Chapter 5 – Enemy Within
Time dragged by slowly in the confines of Facility IX.
Each moment stretched out unbearably. With each second came the possibility of attack. The oppressive, metal walls felt like that of a prison. The dull, emergency lights felt like those of a tomb. The storm raged, the PDF soldiers stood guard in silence, or paced and stalked the halls. As time passed the events of earlier in the night had begun to truly sink in. They had seen or heard nothing of the soldiers that were still outside. The loss of comrades, new and old, was hard to take. Kimura, Edora, Jagg and Ridge had all been declared MIA, and the mission to guard the facility had taken priority. The atmosphere was one of gloom and one of fear, and a smothering blanket of ill-omen weighed down more heavily with each roar of thunder.
Perhaps worst of all, the enemy was still to reveal itself. The waiting was maddening. Nerves were beginning to fray.
"I can hear it," spat Hasken, pacing, gripping tightly to her weapon. She kept stopping to glance down the North corridor. "I can hear that damn noise again. Can't you hear it?"
"I can't hear nothin', Dana," spoke Hein in a slow drawl, "you sure you're not lettin' your imagination go wild?"
Hasken's voice changed to an angry whisper. Her face wrinkled into a snarl. "I know what I can hear, Hein. Of course you wouldn't hear it. You're so messed up I bet nothing is even registering in that little brain of yours."
"Guilty," smiled Private Hein. His gaze strayed from Hasken as he looked across the corridor again, his expression changing, his eyes narrowing. Hasken followed the glare to where Lander stood guard. The young medic that he'd found during his sweep of the South sector leaned against the wall.
"What's your problem with them, anyway?"
Hein's face darkened. "Somethin' about that girl makes me sick," he said, spitting on the floor. He started to walk towards them. Hasken took a step back in surprise.
"Where are you going?" she said, hissing after him. "Hey, idiot, you need to keep your head down until whatever you've taken wears off!"
Hein sauntered up to Lander's hulking form. The smile on his face was disingenuous and grotesque, the look in his eye was dark and wicked.
"Hey, Byron, you got any smokes?" he said.
"Back off, Hein," replied Lander, looming over the smaller man like a statue.
"Hey, I was just tryin' to get some smokes," Hein drawled, "no need to get excited." His eyes flicked to Bota. Lander moved so that he was in front of her.
"Leave her alone," he said, his voice deep and final.
"Sorry, big man, but..." Hein scratched his forehead and put on a tone of mock concern. The flamer tanks loomed threateningly on his back. "I just get this bad vibe off of her, you know?" He looked around Lander's form at the girl, attempting to circle around to her. His expression changed, the false cordiality gone, replaced with a scowl. "I mean, what was she doing hiding over there? Huh? Hiding in the med-bay, what were you up to over there, little girl?"
Bota gasped and shrank back.
"She's hiding nothing, Hein," Lander said sternly, staying between his sinister comrade and the girl. "She is an Imperial citizen and it is our duty..."
"Don't give me that crap," snapped Hein, looking defiantly at Lander. "She's young and pretty, that's all the interest you got in her. Duty to protect blah blah blah. You act like some great big hero, but deep down you got that darkness, just like the rest of us."
Lander's expression changed. He took a step, the space between he and Private Hein was now uncomfortably narrow.
"Be careful what you say about me, Hein..." he growled.
"...and she's scared too," Hein continued. "Little bit vulnerable, needs looking after. That's what you like, ain't it, Byron? Makes you feel … powerful."
"I'm warning you..."
Hein tried to get around the wide form of Lander again, reaching his free hand out to try and grab Bota by the arm. He was still holding the scorched metal form of the flamer. "Well I don't trust her," he continued, then his eyes widened and his smile returned. "Just let me search her, alright, Byron? Let me pat her down, make sure she ain't got nothin' hidden inside that jumpsuit..." He stepped closer still to Lander as the hulking soldier stood in his way. He drew himself up so that Lander could smell his breath. "...or did you already get your hands in there?"
Lander raised an arm.
"Knock it off, you two!" came Nytus' stern growl from the reception desk. The second in command pushed his seat back violently and marched towards them. He gripped Hein's shoulder and pulled him back. Hein spun around, the dangerous shape of his flamer pointing uncomfortably around the room. Nytus stood between the two men, his body and his expression set and tense.
