Joywell
Chapter 3: The Bringer of War
Okay, so I'm not proud of the way I run shrieking through the corridor. I'm not prone to panicking, but I did the same thing years ago when I was in the shower and I looked up and saw the biggest spider ever chilling on the ceiling next to the spigot. I mean, I've seen some space parasites before, but that lizard-guy was huge. Most aliens are dumb as rocks and scared of humans (or else we'd really be in trouble) but it will be a problem if it decides to hang around here. It got that hyper strong lock open. It was, like, seven feet tall.
I reach the crew berths, throat raw and chest burning. Rocco's the first one out of his room, followed by Matthew—who I recognize despite the darkened corridor because he wears a beanie topped with a pom-pom to bed—and then Captain Liner, who's holding onto the wall for support.
"What's wrong?" demands Rocco, as I come to a stumbling stop before I crash into one of them.
"There's bugs in the cargo hold!" I gasp out.
The guys exchange quick glances, and then Rocco squares his shoulders and starts down the hallway back towards the hold.
"Wait, wait, they're big!" I say, grabbing his elbow. "You can't just shoo them out."
"How many?" asks the Captain.
"I only saw two. But one of them is huge." I try to breathe to calm my heartbeat. "Like, human sized." And human shaped.
"Bullshit," Matthew says flatly. "Nothing's that big out here."
My arms fold across my chest. "I know what I saw."
It's not like we've never dealt with bugs before. Policy's pretty straightforward for whatever gets brought into the Pit during a pick-up: burn it. Well, not to ashes. The Pit can heat up to roughly one hundred and fifty degrees to fry any stowaways on our trash cargo—but that's the Pit. All that's separating us from the bugs in the hold is, well, the door, and I wouldn't put it past the humanoid one to know how to open it.
And the more I think about it, the more shivers crawl down my back. I didn't stop to consider my feelings when I first saw it in the bay, but now my heartbeat has slowed down and my brain is catching up with my body. My stomach clenches a little as I think—actually think—about what I saw.
That thing might be dangerous.
"I'll check the video feed on the bridge," says Rocco as he turns and strides away. We follow him, with Captain Liner bringing up the rear—although he may be exaggerating his limp so he can check out my rear. Ugh.
I don't know exactly how long it's been since we all settled in after dinner, but Joywell must have the longest sunsets ever because Beacon is still hovering over the horizon when we get back to the bridge. The light pouring into our viewports is ruddy and harsh, and the shadows cast by the trees outside are spidery and black.
I hold my breath as Rocco brings up the feed. The black and white view of the bay comes from a single camera aimed at the bay doors. It shows the whole bay, minus the door it's perched over and some of the stairs leading up to it. We see the closed lockers, the cracked-open bay doors, the smashed-open cases scattered in the corner, and nothing else. The guys look to me for an explanation.
"There was one on this wall," I say, pointing, "and then the big one was digging around in this case."
"How'd a bug break the X-029 lock?" Matthew breathes.
"I told you, it was big," I whisper back.
The four of us are silent as we watch the stillness on the screen, waiting for something to move, something to happen. Nothing does. Instead of relief, the clenched feeling in my stomach grows stronger. Could either of those things have followed me into the ship? I was screaming the whole time and maybe I missed the sound of the door sliding open behind me—
"We could review the tapes?" Rocco poises the question and interrupts my thoughts.
Captain Liner sets his jaw. I know what he's thinking. The camera feeds are on a 24-hour continuous loop, so if we wanted to go back and review anything—which we never do, because nothing like this ever happens—we'd have to pull the tapes and then dig the playback device out of storage or wherever else it's been gathering dust and hook it up. Nobody's going to do that.
"Well, whatever you saw, they're gone now," he finally says.
"But what if they followed me in?" I blurt.
Captain Liner gives me a patient look. "If either of them are as big as you say, they're not going to have many places to hide on Boomerang. We'd know they were in here."
"Hey, wait. Did those bugs open the bay doors, too?" Matthew finally seems to be putting two and two together.
I sag. Rocco turns around and leans one hip against the console. "Captain," he says, his expression thoughtful, "what do you think?"
