His eyes darted wildly. “I don’t believe them, you know. They won’t come for us, Tiffany. Hobbs assures me they’ll be here, but I don’t believe that bureaucrat. They’ve left us here to die.” He paused for deep breathing before continuing, leaning in closer to the webcam, as though whispering a secret to a real-life companion. “I’m going to be alive when they get here, I swear. I won’t leave you and the kids. So far, I’m not sick, and I’ve locked out everyone. I’ll find a way to survive until rescue comes.” He touched the screen, as if stroking his wife’s face. “I won’t leave you.”
The entry ended, and Kate didn’t know whether to pity the man or be disgusted by his selfishness. The lack of zombies made sense now. He’d shut out everyone, left them to fend for themselves, and had buried himself in the foxhole of the Command Center to await rescue. The commander in her shunned his actions and couldn’t understand a leader who turned his back on those under his protection. The wife in her sympathized with the choices he’d made.
She blinked, trying to clear her mind of Captain John Turrano as she raised the Remmick. “Parks, put me through to Imari.”
“Yes, ma’am.” A hiss of static followed, and then Imari’s voice came through loud and clear.
“Imari, I’m uploading data to our mainframe through the E-suit link. I’ll instruct Parks to archive it, encode it, and send it out as a long-range message for ECA. Make sure it goes to HAA, but most importantly, I want you to send this information to as many news outlets as possible. Make sure David is one of the recipients. His connections at the paper will lend him some credibility, and he’ll know what happened to me, even if it takes several months.”
“Yes, Commander.” Imari hesitated, and then asked, “This is just a contingency plan, isn’t it? Just in case we don’t get off the planet? You haven’t given up finding a way off yet, have you, Kate?”
“No, not yet.” Kate kept her tone firm, though her heart sank. “Speaking of contingency plans, Imari, I want you and Parks to destroy the ship if we don’t get back.”
“Ma’am?”
She heard the confusion in the engineer’s voice, but didn’t take time to explain her reasons. For one, she didn’t have a logical reason for destroying the ship. On a purely emotional level, she couldn’t stand the idea of leaving the Remmick to rot on this death planet if there was no way to get it back into space. “Record this.” She waited a moment to allow Imari time to input the information to record her command. “This is Commander Daniels, authorization two-two-one. Initiate Protocol 174. Confirmed.” Kate’s voice shook when she spoke again. “Archive that and only use it if you have to, Beshiio.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Kate signed off without another word and initiated the data upload. She turned from the console and nodded to the men standing behind her. “Okay, let’s go.”
They all looked devastated, but no one commented on her order to initiate self-destruct if the worst happened. Kate walked forward to join them. Something flashed across her peripheral vision, and she turned just as Captain Turrano lunged at her from a darkened corner. The zombie fell heavily against her, knocking them both down. She put up her hands to push him away, narrowly avoiding the snap of his teeth against her wrist. She pushed against his cheek as they rolled, struggling to keep him away from her carotid artery, and peeled off a chunk of flesh with her fingers. Her knee separated them, and she brought it upward to dislodge the captain. As she heaved him away, his mouth grazed her chest, and she screamed when his teeth clamped onto her, shredding the suit to lodge into her flesh. Faber ripped the thing off her, and Turrano took a gob of her breast with him, chewing with relish as the sergeant tossed him aside.
Tears streamed from her eyes, and she blinked them back, finding it easier to focus on suppressing them instead of allowing herself to acknowledge the fiery agony burning through her left breast. Beck and Joe helped her to her feet, and she clamped a hand against her chest, pressing firmly. “Kill that motherfucker,” she ordered in a thick voice. Faber had already withdrawn his sidearm and had it aimed at the captain. If she hadn’t been so close to bending double from the pain, she would have insisted on having the pleasure herself. It was small compensation to watch the captain’s head disintegrate to nothing when pitted against the laser.
“How are you, Commander?” asked Beck.
“Pissed off.” That was true. She was angry that she’d been bitten. Angry at her loss of focus, that the captain had slipped past her perimeter and succeeded in attacking her, and angry that she would never see her husband again. It had been a likely possibility before the zombie bit her, but now it was a certainty. Even if the others made it home, she wasn’t going to be on the ship. The thought was too awful to bear contemplating, and she forced herself to focus on the moment. “Where is the genny room?”