"Back off, Private," he said to Hein, pointing a finger, "we have enemies at our door and, in case you need reminding, we have lost people. Good people. Now is not the time for insubordination."
Hein brooded for a moment, his eyes narrowing and showing a malevolence that was excessive, even for him. There was a pause, pregnant with tension, and then he breathed out and seemed to cool off. He raised his arms slowly, the flamer pointing at the ceiling. He was still looking at Lander.
"Are we going to have a problem?" Nytus demanded, addressing both of them.
"No, Sir," said Hein, walking backwards in the direction of Hasken.
"No … Sir," said Lander a few seconds later, his angry eyes fixed on Private Hein.
Nytus stayed between them. The intent still in Lander's eyes had not gone unnoticed. He glanced at Rozen. The Sergeant was staring at the storm through the glass in the door, oblivious to the conflict in his ranks. Nytus breathed, a subtle exclamation of frustration.
"Hein," he said, "take Hasken and do a sweep of the North sector while you cool off."
He watched Hein carefully as the flamer soldier smirked and casually walked the short distance to the other side of the corridor, where Hasken waited.
She looked back at him as he approached, there was confusion in her expression. "What was all that?" she mouthed.
"Come on, Dana," he replied with a sneer, "let's go find your noise."
Facility IX – Main Gate Area
The transition from raging storm and suffocating rain to something that resembled shelter was what pulled him back to his senses. He opened his eyes as lightning flashed outside, and was confused by the straight lines and sharp angles drawn by the shadows on the wall. He grasped for his autopistol, but he didn't have it.
There was a presence over him, he realised, unseen in the darkness. He could feel an energy that weighed down on him like the pressure of the void. The sensation was painful, the pain inside his mind was almost as bad as the pain in his thigh.
"Who … who's there?" he whispered, his voice almost failing him.
The presence came closer, looming over him like the storm loomed over the hillside. The dim, orange bulb of what looked like a work lamp flicked on audibly. Private Mindi Edora was holding it. She looked down at him out of the darkness. Her soaking, white-blonde hair falling around her like a mane, her ringlets like miniature halos, her beautiful, pale skin filmed with water. Her eyes were wide and filled with energy.
Blood trickled from her nose and over her lips, staining her chin.
"Edora," Jagg breathed, but any relief he felt was subdued by the pain in his body, the confusion his mind, and the overwhelming feeling of dread that was dripping off the walls. Lightning struck again and a sharp, zigzag line of shadow was projected onto bare concrete.
Edora smiled, but the smile had developed from the sleepy, faraway look that Jagg had known for so long, to a more determined and altogether more unhinged aspect. The blood under her nose gleamed wetly in the lamp light. She put the work lamp on a nearby supply crate and started doing something with her hands.
"You are lucky you passed out," she said, her sing-song voice had an underlying, second tone that seemed to come from all around him. It was a haunting effect that confounded his confusion. He jolted and gasped pathetically with pain as she tightened a bandage around his thigh. "If you had tried to fight them, you would have ended up like Ridge..."
Jagg breathed as she let go of the pressure on his wound. The lightning struck and he saw a bloody section of broken branch on the floor next to him, lying next to a disturbingly large pool of glistening red.
"Wh … who ..." he tried, pain coursing through him.
Edora was doing something else now, Jagg heard a metallic clink and then felt a sharp, quick, secondary pain at the top of his thigh.
"There," she said, her face settling close to his in the small circle of light the lamp allowed. "You're going to start feeling better now. Oh … you have a cut on your head." She wiped at his forehead with gentle fingers and Jagg could feel a film of thick fluid being pushed across his skin. Her fingertips seemed to pulse with energy.
"Something in me woke up," she said, her eyes glinted wickedly as she touched his face and smiled a blood-stained smile, her pretty face sinister in the lamp-light. "Something I always knew was there, since I was a little girl. I can feel them, the demons. Sergeant Rozen and the others think that they are under attack from out here, but they are wrong. The enemy is already amongst them. The catalyst of all this, has been in there all the time."
