I'm...I don't have an excuse. I'm posting anyways. This chapter is short because I had to split it up, but more chapters are better, yeah?
Chapter Ten: Rancor
rancor: Middle English
[noun]
bitter, rankling resentment or ill will; hatred; malice; hostility; spite.
The Cavalier's progression through the stars was unmarked by any indication of time or distance. They'd long since exited alliance space - their intended flight path had already been on the edge of familiar territory. Since changing directions, they'd been constantly accelerating into deeper unknowns. The pinpricks of light visible through the observation window of the Cavalier were all unsurveyed, whether they were planets or stars or other celestial objects.
It was almost comparable to the unease that had taken root in the black hallways of the ship itself. The fervor Nasira felt after killing the alien and receiving her mark had begun to wear down, leaving only the coldness of resignation.
It'd been nearly twelve hours since she'd seen the creature spawned from Prono but — and she hadn't thought about it at the time — there'd been at least one more alien at the time. The one that abducted Edmund was unquestionably a separate organism from the one she'd fought in the infirmary. But how had it reproduced so quickly?
Marcus looked uncomfortable when she voiced her concern. "Like I said. They reproduce by infecting things."
"Life forms?"
"Yes."
He nodded. She recalled fighting off the spidery thing as it sought to infect Edmund — the way it had skittered just out of light's reach, its skeletal fingers groping their way around her arm and its slick, brainstem tail choking the life from him.
"So where are these parasitoids coming from?"
He scowled. "They're lain in the form of an egg."
She bent down, blocking him with her arms so he had no choice but to look at her.
"We are in a very tenuous situation, if you haven't noticed. I'm tired of stripping these answers from you. If you're anything short of enthusiastic about sharing information with me, I won't hesitate to save myself the trouble of marching you to the airlock. I'll restrain you here and wait for your admirable specimens to come calling for their custodian."
Eyes burning, he said, "Contained in my checked luggage were two more eggs. One of the drones must have gone through it. That's how it happened so quickly. But they're fully capable of laying their own eggs once one metamorphoses."
So the alien she'd killed had come from one of the three members of the flight crew: Uicra, Ensla, or Buhbda. She looked down at its corpse; steam rose from the acid in wispy pillars.
"Metamorphoses? Into what?"
"A matron. A queen."
"How long does that take?"
"Without a queen already present, the process begins immediately after reaching adulthood. Normally, it takes a few days, but we engineered an advanced genetic line so they'd mature more quickly and therefore be studied more easily."
"How long?" she pressed.
Marcus hesitated. "Ten hours."
Nasira fell back, her extremities spiking with cold. So it had already happened. A rancor had buried itself somewhere within the bowels of the ship.
If the queen could lay her own eggs, that meant the number of aliens was parallel to the number of hosts they'd had access to — with the recent death of the spitter, there were now three aliens left, including the queen herself.
Acid hissed and popped, almost hitting their ankles. The sacs on the side of its head were nearly translucent now that the killing blood had vacated them. She squatted low, careful to avoid getting too close to the acid. She held out a hand but did not touch the sacs.
"What are you?" she murmured. Then, louder, "What kind of genetic variance do they display? Is it dependent on their queen and egg, or their host?"
"Both can be correct. This line had a deviant template encoded in its genes. Like an anomaly. We wanted to see to what degree we were able to manipulate their physical characteristics. A wild card, if you will. To help evolution along."
She scoffed. "To help evolution. And here I'd attributed your abysmal decision-making skills to ignorance but maybe I was wrong — what great power you must have to be able to pervert nature on a whim."
"I can't believe it," he simpered. "After so many hours, are we finally due for a theological debate?"
"No." She stood, wiping her fingers on her pants even though she'd not actually touched the alien. "Just color me impressed at the depths to which your intoxicating stupidity extends."
His jaw tightened.
She redirected the conversation, saying, "Will her eminence attack us?"
Marcus' face purpled but he had no choice but to answer.
"No. She won't leave her hive unless she fears there's no alternative. Procreation and the advancement of her army is her first priority. She'll send her warriors after us, surely."
"Warriors."
"The hive functions like a society, with a caste system. The queen and her honorable guard."
"But there are only two of them now."
"Then I guess we have little to worry about," he said.
Three aliens. A queen hidden somewhere in the ship. The other dissuaded (she hoped) from the fuselage by the presence of the predators. The last, a mystery.
She thought it safe to meander through the seating bays until she was out of earshot of Marcus and Edmund. The spear stayed at her side. Lain over her knees was her jacket. She let the newest tatters fall through her fingers as her eyes heated with tears.