Captain Liner scrubs a hand over his face and then rubs his chin. "Gotta put a message in to Silk about those broken cases," he says, almost to himself. "Company's not going to like that."
Matthew snorts. "Yeah, well, I don't like the fact that there are animals on this planet that can open our doors for us."
I look down at my boots, chewing my lip. Something pricks at my subconscious—something about the way the Captain thought first about the Company's cargo, instead of our safety. They diverted us to come pick this stuff up as fast as we could. Surely they'd have let us know if there were any active threats on Joywell? I mean, really?
The look the Captain gives Matthew is frosty. "Mr. Lord, please go down to the cargo bay with Matthew and secure those outer doors—and see if there's anything left in those cases. Then come to my office. I'll probably still be in comms with Silk."
"Wait, Rocco." I grab his arm before he follows them out. I wait until the door closes behind them, and even then I whisper. "I don't like this."
"Don't get scared. Chances are those things just came to investigate and got a little too curious. There was bound to be life on this planet."
"Yes, but the big one, Rocco, it was...scary big. Like it could do some damage."
"I believe you. But that's no reason to think it'll come after us. There hasn't been a report of hostile alien attacks around this quadrant in many, many years."
My hands clutch together. "But…but what if the Company knew those things were here, and didn't tell us?"
Rocco smiles gently at me. "The Company is not omniscient, Rika. But all the same, I'll ask Silk if he'd heard anything of the sort after we secure the bay."
I can't help but feeling dismissed when he leaves. He didn't see it, so he doesn't know. It infuriates me because he's so smart, and I know he's not just blindly following rules. He's got so much faith in processes and procedures and has no time to worry about why a seven foot tall monster was kicking crates open in our cargo hold.
Perched on the edge of my seat, I glue my eyes to the hold's video feed. My brother and Matthew eventually appear, and I follow their movements with my heart in my throat. Rocco kneels down by the transit cases as Matthew secures the doors. Then Rocco walks around the cases to the corner where I saw the thing on the wall, and peers into the shadows. My hands clench into fists. What if—what if it's hiding and it jumps out at him—
"Attention."
Holy shit that scared me. The Captain's voice over the ship intercom is too loud and too sudden and I'm going to have a heart attack.
"This is Captain Liner. I need everyone to convene on the bridge in fifteen, that's one fiver, minutes. Change of plans."
The intercom squelches off. I clap my hands over my heart to feel its pounding and glare at the door to his office before checking to see if everything's okay in the bay. It's empty once more. I keep watching the screen, though, to make sure there's no sneaking, creeping movements that we might have missed earlier in the shadows. Just in case.
"All right, everyone," the Captain announces when he re-enters the bridge with Rocco, after their talk with Silk. Everyone's yawning and grumbling about being woken up. "There's been a change of plans, on Company orders."
"AQWA or capital-C Company?" Dean asks as he buckles himself in.
"What do you think?" Matthew mutters. "We only slept for an hour and we don't even get breakfast."
The Captain's voice is implacable. "There was an incident in the cargo bay a little while ago and we've been advised to stage in low orbit in order to avoid further issues until the Company ship can get here."
Ethel, who's running through the preflight checklist, pauses for just a moment. "Incident?" she repeats.
I thought that Matthew or maybe the Captain would explain, but when they're silent, I open my mouth. "I saw-"
"Rika," Rocco says. "Let's get the comm system up and running now, all right?"
All I have to do, literally, to "get the comm system up and running" is to make sure we're transmitting at the right frequency, which requires one button press. I gape at my brother when he interrupts me, then narrow my eyes when he imperceptibly shakes his head. No, we're not playing a game of 'keep away' with what happened. This is ridiculous. "Something broke into the transit cases while we were asleep," I tell her. I pointedly keep my head turned away from Rocco. I can practically feel him get tenser.
"Something?" demands Lowrance. "What something?"
"The fewer people know the exact details, the less the Company will have to question them about," Rocco leans over and hisses in my ear. I stubbornly refuse to answer.
