Chapter Twenty-Eight

“MOTHER—” I CLAMPED down on the last part of the word before it escaped my mouth. I grunted instead as the panel I’d been prying from the wall slipped, clattering down to land with special emphasis on my toes.

“You okay?” Kayleigh asked.

“Yeah. Damned panel didn’t want to come out. Until it did, and got my foot in the process.”

“Well, be careful. You never know what’s behind these things.”

That much was certainly true. We were all still reeling from the revelation that our mission hadn’t just gone awry because of damage to the ship but because some portion of the crew—the people we’d worked and trained beside day after day, month after month—had descended into cannibalism and murder. Caspersen decided we needed to make a thorough sweep of the ship for supplies, restock anything we could, and figure out what we were going to do next.

Our position, if we were honest with ourselves, was not a great one. The original crew had fallen to madness and murder—either some or all of them. Now we, a handful of Johnny-come-latelies from the original voyage, had stumbled blindly into the scene. We had no idea what kind of world we’d woken up into. We had no idea if the cannibal descendants of the crew had preserved any knowledge of their ancestors.

But none of it mattered. Their ancestors had turned on the rest of the crew and devoured them. We harbored no delusion that anything would compel decency from their descendants. Joint purpose, camaraderie, even shared circumstance had not stayed the hands of the first cannibals. What would persuade their heirs toward anything resembling humanity?

Fire and steel. The oldest, worst, and most consistent tool in the human arsenal.

From what we’d seen of our cohabitants of Kepler-186f, mercy and compassion were relics of the past, like the Genesis II. Like us. But these cannibals retained all the same vulnerabilities, the same fear of death, as men from our own era.

So here we were, searching for fire and steel. Caspersen had theorized there were probably items of use stashed behind the pod walls. “I’m sure we weren’t the only ones to think of it,” she’d said. “And some of it might still be there.”

Which was what we were doing at the moment—pulling the pods apart and searching every inch for anything of use.

Many of the pods had been empty from the beginning or long since picked clean. But we’d made a surprising number of finds. Much of it had been personal mementos. We found photographs from happier times and images of crew members’ family that had passed prior to the voyage. We stumbled across other artifacts, too, from jewelry to religious texts. In one of the civilian pods, we found an old, handwritten notebook full of recipes. In another, someone had stashed a pile of adult magazines.

But among all the evidence of humanity’s less destructive tendencies, we found what we were looking for: weapons and supplies. Most of it had been stored in the same lockers in which we’d transported our own contraband, preserving it in its long journey across deep space—and inadvertently saving it for our use. The few items we found without any such protection had long since shriveled or decayed past the point of use or, in some cases, even recognition.

The lockers, however, provided us with a decent set of weapons and ammunition, a handful of medical supplies, and even some stolen MREs. Strange as it was, in the midst of such dire prospects as ours, our little haul cheered us rather more than it probably should have.

For my part, I threw myself into my work with gusto to avoid thinking too long on what came next, when our supply run finished. I’d been paired with Kayleigh to search a section of the upper hall. The rest of the crew had been similarly divided and a set of watchmen assigned to the gun. I was tasked with removing the panels, and she with retrieving anything of value.

We’d discovered a few boxes of ammo and two pistols so far. For all its stubbornness, however, the latest panel hid no great finds.

“Looks like you suffered for nothing,” Kayleigh declared after examining the empty space.

I grunted and started fitting the panel back into place. “All right, we’re done in this room, then. As soon as I get this damned thing back.”

She smiled at me. “You need any help?”

“I got it. Just one second. This…piece…of…shit…isn’t cooperating,” I said between grunts.

She gave me a moment, then asked, “You sure?”

“I got it,” I lied. I didn’t, but I was not about to let a piece of wall paneling defeat me either. “I—” I broke off suddenly, dropping the panel a second time as a short burst of gunfire tore through the air.

“Fuck. It’s the M60,” I said as another followed the first, and shouting came from down the hall. Which meant only one thing. We were under attack. “Quick, we need to get back to base.”

Kayleigh needed no prodding; she started moving for the door almost before I’d finished the sentence. We burst into the hall, Cohen and the professor right behind us, with more footsteps down the hall as the others fell in line. The bursts of gunfire came pretty steadily now. We all ran for the gun.

Granges and Connor had been stationed there, and Connor was firing. The far end of the hall, where sunlight used to stream in, seemed to have been blocked up. It took a moment to figure out why, but the nearer we got, the clearer the reason became—a fast-moving wall of bodies was descending on us from the entrance.

