An empty casket of a human, a mere toy for scientists seeking the answer. A machine of flesh, a being without life. The virtual interface, lacking the sense of a brain. A being that is neither alive nor dead. Indifference yet sadness. What awaits it beyond the horizon is a question yet to be answered, with only a single lead guiding its path; the taste for blood.
*
"Halcon Squad, docking sequence complete within ten seconds. Stand-by."
The pilot of the
Jannil carefully calibrated the ship so its starboard side could latch onto the
Sinestra's hull. In the vacuum of space, maneuvering in such a small distance was troublesome and highly dangerous, but this pilot knew what he was doing.
It was that impression Lieutenant Tanner had decided to go with regarding the young pilot and he stuck to it. He and Halcon Squad stood at the ready, prepared to switch board the much larger spaceship.
A heavy clunk and an abrupt shake of the ship told him the docking was complete.
"All right Halcons! Let's move!"
His First Sergeant went first, while Tanner and the rest of Halcon followed him into the narrow tunnel created between the
Sinestra and the
Jannil. They were weightless all the way, as the
Jannil was too small to fit its own gravity generator, until they reached a closed hatch on the other side. The First Sergeant took forth his wielding tool and went to work.
Of the little that Tanner knew about this operation, he had established that the
Sinestra had gone offline in the middle of space and that its crew, thought to be injured or otherwise unable to control the ship, needed rescue. That was all that he had been told about the operation and yet he couldn't help to shake the feeling that something was off. This wasn't some ordinary rescue mission, it was something else. The brass was holding something back, but what it was he couldn't figure out. He kept it to himself however; no need to spook the entirety of Halcon squad without certain proof. It was already a high-risk operation; it always was in space.
The First Sergeant shut his tool off, breached the hatch and gave the rest of Halcon a thumbs-up. They started to go into the opening one by one, Tanner being the last to go through.
*
After moving to yet another chamber and closed a functioning hatch behind them, the
Sinestra's gravity control went online. With the sturdy metal under their feet, giving them assurance of the integrity of the ship, they began to move towards the command center. According to the schematics Tanner had uploaded, the command center was in the front of the ship, not far from where they were.
The halls were completely dark, apart from a few lights shuttering on and off. Tanner had already felt something was terribly wrong back in the first chamber, since no one had been there to greet them. He doubted that, even if the crew was severely injured, that nobody would hail them even on their approach. It didn’t make sense.
He gave a signal to Halcon to keep their silence. With another series of hand movements he told them to active their nightvision-mode. A light green illuminated the area Tanner walked through as the nightvision came online and before him two members of Halcon made their way slowly forward, while the rest of the five man squad was behind him. Nothing out of the ordinary revealed itself in the corridor; only an eerie silence and darkness encompassed them.
Murmurs and whispers was a constant annoyance through the squad, but Tanner didn’t tell them to shut up. It kept them on their toes, albeit also slightly distracted.
Reaching the command center only took about five minutes and when they arrived a growing feeling of unpleasantness began to form in their stomachs. The command center was empty, with all its hardware shut off. Not a single light blinked inside the room, compared to the corridors behind them.
Halcon squad, on Tanner's command, began to check if the hardware was still functioning. The result of the search was that nothing was broken, but that the power had been cut off to this particular section. Tanner made a signal to regroup and they did so at the Captain's command chair.
"What in hell happened here?" one of them said, breaking the silence. He was nervous, but still kept his calm.
"I don't know," Tanner said and made a swift sweep around the command center. "It's as if they disappeared into nothing."
"Any transmissions?" another member asked.
"None", was the answer from the squad's communications officer. "It's all silent. However, I can't get into contact with the
Jannil either. Something is blocking us."
The group lowered their voices as they grumbled nervously about the fact.
"I don't like this at all," Tanner mumbled and took out a small device. It was only a decimeter big, with a light blue polish and a single digital screen.
"What's that?"
"An experimental device they gave me before we departured. A motion sensor of sorts." Tanner pressed a in a sequence of numbers and the device sprung to life. A list appeared on its small screen, with names and distances. Two sets of numbers were also visible in the right corner.