“Just a few meters down the hall, Commander.”
She slumped into the captain’s chair. “I’m going to sit this one out, men. Scout out what’s available and double time it back here.” They moved quickly to comply, though she sensed their reluctance to leave her alone. She met Faber’s concerned gaze. “I’ll still be here,” she said softly. “I have to know how this ends.” At his nod, she shifted to be more comfortable. “Follow your orders. If you thought I was a bitch before, you don’t want to disobey a commander with only one tit.”
01:07
Much as he hated to leave the commander alone in that room, Faber knew they had to check out the generator and storage rooms, to be certain they were truly fucked. There couldn’t be even a doubt that they had exhausted every means possible to get off this rock. He couldn’t live with himself if they didn’t try everything—though he had a feeling living with himself wouldn’t be an issue for long.
They neared the generator room and found a cluster of four zombies. One reached for Beck, clinging to his sleeve, and Faber shot it with his pistol. Joe and Beck joined him in firing, and soon the zombies were dispatched. Before lowering his sidearm, Faber checked the power indicator, wincing when he saw it was at twelve-percent. The others’ sidearms had to be in similar shape, and he cursed the lack of foresight that led to them leaving serviceable weapons with fallen comrades. “What difference does it make?” he said aloud, bitterly.
“What?” asked Joe, easing into place behind Beck.
“Nothing.” Faber shook his head at the young man, not bothering to voice the rest of his thoughts. It didn’t matter how much ammunition they had, or didn’t have, if there weren’t any compatible parts in this complex. More firepower would just delay the inevitable.
Beck stopped before a door, using his reader to decipher the security system. Faber waited tensely, watching both ends of the corridor for activity. He hoped they had bypassed a good portion of the zombies by skipping the second level, but didn’t think they’d all have been in their quarters when they’d died, or mutated, or whatever they did. Even if they’d transformed in their rooms, the ghouls hadn’t stayed there.
He tensed further when Beck opened the door, and a groan reached them. Faber followed Beck through the doorway, with the young lieutenant bringing up the rear. No offense to Joe, but he’d rather have Kate at his back any day.
The moaning intensified the deeper they went into the room. The generator took up most of the cavernous room, with pipes and wires everywhere. The genny’s quiet hum reverberated through the room as it steadily produced auxiliary power for which the dead planet had no use. It also muffled the sounds of their enemy, which set Faber’s teeth on edge. “What are we looking for, Beck?”
“I don’t know. That’s more Lt. Douglass’s department.”
Joe was concentrating on the machinery around them, as evidenced by the way he craned his neck this way and that. “I’m looking for the guts of this beauty, gentlemen.” He touched a metal pipe with the gentle caress of a lover. “Look at this thing, still powering away almost fifty years after they erected it, all without maintenance.”
“Yeah, it’s a marvel,” said Beck, sounding considerably less impressed than the engineer. “Where are the guts?”
“Follow the pipes, sir.” Joe pointed above them, where a maze of pipes and wires seemed to be leading them into the center of the room.
“And watch for those damned zombies,” said Beck. Faber found himself nodding at the words.
They winded their way through the serpentine maze of the room, encountering a lone zombie here and there. The things shuffled with the speed of snails, even slower in here than they’d been outside. Faber’s mind spun, working on churning out a theory, when a light came on. Literally. They emerged from the pipe corridor into the heart of the room, which radiated light. Not one zombie stood in the area. “I’ll be damned.”
“What, Sergeant Strong?” asked Beck.
“These things don’t like light. It must repel them. Hell, maybe they can’t function in the light. That’s why this room has been mostly clear, and there aren’t any ghouls here in the light.”
Joe was quick to accept the idea, and a wide smile curved his face. “That means we’re safe in here. If we find something useful, I can strip it without having to worry about those things eating me.” His grin broadened. “We could even dig in to this area and wait for rescue.”