Caspersen reached the gun before we did. “Fucking cannibals.” Throwing a quick glance around to ascertain where everyone was, she started barking orders. “Johnson, get the civilians inside, now. The rest of you, take up a position and kill these sons of bitches.”

I’d just turned to follow the directive when she caught up my arm.

“Give them guns, make sure they know what to do if they get past us. And Nikkole? Make sure they know that no matter what happens, they should not let themselves be taken alive. You understand?”

I nodded. If the irregularity of her addressing me by my first name hadn’t already braced me for something bad, the grim tone would have done the trick. Still, this was about as bad as it got. I gritted my teeth and started giving orders. “All right, everyone, get inside, get inside!”

The civilians ran past me. Kayleigh. Carter. Madison. I checked the names off, one by one, in my mind. When they were all in the storage room, I followed. After shutting the door against the sound of gunfire, the short bursts of machinegun fire, and the constant string of rifle shots, I addressed them. “All right, listen up. Any one hurt?”

This was the wrong question to lead with because everyone ignored it, instead demanding reassurances about our situation. Reassurances that I, unfortunately, could not give. “Calm down. Hey, listen up. People.”

Kayleigh and Kim joined in my efforts to quiet the crowd, and in a moment, we’d restored order.

“Listen,” I said, “we’ve got the guns, all right? We’ve got the M60. We’re going to do everything we can to keep those motherfuckers out of here, and with the weapon power we have, we’re probably going to be successful. But”—I tried to exude a calming confidence—“there’s a lot of them. So we want you to be armed.” A murmur rose from the crowd, indicating that my efforts hadn’t been quite as successful as I would have liked. “Come on; you guys all know how to use a gun. They covered this in basic training.”

“Yeah, but…not to fight,” Rodgers protested.

“We’re not expecting you to fight. Just, take a gun, make sure it’s loaded, keep the safety on. Don’t shoot each other. Hopefully, you’ll be able to turn ’em in without having to fire a shot. But if things go south for us out there, would you rather be armed or not?”

Heads started nodding.

“Definitely,” Kayleigh agreed.

“Already am.” The professor scoffed. “Just let those cannibal fucks come near me.”

“I will take a gun too.” Dr. Kim nodded.

One by one, the rest of the voices joined in.

“Good. Now, you know how to shoot. If it comes to it, it’s going to be close quarters. Chances are you’re going to be looking them in the eyes when you pull the trigger. Don’t you hesitate; you understand? You hesitate, you will die. Because they will not be hesitating. We’re a meal to them. You might see a man, but they’re going to see dinner. They’re not going to hesitate to kill.”

“Neither will I,” the professor assured, waving his pistol over his head.

“Good. In the meantime, keep the safeties on. And one other thing.” I hesitated. For a full two or three seconds, I heard nothing but the gunfire beyond. “Look, I don’t know how to say this any differently, so I’m just going to say it. If it comes to it—and I promise you, it will be over our dead bodies—but if it comes to it, and they get in here…make sure you save at least one round. You don’t want to be taken alive by these guys.”

I had expected protests or a wave of panic at this. I got neither. They nodded again, slowly. The thought, then, had occurred to them as well.

“All right, I’m going back out there. You know where the guns are; you know where the ammo is. Keep the door shut. And if it sounds like they’re winning, you lock it, you understand?”

And with that, I left. Keeping low so my head didn’t rise above the barriers we’d erected, I crawled toward the rest of the group. Caspersen had taken the M60, and Matt was acting as gunner’s assistant. Everyone else had taken up a position and was raining hell on the cannibals.

I took a spot beside Connor. We’d spread out along the corridor, angled so as to situate ourselves as much behind cover as possible while still providing a vantage point from which to shoot. The Keplerites poured in, packing the hall with bodies. Caspersen was doing her best to keep them back, and we were picking off anyone who managed to get too close.

The fact was, there were a damned lot of them. Their weapons couldn’t match our bullets, but the sheer force of numbers they had scared the hell out of me. Already, great piles of bodies amassed in spots here and there, and still, they came as if they feared nothing.

Whatever had happened in the interim since we’d met that first party of raiders, they’d steeled themselves to face gunfire. These men weren’t running away. They didn’t flinch at the sound or hesitate as their men went down. They seemed in a race to meet death, leaping over the downed bodies of their comrades in their eagerness to get to us.

They had their darts with them as well, but these quills hadn’t been coated in the dark substance that tipped their sleep darts. Rather, they carried a bright yellow tip. I guessed the difference had nothing to do with aesthetics. I guessed the sleep these darts would bring would be of a permanent kind. Still, behind our fortifications, we remained relatively safe. Most of the quills bounced off the barriers, and the few that made it past landed harmlessly in the empty hall.