"The green number corresponds to how many TSAB members it can detect. If possible it will also list the name and distance to the person, thanks to an ID-tag in their uniforms." Tanner stopped his explanation suddenly.
"What? Is it malfunctioning?" someone asked.
"No... That isn't it." He held the device higher and turned around, but it still showed the same result. "It's odd. I'm not getting any names, just distances and numbers."
"So?"
"So, unless their ID-tags are malfunctioning, it means they are not part of the TSAB." He checked the device again. "And to add, it detects twenty-seven sources. Only five are green and within five meters."
Halcon squad looked at each other and shifted nervously. Tanner noticed the atmosphere was turning sour.
"Don't shit your pants yet boys, we are just getting started. Check your gear and we'll move on. No need to stay here anymore."
As the squad moved out, Tanner put in a new series of codes and activated the audio function. A small, soft blip could now be heard in short waves into all helmets of the squad. Before they asked him what it was, their confused faces being enough of an indicator for a wave of questions, Tanner offered an explanation.
"An indicator of range, of sorts. It only reacts to the red numbers and will speed up if any of them gets closer. Currently they are almost a hundred meters away so the signal is still weak."
They all nodded, accepting the explanation and moved out of the command center. They managed about twenty meters before one of the members, Corporal Sperl, made a startled realization.
"Sir, you said there were twenty-seven sources, right?"
"Yes, so?"
"The crew of the
Sinestra only consisted of twenty-one... and since we are five here..."
He drifted off. The squad members eyed each other with a growing fear. Tanner motioned to the now very active squad to be on the look-out for the intruder and to move forward.
"We have a visitor..." he mumbled and clenched the magi-rifle in his hands, feeling the assurance of cold metal.
The nightvision mode of their goggles provided them with acceptable vision, but it still produced a claustrophobic feeling for some. Private Wingslet was one of them and he was nervously sweeping an empty room with his magi-rifle when the blip in his helmet began to speed up. He, including the whole of Halcon squad, acted accordingly and took up defensive positions.
"Tanner, what's happening? Tell us!" Wingslet said, aiming back and forth down the corridors.
"One of them started moving. It's heading down this path, be on the look-out!" Tanner ordered and raised his own rifle, keeping an eye on the scanner. "Impossible..."
"What is?"
"It's moving too fast. Seventy-five... fifty... forty... this can't be human."
The blipping sound sped up more and more as the subject kept coming closer. Tanner began to grow more nervous, since no noise could be heard throughout the hull. The subject couldn't possibly run that silent.
"Fifteen, ten... five! Be ready!"
The blipping sound wasn't a blip anymore, but had multiplied to a constant shrieking when the subject was zero meters away. Halcon squad looked around in panic to see where the thing was, but nothing showed itself in the dark and silent corridors.
"Where the fuck is it? Come on out!"
"I can't see anything!"
"Shut up, all of you!" Tanner roared and shut off the annoying shriek made by the device. The distance counter still stood on zero when it shut the audio off, but neither he could see anything.
"Sir, does that thing detect only horizontally?"
"No, it scans a whole area unrelated to dimension... wait..."
They stared at each other for a few seconds before they all started looking up. An open vent was directly above them, pitchblack and silent.
"Wingslet, help the Corporal up there," Tanner said.
"W-What? Me?-" the Corporal started to object, but got cut off.
"Yes, I mean bloody you! Now get up there!"
Without another argument, knowing better than to argue as the loyal soldier he really was underneath the scared shell, Corporal Sperl got onto the Private's shoulders, took support against the vent's walls and slowly stretched his legs. The nightvision mood revealed dark spots seemingly coming from a specific direction up inside the vent and he eased himself upwards until his eyes cut above the vent's "floor". An intersection appeared in front of him, separating into four directions.
"What do you see?" Tanner asked. He stood beneath, looking upwards.
"Uh..." Sperl turned his head slowly and searched the vent for anything out of the ordinary. The path going towards the stern was empty and so was the starboard side. "Nothing yet, sir. There are dark spots on the walls that seem to have dried, but I don't know what it is. It's hard to see even with the nightvision- Oh fuck!"
"What, what?"
"There is a whole shitload of this dark stuff, towards the aft. It's like something got dragged through here."