The pain in Jagg's leg was fading, but so were his senses. He felt confused, he felt his agency dwindling, as if he were in a dream on the edge of sleep. His eyes briefly closed. When he opened them again she was looking at him seriously, an intensity close to ferocity in her spectacular eyes. She no longer held his face. He both longed for and feared her touch. He could see that she had removed her flak-jacket. The tattoo across the top of her chest was visible. He tried to remember what it said.
Something about black ships.
"Sumari'thar, that is its name," she murmered, almost monotone. "It got into Hein, and I saw through his little green eyes. I know that there is one among them. Someone is pretending..." Her smile returned, and an aura surrounded her, he felt a force pushing him hard against the wall, though her arms had not moved. "I am going to fix it."
"I..." Jagg started but Edora shushed him, then turned to look around, her face falling out of the lamp light. Jagg could make out various items strewn across a concrete floor. Equipment and supplies, military and medical. This time, when the lightning flashed, he realised that the zigzag pattern was the shadow of some nearby stairs. It seemed that they were beneath a stairwell.
Edora came back into the light and put something in his lap. "Your long-las," she said, "and your pistol. The door to the guard tower is over there," she added, pointing to her left. He grasped the autopistol weakly, the long-las was no use in the close confines of the space under the stairs. Edora leaned over and turned off the work lamp, plunging them into deep, impenetrable shadows. He heard her stand up. He felt like he could still see her eyes, shining gold and ghostly.
"If they have no more use for you, you may survive the night," she said, and he could hear the amusement in her voice. As he tried to look, a flash of lightning picked her out in the frame of the door that led back out into the storm. It lit up the edges of her hair like a fierce, fiery corona. Then she was gone.
Jagg's curse sounded drunk and powerless, his eyelids fluttering and his head lolling. With great difficulty he dragged himself into a position where he could see the frame of the door and the strobe lit darkness outside. With weak hands he raised the autopistol, it was all that stood between him and whatever was out there.
Facility IX – North Sector
"What have you been taking, Hein?" said Private Hasken as she stepped through now familiar offices and common areas, her head tilted as if listening out for a certain sound. "Is this your usual stuff? You are way more messed up than last time... you know picking a fight with Lander is just going to get your head smashed in, and Rozen and Nytus are always gonna side with him over you."
There was no response. She looked back at her comrade across the expanse of the room. It was not unlike the mess room back at the PDF outpost in the Arrator Range, but more oppressive, with no windows, and surrounded with bulky storage cupboards that intruded into the room. The emergency lighting created shadows everywhere.
Hein was looking at her from across the empty table. His small eyes narrowed to slits. His mouth hung open in an unpleasant smile.
"You're acting weird, Abel … more weird than usual," she said cautiously.
"I'm just looking at ya," Hein smirked.
"Stop messing around, Hein," Hasken replied, raising her voice and puffing out her chest, "or I'll drop you myself, before the big lug even gets to you."
"That slack-jaw pushover ain't gonna do anything to me," Hein said back, an odd expression on his face and an odd resonance in his voice, "that slabhead, he's just acting tough. Like you, Dana, always playing tough. Like you actually mean anything. Gotta make sure everyone knows you don't give a crap. Givin' everyone a hard time, but really you're just a coward. A big one. The biggest coward in the unit, bigger than Lander or anyone in this buildin' or any of them dead bastards outside." He stared at her brazenly.
Hasken stood with her eyes wide, struck dumb for a moment by her comrade's words. When she found her senses she reached to her belt and pulled out the non-issue stub pistol that she so liked to brandish. She pointed it at Hein, stepping forward aggressively, her thumb shaking ever-so-slightly as she flicked the safety.
"Shut up, Hein," she growled through curled, red lips. "Take that back, you under-hive scum, before I put you down."
Hein stared at her, something truly unpleasant in his eyes. His bare arms tensed, shot through with bulging veins. His breathing slowed almost to a standstill. He stared, and stared, and stared, and at one point it almost seemed like all of his expression was lost, and his body was alone and he was no longer inside it, and then just as quickly he flicked back on, and she recognised him again.
"Hey, put the gun down," he said with an odd half-smile, the intensity leaking from his eyes. "My little snack earlier is just messin' with me," he added, "must have been a bad batch. It's makin' me say stuff I don't mean, got no control over my stupid mouth..."