"Silk would like us to pull the tapes," Captain Liner says stiffly, "so thank you for volunteering to get the playback device set up for us, Ms. Lord."
Guess I've pissed him off, too. "Happy to oblige." I make my tone as saccharine as possible.
"What'd you see, Rika?" Lowrance presses.
"Bugs," I say shortly.
"Like roaches?"
"Man, are you an idiot?" Matthew snaps. "You think we'd burn fuel for cockroaches?"
"She said bugs!"
"If they broke into the transit cases, does that mean we've got nothing to show the Company?" Dean has to shout to be heard over Matthew and Lowrance arguing.
"Wait, wait, everyone, just wait." Captain Liner's voice takes on that sharp, 'everyone shut up or you'll get it' quality it has when he's mad. "It's nothing to panic about, and nothing to delay takeoff about either. When we're in orbit we'll get everyone caught up on what went on. We're on a tight schedule right now and don't have time to bullshit around." He jams his headset over his ears. "Ethel, we ready yet?"
I can tell she's been listening because her mouth is set in a frown, but her hands haven't stopped going through her checklist or flipping the sequence of switches on her consoles. "Coolant systems are coming back up. Internal power is running hard at 90 percent. Give me a minute to warm up the turbines and we'll be gone."
"Fine. Everyone buckle in. Matthew, did those doors lock closed?"
"Yes, Captain." We all look at the door alarms above the Captain's head. They're all showing green. "I spun the lock and everything."
"Har-dee-har," Dean says. "Did Weyland-Yutani ever answer my formal complaint?"
"Wait a little while and you can read it to them yourself," Rocco says pleasantly.
Ethel raises her voice. "Engine fire-up successful. We're hot."
"Let's go, then."
She pulls back on the joystick and we lurch into the air.
"Landing struts retracted. Engines at eighty percent maximum. Initiating ascent."
Our garbage barge is airborne once more. The forest and the cliff dwellings drop away from us as we rise to meet the sunset sky. Boomerang rumbles and shakes, jostling us in our seats. The distant keen of the turbines sounds like a sigh of relief, but I peek at the video feed from the cargo hold again, just to make sure. All we're carrying is our useless cargo—and us. But that's okay, because we're all here, and we're all safe, and we're all getting out of here.
And then Boomerang jerks to the side like it's been kicked.
"The hell?" Captain Liner grunts a second before alarms ping from Ethel's console.
"Stabilization failure, engine number two," she reports, her voice incredulous. "The strut's showing structural catastrophe."
As if on cue, Boomerang starts to list to the right. Joywell's sky tilts outside our windshield. I grab onto my harness with both hands as the ship vibrates like an off-balance washing machine, rattling my teeth in my head and blurring my vision.
"Strut failure?" Lowrance cries from the back. "How can the strut just suddenly break? It's solid titanium alloy!"
We're all thinking the same thing. Unless someone was up there sawing through our engine mount with a laser, there's no way it could just fail. Boomerang swings in a wide circle as Ethel fights to stabilize us. At this altitude, it'll be better if she tries to bring us down gently instead of cutting the engines and hoping for the best. But she's struggling.
"Ethel," Captain Liner says tensely.
"Working on it," Ethel replies, her voice just as tight. "Everyone get ready and brace."
I grab my harness straps and tighten them as hard as I can, sealing my back against my jumpseat and practically crushing my ribs in the process. The neck brace cupping the back of my head all of a sudden feels too loose and flimsy but there's no fixing that now. My stomach drops as we lose altitude. A million images flash through my brain. If that was my life flashing before my eyes, I couldn't decipher any of it. Probably because my life has been just one big mishmash of letdowns and failures.
"I can't keep it level." Ethel says between gritted teeth. "Brace brace brace!"
Boomerang crunches back down to earth. My entire skeleton jolts out of place. Alarms blare. Red lights flash. The circuits on both Captain Liner's and Rocco's consoles short out and spark.
"Damage report!" Captain Liner barks.
"Aft hull buckling," Rocco says, raising his voice above the alarms. "Turbine number two is presenting as out of alignment. The integrity of fuel tank C is compromised."