Tanner was suddenly reminded of an old movie involving predator-like aliens. He shook his head to clear it of such nonsense. It wasn't time to mix fantasy with reality now.
Sperl meanwhile made a full circle with his exploration and came up with nothing. The vent was empty, apart from the black, unknown matter covering it.
"Nothing here. I think the device is malfunctioning-"
The floor beneath Wingslet suddenly broke upwards and something latching onto his leg made him shriek. Before anyone understood what was going on, he fell down into the hole and disappeared into the darkness beneath. Sperl fell down and crashed onto the floor while everyone else scrambled to help Wingslet.
"Wingslet!" Tanner stuck his head down into the hole, but the nightvision only revealed a small tunnel underneath. Wingslet was nowhere to be seen. Tanner could only hear an echoed scream at the far end, being abruptly cut off.
"Shit, he's gone!" He flew up on his feet and stowed the device away, clutching the rifle. "We are getting the fuck out of here!"
"What about Wingslet?" Sperl shouted, managing to get back to his feet. The rifle attached to his back came off and he checked to see if it was alright.
"We'll come back for him. I'm not willing to risk the whole team by rushing blindly into the dark. Now let's go-"
Something swooped by his nightvision and he reacted by instinct. The magi-rifle fired its payload in a blaze of light and thunder, and the rest of Halcon squad did the same. The interior of the
Sinestra exploded with light in all directions for a few moments before Tanner ordered a cease fire. Black scorch marks had burrowed into the walls around him, but the creature was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is the little shit, it just swooped past me!" Tanner turned around and flinched from the repulsive sight behind him. The rest of Halcon squad followed him one after one and stared at their now dead comrade who had just stood beside them firing his rifle. His head was the only thing damaged, cleaved in two, with blood slowly pouring out onto the floor. His eyes were wide-open in surprise.
"What... Private Antor, what the fuck..."
"Go, go! Retreat, we are not sticking around a second longer!" Tanner screamed and they burst into a run towards the
Jannil. It was now a fight for survival and Tanner didn't give a damn of who stood in-between.
*
Private Lears, running close behind Sperl and Tanner, hadn't been this afraid in his entire, although short, career. He had never experienced fear such as this. Something that could even get the hardened Tanner shaken was not something he would like to go up against.
As if his bad luck wasn't bad enough, a sudden electronic bug in his nightvision caused his whole vision to blank out suddenly and he staggered in the complete darkness until he ran straight into a wall. He could hear the mixed shouts of Tanner and Sperl, their steps getting further away, leaving him behind.
"Stop! Wait for me! Don't leave me here!" he screamed, but his words didn't reach them. He struggled up from his position and banged his helmet to try and get his nightvision to work again.
"You piece of shit! Work, work!" A soft hum gave him renewed spirit and his vision began to return. A smile of hope painted his face and so he turned around to run in the same direction as the others, since he was staring into the wall he had run into.
The sheer surprise made the scream stop in his throat when he stared into bright red eyes. A small girl with a white dress and snow white hair stood, or rather hung, up-side down from the ceiling above him. Her dress and hair remained on her body as if gravity itself had switched around. Her face was completely indifferent, not with the slightest trace of emotion.
As it was the only thing that had suddenly come into Lears's view, he was unable to move from shock. His jaw hang open and sweat drenched his neck, thoughts racing through his mind telling him he was dreaming. It was too surreal.
The last thing his brain registered was a massive red claw, almost as big as the girl herself, launch towards his head.
*
"Fuck! Sir, we lost Lears!"
Tanner turned around and only now noticed that Lears was missing. He had been so busy saving himself that he had forgotten about the third remaining squad member. He threw a fist into the wall beside him in rage.
"God dammit! What the fuck is going on?!"
"Sir, we're only ten meters from-"
Tanner was staring at Sperl when it happened. He couldn't believe the sheer speed this creature was using. A red-black, blurry cloud flew past them, on the ceiling, and disappeared into an adjacent corridor. Sperl fell quiet, with a red ring beginning to form around his throat.
"Sperl..."
The Corporal clawed at his throat as the blood flooded out from his severed neck and his head began to lean in an awkward angle. He was staring at Tanner all the time, even after the head completely detached from his shoulders and his body fell into a bloody heap. It splashed against the cold floor and a dark pool of blood began to gather around him.