Faber and Beck traded a look, and he saw the same grim knowledge reflected in the other man’s eyes. There wouldn’t be a rescue. He didn’t have the heart to sour Joe’s cheerful mood, so he held his tongue and was relieved when Beck did the same.
Within a few minutes, Joe’s optimism had faded somewhat, as he finished examining the schematics of the generator. He’d been lying down to get a better look into the heart of the system and now scooted out and gained his feet. “Not a damned thing of any use, Sergeant.”
Faber nodded, trying to hide his disappointment behind a stoic expression. He wasn’t surprised at the results of the expedition, but his heart ached to know they’d never set foot aboard the Remmick again, let alone Earth. He’d never see Payton again, nor hold his grandbaby.
“There’s still the storage area,” said Beck, as though he’d read Faber’s mind.
“By all means,” said Faber, bringing up the rear as Joe took point, with Beck off to his right. He held no hope that they’d keep a part in storage that wouldn’t benefit their generator, but maybe they’d find something that Joe and Imari could adapt.
Following the schematics downloaded into Beck’s E-suit, they exited the room via a different door, finding themselves on the other side of the corridor. Faber blinked to reacclimatize his eyes to the dim lighting of the auxiliary power in the corridors. Just a few feet ahead, a group of zombies shuffled toward them. Faber wished for something stronger than the headlamp. He noticed, for the first time, that the creatures shied away from the light, but still kept coming, confirming his theory. There was no time to enjoy the proof, as the zombies came closer. Faber shot three before his pistol blinked red and powered down. He dropped it at his feet and took the Desert Eagle Beck had provided from the pocket where he’d secured it. The weapon was larger and clunkier, not firing with the same ease as his sidearm, but it was effective in putting down the dozen or so creatures that swarmed them.
“Fuck,” screamed Joe, causing Faber to turn in his direction in time to see the other man toss aside his sidearm. As he fumbled for something, probably the backup weapon, Beck eliminated the zombie that had been intent on eating the lieutenant. “I left the laser sight turned on,” said Joe, as he brought out his Desert Eagle. “I got so distracted by the generator that I forgot to click it off, and my gun was useless.” He was pale and sweating, clearly realizing how close he’d been to infection. “Careless motherfucker.” The comment was clearly directed toward himself.
“You won’t have to worry about that with these.” Faber shook his weapon with a hint of disdain. “There aren’t any fancy features.”
“All I care is that it fires when I need it.” Joe clutched the gun so hard that Faber saw his knuckles turn white as they progressed down the corridor to the storage room.
Beck took up his customary position at the panel to override the security system, as Joe leaned near the other side, and Faber centered himself a few steps back. He held his breath as Beck entered a string of digits into the reader in his suit, cursed, and tried another set before the door beeped and opened with the familiar hydraulic hiss.
Deep darkness greeted them, and Faber had to fight the instinct to turn and run. “Watch yourselves.”
“I’m already missing the generator room,” said Joe with a chuckle that changed to a scream in a breath. Multiple hands fastened around him, dragging the young man inside the darkness of the room. Beck stumbled backward, and Faber rushed to help him dislodge the hands gripping his suit at the chest and arms. He fired randomly into the room as Joe’s screams grew louder, hurting his ears through the headset.
Beck had almost fallen, but Faber kept him on his feet, and they backed away as a hoard of zombies surged toward them. He entertained thoughts of rescuing Lt. Douglass for half a second, but more zombies poured through the opened door, making the idea impossible. As he accepted the engineer was lost, Joe’s cries faded to nothing, though the nauseating sound of ravenous feeding rose to a crescendo in his ears.
As one, he and Beck turned and ran down the corridor, with dozens of zombies at their heels. They moved slowly, but relentlessly, following Faber and Beck back to the Command Center where they’d left the captain. Beck had to override the security settings again, and Faber fired at the zombies rounding the corner. Several feet still separated them, but he could see their numbers were greater than dozens. At least a hundred zombies crowded the corridor. That must have been where the residents of the compound had holed up when the mutations started. For the pasty forty-some years, those things had waited in the perfect den, ready to be unleashed and feast on anything in their path.
He was on the verge of screaming at Beck to hurry up when the door yielded. They fell inside together, in a heap. Beck pressed a button on his suit, and the door closed with a hydraulic hiss.