"Shut it down!" the Captain calls to Ethel. Almost immediately, the reassuring sound of the engines chokes off. My brother jumps up to silence the alarms before I can even gather my senses from where they feel scattered on the floor.
"What else are you seeing, Mr. Lord?"
"Cargo bay doors are showing ajar. The impact must have knocked them loose."
Of course. Those magnets barely held them closed anyway.
"Any fires? Ethel, check the fuel levels."
"Temperature sensors are all normal. Of course, that's not considering the impact might have knocked them out of circuit."
"Matthew, Dean, go check the breakers." Captain Liner unbuckles himself and stands. "Mr. Lord and I are going to inspect that strut. Rika, Ethel, please—"
THUMP.
We all startle as something black hits the fore viewports. I grab my console, just for the sake of something to hold onto, as the black thing unfolds into a familiar shape. In the burning sunset, I can make out its elongated head, the six fingers on each of its weirdly human hands, and the spines? bones? whatever they are, sticking out of its back. It looked bigger in the cargo bay, with the shadows helping its bulk. Now in the waning light I see that its body is small and skeletal, and after a moment of it perching on Boomerang's nose it lets its tail slink around its legs, the end of which is wickedly sharp looking.
We're all deathly quiet as the bug lowers its head and peers through the reinforced silica glass panes. It seems to be looking, but with a start I realize it doesn't have any eyes. Somewhere below us, Boomerang creaks ominously.
Thump.
Boomerang jolts with new weight, and a second bug joins the first in nosing at our viewports. Standing on its digitigrade back legs, this one is about four feet tall. When it crouches, I think I could maybe hold it comfortably in my arms. And then its mouth opens and it shows silver fangs as sharp as scalpels and the thought immediately dissolves.
When a third alien appears—just part of it, actually, a leg that slips on the windshield—I immediately think of all the times I played in the dirt when I was little and pushed over little dry anthill mounds with my fingers, just to watch the ants come swarming out, tiny and furious, impossible to count.
"There are more on the ground down there," the captain says quietly.
A fourth, fifth, and sixth bug join the ones on our viewports. And then, as quickly as they came, they wander up over the curve of Boomerang's fore and disappear.
"Fuck!" Matthew lurches out of his seat. "Look at the cargo bay feed!"
They're inside again—just the black ones, no big humanoid bugs this time. But somehow it's worse, because even though they're small, they're swarming. Seven or eight of them—and for some reason my stupid brain thinks that's enough for each of us—crawling over the walls, the ceiling—the ceiling!—and up the ramp.
And shit if they don't make right for the door.
"Captain Liner." Rocco's voice is a warning, but the Captain is already moving. He shoulders me aside and punches in his code for the emergency distress signal.
"Mr. Lord, get the panic hatch open," he says, even has he's punching in the numbers. I am frozen, watching him type out Boomerang's fate in shorthand. Impacted ground after liftoff. Actively being overrun. Seven souls evacuating.
This can't be happening.
With a groan of metal, Rocco wrenches the emergency hatch in the floor open. There's ladder rungs that we could use leading down through the tunnel, but because Boomerang's not resting on its struts the ground is within safe dropping distance. Now I can hear distant drumming steps on Boomerang's grated floor. Fear drops ice cubes into my stomach.
"I don't know what those things are but I'm not going to risk further contact with them," the Captain says, pointing out at the buildings nestled in the cliff alcove. "When we're out, we'll all head for the complex. Try to hustle, too." He looks over his shoulder at all of us, his blue eyes bright. "Give these guys a couple of hours to sniff around and get bored, and when things have cleared up we'll take it from there. Ethel. You first. Into the hatch."
Numbly, I undo my straps and stand on legs that feel like wet cardboard. Ethel brushes past me and disappears into the hatch. "I'll wait for you all at the bottom," she calls up from the darkness. Lowrance practically jumps after her. Matthew and Dean follow him.
"Come on, Rika." Rocco holds out his hand to me. I make my legs move. I feel like I can't breathe right. I am kneeling down to step on the top rung when something hits the bridge door with a crash. I startle and freeze. It dented the metal.