Reaching up, she undid her beads and set them to the side, then unwound her hijab. Carefully smoothing the fabric over her lap, she traced the sleek ornamentation. The fabric was a dark, sleeping marine pool in the purpling dusk. Tears dropped onto its curves.
Nasira Lathan. An example of the best humanity had to offer. Peaceful. Capable. And yet not so.
She'd forsaken Adrara's moral creed for her own. She'd enacted not justice, but revenge on Marcus. Not because of the suffering he'd caused, but because she couldn't stand to hear a people insulted like she'd been all her life.
For who they were.
For how they lived.
By the very man who'd destroyed them and their right to defend themselves.
Even considering their truce, she'd snapped at Edmund, an innocent. A bystander. A boy her own age.
She'd threatened Marcus. She'd been prepared to actually carry out the deed.
As they sped into the furthest reaches of outer space, as the infestation spread, she was losing the battle. To selfishness. To question.
Her own self, spiraling into indiscretion, into failure, was not who she could trust to save them all.
The predators approached her shortly after, which she expected but nonetheless found herself unprepared for. Despite the revelation that some grander threat had situated itself in their midst, their conflict was drawing to a close. Marcus had survived for longer than they'd deemed favorable and by now they were raring to correct it.
She was not sure she'd care to stop them this time.
Siwili had recovered from whatever affliction with which he'd found himself overcome when he'd attempted to mark her. His necklace still hung loose around his neck where she could see it - she found it odd that this supposed trophy in particular was given such special treatment. It seemed it was one held in an esteem greater than those of the skulls he wore draped over his chest. The way he'd so eagerly held it out for her — had he expected her to recognize it?
She spoke before they could. "I understand why you destroyed the lifeboat. We can't let the infestation make land or give it an opportunity for new hosts."
The last officer of the flight crew restrained by resin. Knowing what awaited them after seeing their companions infected.
She did not think on it.
Tresses held out her arm and called forth her hologram. From her point of view, she saw Siwili stalk into a room. Tresses' vision swapped from infra-red to — surprising Nasira — visible light, and then to something she didn't recognize but that toggled the green alien eggs in vivid clarity. Her vision panned up the wall and, highlighted in the same green, was residue of the globules of resin that had encased Edmund. Tresses looked down into the eggs. Apart from dripping mucus yolk and pale albumen, they were empty.
"What?" Nasira asked. "Where are they?" She'd killed one, but Marcus said there'd been two that aliens had carried into their lair.
The two predators had gone to that place to find the remaining aliens. But even through the limited rendering of the hologram, she could feel the neglect hanging alongside the steaming humid air. The lair was abandoned.
"So where is the queen?"
Tresses showed the structure of the ship itself, scrolling through the different levels. Habitation, cargo, sanitation, atmospheric, engine, fuel chambers. She didn't know whether they were places to rule out, or whether Tresses was showing her that she had no idea.
"How are we going to find them?" Nasira asked.
None of them answered. Tresses looked up and away, scanning the air. Nasira's head swiveled around. Could she have detected another ambush?
Then the alarms went off, a great tear in the calm they'd become used to.
Nasira's clapped her hands over her ears as they pierced the air. Runite stepped towards her almost reflexively. Unperturbed by the commotion, Tresses dialed through the functions on her wrist computer.
Nasira tried to shout a question but couldn't hear herself over the cacophony — the alarms were not limited to the fuselage, but were going off all over the ship, creating a discordant tumult that made her eardrums pulse. Tresses found what she was looking for and held it out for Nasira to see.
She had scanned the vent nearest them. It looked mundane enough, but then she flipped through another set of vision enhancements to reveal a cloud of gas pouring forth from between the slats.
A pungent sharpness crowded her senses and she knew what had happened. The air purification must have failed, overproducing hazardous gases.
She cursed under her breath, but it was lost in the din. She had nothing to combat a gas leak, even if she knew where it had occurred. It seemed the predators did not have access to all the ship's functions — they were merely attuned to the status of the lifeboats because they wanted to uphold their quarantine. This leak was not among their concerns, so they'd have to find it some other way. Atmospheric was her best guess, but she'd need protective gear to even get close.
It was weak for now, but if it kept coming in quantities like Tresses had shown her, they'd soon be fighting for breath.
The nearest airlock was about a quarter of a mile away. The EVA equipment containers held bulky space suits like what she'd taken up to the forwarding array but she'd seen a few other variations as well. Maybe one of them would work — all she needed was a respirator and something that would spare her skin from direct contact.
Funny, she thought, to spend so many hours dodging the acid blood of the aliens only to find herself thwarted by something as simple, as insidious, as incorporeal as a gas in the air.