01:31
Kate stood up, feet apart, and pistol extended. After a moment, she lowered the gun. “Report, Sergeant Strong.”
“The situation is FUBAR, Commander.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “We found a nest of those things, and the only thing separating us from them is that metal door.”
Kate took the news calmly, though her insides were a seething mass of unreleased vomit. “Where is Lt. Douglass?”
“The zombies got him.” Faber’s voice trembled. “Swear I can still hear the sounds of them devouring the lieutenant in my head, even though Joe’s mic fell silent at some point during our run back here.”
Kate closed her eyes briefly, but didn’t allow a visible reaction otherwise. “Did you find anything we could adapt for the Remmick?”
“No, ma’am.”
She nodded, taking a deep breath. “I see.” Slowly, she eased back into the chair she’d claimed as her own. “Is your backpack nuke still functional, Beck?”
“Yes.”
“I suggest you arm it for the minimum amount of time.” She flinched when something hit the door, but didn’t look away from Beck. “Let’s take as many of those fuckers out with us as we can.”
Faber was already nodding his agreement when Kate looked in his direction. “Yes, ma’am,” he said forcefully.
While Faber assisted Beck with shedding his E-suit, patching the other man into his oxygen supply, Kate linked with the Remmick. “Put me through to Imari, Alex.”
When Imari answered, Kate said, “There’s no way back for us, so it’s time for Plan B.” Her stomach churned, and she didn’t know if it was from the infection overwhelming her, or from the fate awaiting her. “As soon as you launch the pod, initiate the self-destruct program.”
Imari’s voice trembled when she said, “Yes, ma’am.” Her exhalation was audible. “Commander, how is Lt. Douglass?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“I see.” Imari’s soft sigh echoed in Kate’s ears. “Are you sure there isn’t another way?”
“No.” There was more she could have said. Kate could have attempted to verbalize how much she had enjoyed Imari’s friendship. She could even wax poetical about all the things she would miss about life, but that wasn’t her style. Instead, she said, “I’m asking a personal favor of you.”
“What’s that, ma’am?”
Kate had to close her eyes to will away a bout of double vision. “When you get back home, will you look up my husband and deliver a message for me?”
“Of course, Commander.” Her voice was thick with suppressed tears.
Struggling to suppress her own bout of crying, Kate took a couple of deep breaths. “Tell him: ‘I’m sorry, David, and I love you.’”
“Is that all, ma’am?”
Kate nodded, and then realized she had done so. “That’s enough.” She truly hoped it was. David would be lost without her, but there was nothing she could do to fix that. The best she could do was to tell him that she knew she’d made the wrong decision. “Thank you, Imari.”
“You’re welcome. Goodbye, Commander.”
“Goodbye, Chief.” Kate killed the link with the press of a button and returned her attention to Beck and Faber. The backpack nuke drew her gaze, and she eyed it with appreciation. Its compact size belied the incredible blast power of its cold fusion core. It would easily clear a ten-klick radius, taking the majority of those monstrous motherfuckers with it. “How long?”
Beck looked up from the bomb, his expression lacking her appreciation. He looked scared, and she couldn’t blame him. “About two minutes left on the countdown.”
“I was going to retire,” said Faber, as he took a seat on the floor near Kate’s chair. Beck sat on her other side, and it was natural for her to reach for both their hands. “Planned to buy a little place near Payton and get to know her new baby.” He shook his head, his gaze fixed on something Kate couldn’t see. Probably on his vision of the future he would never have now.
“My fiancée and I were going to marry on New Year’s Day,” said Beck. “We’d planned to start a family right away. My father wasn’t around much when I was a kid, but I was going to do things differently.”
“Yeah.” Kate sighed. There were lots of thing she’d do differently if given the opportunity. Melancholy set in, and she brooded away several seconds of the last minutes of her life in bitter contemplation of all that she was losing.
The nuke beeped when the countdown dropped below one minute, pulling her attention back to the device. She watched the numbers descend ever closer to destruction, experiencing a curious blend of satisfaction and anger with the circumstances. It pleased her greatly to be the one to end GeneTech’s horror on this planet, but enraged her to have been the one thrust into this position. “I guess it’s better than becoming one of those things.”