Tanner, by some stroke of luck or simply training, didn't collapse into a panic and instead bit his teeth together and sprinted in the other direction, towards the connected tunnel. It was only him left now on the
Sinestra and with some kind of luck the pilot would still remain on the other ship, ready to extract him.
*
The pilot on-board the
Jannil had stopped his futile attempts to reach Halcon squad. His signal was permanently blocked from an outside source and nothing he did helped. Not even messaging the base was of any use; no response came back and he had started to suspect that it was the
Sinestra who was blocking him. He remembered faintly how a warning had popped up just as he had attached to the ship, but he had been too preoccupied to check it out before.
Suddenly his panel came alive with a screaming voice.
"Jenson, open the fucking airlock right now!"
How the signal breached through the jamming signal Jenson didn't know, but the voice he recognized immediately as Tanner. He keyed in a few commands which opened the airlock. He then activated his own voice communication.
"Tanner, why did we lose contact? There is some sort of jamming-"
"Shut the fucking hatch! Shut the hatch!"
Jenson winced back from the roaring voice of the Lieutenant and became more alert. "Sir, I'm only detecting you alone in the airlock. Where are the rest?"
"Fuck if I know, dead probably! Now shut the hatch!"
"Dead?" Jenson shook his head. "Impossible. What about Halcon-"
"God dammit Jenson shut the fucking hatch right now or I'll come up there myself and strangle you!"
Jenson went quiet and thought. He had never encountered this situation before and he was uncertain of what to do. Unable to ask the base for suggestion, he was now in charge of the
Jannil, at least until Tanner came on-board. He hit the communications button again.
"Sir-"
He was interrupted by a wailing scream erupting through his speakers, full of agony and fear. It was cut off suddenly and left him in silence. Jenson, not thinking straight, hit the airlock's hatch controls in panic and opened it. His heart was pounding away in his chest.
He waited for several seconds until he shut it again and spoke. "Sir... Sir?"
The other side was completely silent, apart from a noise sounding like dragging in the background. His interior ship scanner detected two lifeforms in the small compartment.
"Two? But Tanner said..."
Jenson drifted off as he heard something behind him from where he sat in his command chair. He went completely quiet and slowly trailed his hand down towards a magi-pistol attached under his seat for emergencies.
The shuffling behind him stopped and he could feel something breathing down his neck. Ice formed in his spine, but he continued to trail under the seat for the gun. He focused on his panel, fainting ignorance. His fingers felt the metal of the magi-pistol touching them and he clasped it.
Breaking the constraints holding the pistol attached, he swiftly brought it to bear and began to twist it around... just as a red, blood-drenched claw pierced through first the command chair and then the pilot's back. It chewed through his innards until bursting through his chest, breaking his lungs, heart and ribs in the process, throwing a cascade of blood onto the windscreen and panel in front of him.
Jenson dropped the pistol and stared at the claw sticking out of his chest. It twisted slowly, almost observing him in a tranquil manner, clenching and unclenching its sharp blades. Small lights, almost like lightning strikes, surged through the veins on the claw, back and forth in rapid succession. It was tasting him; searching for something.
His other organs suffered a similar fate as the rest when it drew back swiftly, and the life of Jenson seeped out of his body with the image of a claw sticking out of his chest being the last thing burnt into his retina.
*
In the
Sinestra's engine compartment, a deep hum began to escalate until it produced a bass so strong it vibrated the ship's hull. Its engines began to awake, slowly picking up energy and propelling the ship forward. The
Jannil, still attached to its side, followed with it, but the restraints couldn't stand against the tension put on them by the outside force.
After a pointless struggling, they finally broke and the
Jannil drifted off into space, with its engines flaring abruptly for a few seconds before stabilizing. With the
Sinestra blasting off into space, the autopilot on-board the
Jannil activated its emergency programming and set a new course; the spaceport in Cranagan.
As if sending a final goodbye, the sensors aboard the small ship reported a sudden energy emission behind it and the following shockwave, lightening up the dark space, almost shook the ship to pieces. Back at the TSAB HQ, the operators would soon be informed that the
Sinestra had been vaporized.