Captain Liner puts a hand on my back. "Go ahead, Rika."
I'm still frozen. Even when another hit to the door buckles it in the middle. God, are there only six on the other side of that door? It sounds like a hundred.
"Rika!" The Captain's voice is harsh now. "Go!"
He shoves me into the emergency hatch. I fall headfirst and crumple into the soft ground a few feet below. A moment later, the Captain and my brother land heavily next to me, and then we are all running, running over the sand. The others are already fleeing, too. Dean and Lowrance are pushing so hard they're kicking sand back into my face. Sand drags at my legs, fills my shoes. Captain Liner's hand is still on my back, pushing me despite my unsteady steps.
"Go!" he says. "Go, run!"
"I'm going to fall!" I cry. All at once Rocco is at my side, his hand a vise around my bicep. The air is hot and heavy in my lungs, slowing me down, suffocating me. I keep thinking I hear animal footsteps behind us, keep imagining something black jumping onto my back or tangling itself around my legs. I'm not even sure I'm running that fast. I'm the sick gazelle of the herd. Even Lowrance, despite his girth, is keeping pace with Ethel, who runs like a gymnast.
There haven't been any reports of hostile alien attacks, my brother had said. Yeah, right. These things are small but terrifying and even if they can't kill us, I saw those teeth. Besides, I read somewhere that some lady got mauled to death by Dachshunds. Dachshunds, for God's sake.
We're into the tree line, crashing through scrubby underbrush. Branches whack my face and arms. I close my eyes and run blindly, fear giving me strength. The only thing that's guiding me is Rocco's grip on my arm, constant and steady.
And that's when I realize I don't feel Captain Liner's hand on my back any more.
The ground turns suddenly firm under our feet. Bricks, or tiles, have been laid in a path at the base of the complex. Now that we're at the foot of the complex, it towers over us, three stories of hard-baked mud, with gaping black holes for doorways and windows, crumbling staircases and brick walls. We're running here for shelter, but who's to say that the bugs aren't in here, too? It's made of dirt. It could be a nest.
But it's too late to worry about that now. Before I know it, we're out of the sunlight and into the stale, musty, blackness of the first doorway we can find. I hear Lowrance cry out and hear a thud. I guess he hit a wall.
"Quiet!" my brother says, which is silly of him to do because we're all gasping for air. We're all sort of out of shape, and probably weren't moving so fast through the sand, so if we were followed they'd probably be on us right about now.
But no. The forest leaves hiss in the wind and the sand skids over the paved ground, but no bugs come barreling towards us. And neither does Captain Liner.
We all huddle in the doorway, watching the sun set on our fallen ship, which we can just barely see through the tree line. I poke my head out further. Maybe the Captain chose a different door to run through.
The complex curves away from us with the curve of the cliff, so we have a good view of the layout, at least from the outside. Most of it is pretty uniform—no decorations, a few ladders, a few of those tubelike structures—but my eye suddenly catches on something perched at the top level, on something that I guess is a watchtower?
My brain is in the process of thinking why would they have a gargoyle when I realize it's the other kind of alien. The big one.
My hand convulsively grabs Rocco's. He looks where I'm looking, and I hear him inhale sharply.
It's crouched at the very edge of the watchtower, surveying the landscape below it with a slow turn of its head. We're too far away to see it very well, but there's no mistaking it. And then it stands, and I immediately stop thinking of it as both a 'bug' and an ''it', because he is most definitely a male of whatever alien species he is, and if he's a bug then I'm a nematode. In fact, he doesn't so much stand as he draws himself to his full height and puff his chest out-something I can see even from here. He squares his shoulders and lifts his face to the sky. His iridescent skin catches the light in such a way that he's practically glowing dark red. Everything about him screams danger and power and pride, like some ancient war-god.
Maybe that's why I start thinking of him as Mars.
Things:
Went and saw The Predator the other day. Loved the first half, and couldn't believe how hard the second half fell apart. All I can say is long live Predator fanfiction.
If you've never listened to Gustave Holst's orchestral suite "The Planets", please do, and specifically listen to Mars. It's an iconic song and well worth a listen.