“What?” asked Faber.
“Dying in a nuclear explosion,” clarified Kate. “It’s better than becoming a zombie.” Thank goodness only seconds remained, because she feared there wouldn’t have been much time before her transformation. She was freezing inside, but dripping with sweat, and every cell in her body tingled with cold energy that had no outlet. At the same time, she was on fire, as though the nuclear inferno was inside her. It felt like her entire body was at war with itself, and she would be the loser, regardless of the outcome.
“Absolutely. This is the life,” said Beck with a trace of mockery.
“Thank you, Faber,” said Kate, squeezing his hand as the digits dropped into the teens. “You’ve been an amazing friend over the years.”
“Thanks, Kate.” He squeezed her hand in return.
She managed a small smile for Beck. “I was wrong about you.”
He shook his head. “No, not really. I could have stopped this.”
“No. This conspiracy was beyond all of us.” Kate fell into silence as the digital display read nine seconds. She clutched their hands, finding Beck’s presence almost as comforting as Faber’s, as though she’d known and trusted him for years too. When the display dropped to five, she closed her eyes, picturing David in her mind. She relived their last night of lovemaking, clinging to the bliss he’d given her. “I love you, David,” she whispered, just as a bright light burst from the backpack, burning out her eyes behind her closed lids. Intense pain consumed her, but she clung to David’s face in her mind as the life left her.
01:36
Imari listened to the silence for a long moment, not quite able to grasp that the capable woman she knew was probably dead by now. It was unthinkable that Kate had found something more formidable than she was, that it was impossible for the commander to find a way back to the ship.
It took a moment to marshal her emotions and suppress her grief. When she thought she’d regained control, Imari pressed the button to page Alex. “Ensign, we have...” She broke off, clearing her throat in an attempt to shed the remaining huskiness. When next she spoke, she sounded clearer. “We have orders to launch the pod and get off this rock.”
“What about the commander and the others, Chief?”
The note of fear in the young man’s voice nearly undid her, forcing her to close her eyes and take several deep breaths before she could continue. “They didn’t make it, Ensign.”
“I see.” He sounded on the verge of tears.
“Contact Lt. Carlyn and tell him to meet us at pod four. Double-time it, huh?”
“Yes, Chief.”
When he signed off, Imari returned to her work at the computer, finishing the download and compilation of data transmitted from the control room of the compound. She downloaded a backup copy to her reader, and then initiated a communiqué for ECA HQ. It would take roughly six months to arrive at Earth without the ansible, and she hoped they were back home long before the message reached its destination. Still, she had to plan for the worst and assume they wouldn’t make it either.
Which reminded her that she had two more chores before heading to the pod. Imari opened the personal files of Kate, using the commander’s own command authorization recorded for the self-destruct protocol. She had just obtained the contact information for David Daniels when Alex beeped her. “Yes?” she asked, while composing the commander’s message, word-for-word.
“I’m showing a nuclear blast, Chief, in the vicinity of the GeneTech compound. Are the sensors malfunctioning?”
“No. Just head for the pod, Ensign Parks.” Imari pressed the button to end the conversation and finished up the message to Kate’s husband. After sending it, she initiated her last order from the commander. “Computer, initiate Protocol 174.” Kate had picked a good one. That protocol allowed for twenty minutes between initiation and destruction. She recalled the commander’s voice authorization, playing it for the computer, and then adding, “Authorization Beshiio, eight-seven-four. Confirmed.”
Almost to the second that she finished starting the protocol, Parks paged her again. “What is it this time, Ensign?”
“I can’t raise Lt. Carlyn, Chief.”
Imari frowned. “Where was he last time he reported in?”
“He was in his quarters.”
“All right. You head toward the pod, and I’ll check in on Lt. Carlyn, since I’m closer.” Imari used the makeshift cane to maneuver away from the console, limping her way out of Engineering, to the corridor. It seemed to take forever with her injured leg to make her way to the crew quarters, but it was still faster to go herself than send Alex. At this point, she was all about speed, wanting to get off this death planet before something else went wrong.