I fired as fast as I could find targets. I think we all did. Line after line of leather and fur–clad bodies fell, just to make room for another wave, each pressing a little closer than the previous had gotten.

Somewhere in the midst of this, it occurred to me there seemed to be a haze in the air. The distant streams of sunlight from the open end of the ship—what could get past the invading horde—had dimmed. The clear midmorning light had gone gray and grim.

I paused to reload. When I glanced up again, the wall had ebbed closer yet, and for a moment, I had to focus on the new targets. I almost forgot about this new development.

A spear flew past Connor and me, coming dangerously close to the pair of us. “Fuck,” she said, putting a bullet between the eyes of the thrower.

He’d had a good arm—few would have been able to chuck a spear that far. But it was more than a little worrying that we were now within range of these projectiles.

And then the smell hit me. “Smoke.” It was faint, a light, acrid tinge to the air, and it burned my eyes. But it explained the sudden haziness and how the hall had gone dark.

“What?” Connor asked without missing a shot.

“There’s smoke in the air.”

The observation was a little too late to be particularly helpful though. Several rows of cannibals dropped suddenly and deliberately, not because they’d been shot but to make room for the figures behind them.

And these—men? They seemed not men but ghouls that had taken the form of men. Emerging from a cloud of billowing smoke, three large, humanoid shapes stepped into view carrying smoking torches behind them. They were, at first glance, naked from head to toe. As near as I could tell, they were human beings. But they seemed at the same time not human, as if I gazed into the face of a human puppet or some sort of humanoid ghost or possessed figure. As if the eyes that stared back at me were of some otherworldly demon.

The eyes were alive, full of vigor and hate. But the skin of the face hung almost like a mask, loose in places where it should have been taut, without evidence of muscular activity despite movement.

I wasn’t, as a rule, a superstitious woman, but at the sight of that trio, a chill settled in me to my very core. I couldn’t articulate why, but I was deeply, profoundly shaken as I watched those soulless faces.

It took a moment of further observation to understand. The duality I’d seen in their faces carried over to the rest of their bodies. One in particular, the rightmost warrior, caught my eye for the sheer grotesqueness of his form. His great chest seemed stretched, and the movement of his overall body seemed at odds with the movement of his flesh. Again, I felt as if I was watching a form possessed, driven by a will other than its own. A puppet. I had the impression this vacant creature before me was but a performer’s mask, hiding the true monster below.

And then I understood. They were not naked at all. These men—these monsters—wore the skin of other men like clothing. The eyes that seemed out of place, the expressionless faces, the look of an outer form that didn’t quite fit its body—it all made sense.

Terrible, morbid sense.

I opened fire. I think I was screaming, full of rage and terror. I put two bullets in my monster’s head and saw someone else had blown a hole through his chest. He went down in a cloud of smoke and blood.

I turned to his nearest companion. He was mid-throw, in the process of hurling the smoking bundle he carried at us, when half a dozen bullets ripped into him.

The final skin-walker met a similar fate, but a moment too late. He’d already loosed his smoldering smoke bomb before a well-placed round released both his stolen hide and the monster inside from life.

It landed at the base of Caspersen’s machine gun nest. I was a good distance behind her, but I felt like my eyes had caught fire as the smoke billowed past the barrier. I had no idea what the bombs were made of. But whatever the hell it was, I didn’t wonder that the skin-walkers ran in front of the smoke, with the worst always behind them.

At the same time we were recoiling, the wave of cannibals that dove aside to let the skin-walkers pass suddenly sprang to life. Fighting the tears streaming down my cheeks, I held my ground and tried to aim.

I’d assumed Caspersen and Matt would fall back. It took everything in me to hold my position as the smoke hit me, and they were in the thick of it. But I still heard the ratt-tatt-tatt of machinegun fire and saw her silhouette amidst the billows of smoke.

She wasn’t alone either. Matt—that crazy son of a bitch—was there too. He dove into the thick of the smoke, choking and wheezing over the sound of gunfire. In a minute, he stood, the smoke bomb in hand, and hurled it as far away from the nest as possible.

In the meantime, Caspersen didn’t relent. Neither did the rest of us. For an instant, it looked as if the cannibals might make it past our defenses. But each shot, each burst of machinegun fire, made that less and less likely.

In a minute, the last wave of Keplerites had either turned tail, racing for the exit, or lay dying among their own smoke bombs.

We had won the first round.