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As soon as he stepped onto the floor of the spacecraft’s common area, Casey could see how infested the ship had become in just the few minutes they had been up in the cockpit engaging in the docking procedure. Dinner plate-sized black spiders were speeding across the floor and on top of the table and the counters in the galley.
To his left-hand side, he spotted at least two Moth Monsters. Raising the rifle, he blew both of them away. A couple of spiders were coming after them, but Melissa shot them with her plasma pistol. Acidic green blood was puddling on the floor and creating new holes in it.
“Head for the airlock now!” Lieutenant Fitch ordered.
Casey led the three into the West Wing of the cross-shaped ship. An alien moth was blocking the airlock. It took flight and came after Casey. Before he could raise his rifle, the alien headbutted him. He went down on his back. The moth shrieked and bared its ugly, drool-covered fangs.
Casey tried to fight it off, but it was too big, too strong, and too powerful. As it was raising its right claw to slice Casey open, Melissa aimed for it, point blank, and shot the claw clean off. Some of the green acidic blood spatter landed on Casey’s face.
“Jeeze that’s smarts,” he said.
His left eye was gone. Disintegrated from the highly toxic alien substance. With the injured moth having lost some of its strength, he managed to slide out from under it. That’s when Melissa shot it in the head, decapitating it.
“Alex, open the airlock with your wireless command,” she demanded.
“Opening airlock,” the robot repeated.
The airlock doors opened. Extending her hand to the now injured Casey to help him up off the floor, Melissa gazed into his good eye. As if on cue, they turned and witnessed a corridor floor covered in black spiders that were coming after them. Added to the mix of alien arachnids were maybe a half dozen moth monsters. If the crew didn’t get themselves inside the security of the airlock now, they would be dead in a matter of seconds, their bodies entirely shredded.
“Go now,” Casey insisted.
The three entered the airlock. Within a micro-second of entering the opening, Melissa made a fist and punched the button that closed the sliding doors. You could make out the sound of the moth monsters slamming their thick heads against the metal doors. Their bloodthirsty screams could be heard. The aliens pounded on the doors, and they punched at the keypad.
“I’ll give them this much,” Casey said, as he shot a look at Melissa. “They are tenacious.”
“I guess you would be too if you were trying to colonize someone else’s planet,” she said.
“You really believe they originate from Mars?” Casey asked. The pain from his damaged eye hadn’t yet set in due to shock and the adrenaline being mainlined through his veins.
She nodded.
“That’s why I’m setting a course for the earth,” she said. “As soon we get inside The Expendable, we’re headed for home.” Then, grabbing a space suit off the wall and seating herself on the bench, she slipped off her combat boot and slid her foot inside the suit’s leg. “Come on, Case,” she said. “Suit up. We can’t be sure the oxygen systems are online inside the craft. We need to take every precaution. After I set the course, we need to take a look at that eye of yours.”
“What eye?” he said. “It’s gone. But I have another.”
Casey stood beside Alex and watched her dress. When she had her helmet on and her oxygen pack in place over her shoulders, she gave him another hard look.
“What are you doing, Casey?” she asked, baffled. “You’re not wearing your space suit.”
Casey went to his lover and wrapped his arms around her.
“You’re on your own, Melissa,” he said.
Through the facemask on her helmet, he saw her eyes fill.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “If you stay here, you’ll surely die.”
“Lt. Fitch is absolutely right,” Alex said. “By remaining on The Explorer, your chances of survival are less than zero-point-zero percent, Security Officer Smith.”
“Thanks for the odds, Alex,” Casey said, releasing Melissa. He took hold of her gloved hands. “There’s a reason why I must stay here, babe. I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t. Just know that I love you and maybe, just maybe, one day, we will be reunited.”
Tears were flowing down her face as she looked into his eyes with stunned and heartbreaking disbelief. The alien monsters were pounding on the doors now. Soon they would breach them.
“I will be staying with Security Officer Smith, Lt. Fitch,” Alex added, “if that gives you some solace.”
“You won’t die alone anyway,” she said, her voice trembling and sad.
“Look at it like this,” Casey said. “It’s my job to secure this ship, even if that means it kills me. When I became a Space Force soldier, I swore a sacred oath to defend and protect what’s ours. You don’t abandon the Alamo just because it’s being overrun by the enemy. You stay and fight until your dying breath.”
She nodded then because his explanation made sense. It was the honorable thing to do, and it would be something she could proudly report to her superiors back on earth when she returned to the blue planet in a year’s time.
The pounding was getting worse.
“Come on now, Melissa,” Casey said. “You’ve got to leave now while you have your one and only shot.”
She went to the wall and punched in the code that opened the airlock door. Instead of open space, Casey saw the tube-like airlock that belonged to The Expendable. Melissa took a step toward it, but she hesitated. She turned around.
“I just want to get one more good look at you,” she said. Her tears had returned, more forcefully now.
Casey made his way to the keypad and placed his finger on it.
“I’ll always love you, Melissa,” he said, as he punched in the code that closed the doors and that would release the two docked ships in a matter of seconds.
All he heard was his lover screaming, “Nooooo!” as The Expendable finally detached from The Explorer.
For a long beat, Casey stared at the metal doors, and he felt his good eye fill. He also heard the pounding on the opposite set of doors while the moth monsters would not be denied their entry into the airlock. He also felt the ship change course and begin its journey racing toward the sun.
“Alex,” Casey said. “How long until we reach nine hundred degrees Celsius?”
“Two minutes and counting, sir,” Alex said.
The security officer took a seat on the wall-mounted bench, and he smiled.
“It’s been a good life,” he said. “But I wonder if it will be my last.”
“We only get one life to live, Security Officer Smith,” Alex said. “That is, you only get one life to live if you’re a human being.”
Casey gazed at the badly broken AI robot. The machine truly had no idea that he was operating in the metaverse.
“That’s what you think, pal,” he said.
A few seconds later, the airlock doors burst open, and the alien Moth Monsters entered along with their spider children. Casey felt no fear as the craft entered an area close enough to the sun where the temperature outside the badly damaged vessel was 900C.
“We’ve arrived, Casey,” Alex said. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” Casey said.
The nuclear blast that immediately followed my final words must have been spectacular, thought Casey, as he happily made his way to the white light.
THE END
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