As she rounded the corner, Imari realized things had gone terribly wrong already. Rob was running toward her, but not quickly enough to escape the hoard of zombies behind him. She gasped when he reached for her, just inches away, only to have the ghouls draw him back into their clutches before she could even hope to reach his hand.
They wasted no time in tearing him apart. Amid his screams, blood splashed over the crowd, further inflaming their hunger. She screamed when droplets spattered her face, but couldn’t even find the ability to cry out when chunks of his flesh hit her uniform with a wet thud and oozed to the floor. She clapped her hand over her mouth to suppress the urge to vomit and spun awkwardly, doing her best to escape the zombies before they became too aware of her presence.
The injury made movement painfully slow, and she knew she couldn’t be very far ahead of those monsters. Imari tried to raise Alex on the intercom as she hobbled toward the pod bays, but there was no answer. It didn’t take much imagination to infer what had happened to the young ensign. No doubt, he had met a similar fate to the pilot’s.
Her mind took a purely selfish turn, and she was thankful the pods were fairly easily to navigate, even for someone who didn’t have pilot training. It was a relief to enter the pod bay, but the emotion was short-lived. As soon as she tried to close the bay doors and got an error message, her heart sunk into her stomach. When she’d left less than an hour ago, the doors had been fine. Had the saboteur returned?
A terrible possibility occurred to her, giving her a little bump of speed in her step. How could she have so blindly trusted the ship’s security system? She had already figure out that Adam had only superficially disabled the last pod in order to still have a way to escape the planet. From the evidence accumulating—the zombies mysteriously aboard the ship, the disabled alarm system that should have alerted them as soon as the intruders boarded, and now the jammed pod bay doors—he was already back on the Remmick. Why hadn’t she posted a guard, instead of relying on ship sensors? She only prayed he hadn’t taken the last pod yet.
The prayer died a natural death before completion when she came to bay four and found it empty. “Oh, God.” It took every ounce of will power not to sink to the floor into a sobbing heap. She forced herself to keep going to the console nearest the pod system. Calling up the navigation system, she saw the pod hadn’t made it too far from Primos yet. Maybe she could still persuade him to come back for her.
Holding no hope that she could succeed in convincing him, Imari paged Pod Four, surprised when Adam’s face filled the console screen a moment later. He seemed equally surprised to see her. “You’re still alive?”
“No thanks to you.” The bitterness lacing her tone wasn’t going to win her any points, but she couldn’t seem to rein it in. “Who did you think was calling the pod?”
He shrugged. “I had no idea. I guessed maybe one of the creatures had accidentally triggered the intercom.”
It killed her to ask, but she gritted her teeth and made herself. “Will you please come back for me? I don’t want to die here.”
His expression remained aloof. “I have my orders, Imari, and they don’t include bringing back survivors.”
She flinched at the harsh words. Taking a deep breath, she lowered herself further, playing the one card that might get him to take her off the planet. It meant telling him about the pregnancy, which she had never planned to do, but what other choice was there? She had to exhaust every chance to escape. Self-preservation, and the very awakenings of maternal instinct, demanded no less. “I’m pregnant, Ford.”
He blinked. “What?”
She inhaled and exhaled again, summoning the strength to meet his disbelieving gaze. “Believe me, it wasn’t planned. You’re the last person I’d choose to father my child, but it happened. Can you leave me—us—to die down here?”
“Women don’t get pregnant without planning.” It was obvious he still didn’t believe her. Either that, or he thought she’d deliberately gotten pregnant by him.
“That’s what I thought, but Dr. Alvarez pointed out only abstinence is one hundred percent foolproof, even with all our technology.” She sighed, letting her shoulders fall forward. “Don’t let your child die down here, Adam.”
Ford blanched, looking uncertain. She held her breath, hoping she had gotten through to him. Imari clenched her fists so hard that her nails punctured the flesh of her palms. The small pricks of pain weren’t enough to distract her from the myriad emotions swirling across Adam’s face. Nor could they blot out the sound of the encroaching zombie hoard.
“I can’t come back for you.” He seemed genuinely regretful. “I’m sorry you’re caught up in this, but I have to do what I was ordered to do. Goodbye, Imari.”
She didn’t bother speaking to him as she cut off the transmission before he could. There were lots of things she would have liked to yell at him, but what was the point? Nothing would change the outcome, and he already knew what a bastard he was. The oddest part about it all was that Adam seemed disturbed by his own actions, but not enough to change them.
Imari consulted her personal reader, finding she had only a few minutes until the ship exploded. There was no way off now. Even if she could locate a spare E-suit in one of the disabled pods and exit through pod four’s empty airlock, where would she go? Kate’s self-sacrifice had eliminated a lot of the monstrous creatures, but there had to be more out there. No one was coming to rescue her. She could guarantee that Adam wouldn’t report any survivors when debriefed. Even if he did, HAA would do their best to bury that information.
Her options stunk, but it seemed moderately better to die via a fiery blast than to be torn apart by those things. She just had to evade the zombies until the timer counted down to zero. There weren’t many options in the vicinity, but the access panel was just a few feet away. She approached it, opening the panel with ease, thanks to the maintenance Joe had performed on the entire ship routinely, as part of his duties. “Thank you, Joe,” she whispered as she crouched to fit herself inside the tight space. Without the cumbersome injury and anti-grav generator, she could have squeezed into the opening faster but somehow, she contorted her body to fit into the cramped space. Her leg pulsed with agony, and she bit down on her knuckles to hold in the whimpers that threatened to escape.
Time passed interminably, broken only by the scraping/dragging sound of the creatures entering the area. Imari could hear them through the panel, and she wondered if they could hear her breathing. She clamped her hands over her mouth in a futile attempt to muffle her breathing.
As the seconds passed, the confines of the space seemed to constrict around her, growing ever smaller. If she hadn’t had dim lighting from the machinery around her, along with the light from the reader she’d left on to watch the numbers drop toward zero, she would have been a screaming mass of hysteria by now. Her surroundings were eerily like the cargo hold in which her parents had left her long ago to save her life. If she hadn’t had her own impending doom looming over her, she would have fallen into terror-ridden flashbacks. How ironic was it that two of the most pivotal times in her life were both so closely intertwined with hiding in small, dark spaces? Last time, it had saved her life, and this time, it was saving her from the more horrific of two deaths.
Scratching sounds against the outside of the panel made her stomach churn, and she squeezed her hands tighter over her mouth. Those things had found her, but there were less than two minutes left until the Remmick exploded.
The scraping intensified, coupled with moans and growls from the zombies. Tears flowed down Imari’s face, and she made no move to check them. She couldn’t hold back the sobs, but didn’t bother to try. Clearly, those things had detected her presence by some means, and they were determined to pry her out as if she really were a sardine packed into a can.
Either the things had some semblance of reasoning or intelligence, or they were just blindly lucky, because the panel shuddered and started to fall open. Imari made a half-hearted attempt to grab the handle and hold on, but multiple gray, mutated digits appeared around the edges of the panel, jerking it from her hands with no effort. She pressed her back against the opposite wall, ignoring the wires and machinery digging into her skin. She attempted to curl up her legs, but the injured one made it impossible to completely draw into a ball.
Twisted hands clutched her feet, and she screamed, clawing at the smooth walls and coiled wires in an attempt to keep them from pulling her out. From the corner of her eye, she saw the countdown approaching ten seconds. A strange sense of peace suffused her, and she stopped resisting. The zombies extracted her from her hiding space, and she stared up at them with a mixture of horror and fascination as they scuffled and squirmed against each other, all in an effort to get to her. Nails dug into the skin of her injured leg, and she screamed when one of the things peeled off a large gob of flesh, cast and all. Her blood further excited the monsters, and they fell upon her in an orgy of hunger. Multiple assaults left her writhing and screaming from the agony, but it was short lived. She managed to raise her wrist high enough to read the small screen of the personal reader, finding the last three seconds of her life were unimaginably painful. The first rumble of the explosion was pure bliss to her ears, and when the fire came seconds later, burning away everything in its path, she welcomed it like a long lost lover.