Hasken lowered the gun. There was relief in her eyes. "Well get over it, quick," she snapped, "you're freaking me out. I thought we had each other's backs."
Cautiously, she turned away.
There had been no sounds since they had started their sweep, but somehow Hasken knew that if she listened long and hard enough, she'd hear it again. It wasn't that she wanted to hear it, the sound was unnatural, unsettling, but she wanted to know that the events of earlier in the day had not been some kind of hallucination. The idea that she might be going crazy in these dimly lit halls and cramped rooms made her want to lash out, run away.
Hein had lagged behind since their altercation, looming in the background like an unwanted shadow. They argued a lot, back in the real world, and they had fought before, but it was posturing mostly, putting on shows for the others, showing how wild they were. This time was different. Hein was different. His presence was a nagging distraction, his silence worse than his hostile words. Hasken could feels his eyes on her, but when she turned to look he looked away. Every time.
Shivers ran down her spine.
She had come this way before, she recognised the offices, the common areas, the musty, metallic sounds and smells. It was darker this time around. In the next office along a data slate caught her eye. Thanks to the dimness of the emergency lighting the blinking green light above the display was visible in the darkness. She picked it up and turned it over in her free hand, the other hand firmly gripping the autogun. When she clicked the button, the display came alive with scrolling green symbols.
The data slate ticked as it finished loading. There were a few words displayed in flickering low Gothic. Scripture. Maintenance. Schedule. Assembly. She idly scrolled and tapped on the latter. A list of names appeared. She started to read them out loud. The words came slowly. Reading had never been her strong point.
"... H. Beldum … I. Marlun … G. Vivienne … E. Bota ..."
Hein's eyes watched her from the other side of the dark office. They flickered at the mention of the medic's name.
"... G. Doolis … these must be the names of the people that work here." Hasken tapped a key to scroll down through the list. The text blurred as the display scrolled down, further and further.
"There's gotta be forty names here," said Hasken, her brow furrowing. "There are nowhere near that many people back in the lobby."
Hein stood in the shadows, the metal of the flamer and the sweat on his brow glinting in the meagre light. He watched as Hasken's expression changed, as the thoughts swirled and coalesced in her head. Her eyes flickered with a trace of concern, she pursed her red lips. Hein stepped forward.
The sound came from all directions, seeming both distant and nearby. A high-pitched, almost comical, gurgling weep. The same sound that she had heard earlier in the day.
Her head snapped around, the data slate forgotten and cast onto a nearby desk like litter. She looked at Hein with intensity. "There it is! You hear that?"
He smiled.
She looked at the doorway that led further into the facility.
"This way."
Facility IX – Reception Area
"I'm sorry about Hein," said Lander, "he's a liar, a manipulator. I want to keep you safe, that's all."
He looked at Bota with seriousness and sincerity. His frame eclipsed her, she looked tiny in front of him. She nodded weakly as she looked up at him.
"We'll outlast the night," he said to her, "I promise."
The waiting had been sickening. The darkness loomed in the reception area, scarred by the regular flashes of purple-white lightning beaming in through the glass in the front door. Hein and Hasken were on their sweep, which left three guns. Lander, Rozen, who seemed more interested in the facility administrator than the situation, and Nytus, who was lit up dimly by the light from the failing pict-feeds. Everyone else was a civilian, a non-combatant, a liability.
He turned his attention back to the medic.
"You mentioned a doctor?" he said.
She breathed sharply at his words. Wide eyes stared at him and then darted around the room. Her mouth opened, but she thought better of it, and closed her lips without speaking.
"Bota, you said someone was killed. It's important that you tell me."
No response.
"Is there something we need to know?"
She fidgeted nervously, her hands brushed her thighs, near to where she likely had the pistol stowed before. That pistol was now in Lander's possession. He looked at her. He had an insight that he wanted to share with her.
"The people are quiet, and afraid," he said, "They seem … confused. You don't. Bota, can you tell me what is happening here?"
The click of heeled boots on metallic tiles echoed behind him. Lander looked around and then bowed his head with respect. "Administrator," he said, as the woman called Astea Kress approached. Her smile was kind, her eyes searching.
"You are Private Lander, correct?" she said. She was a tall woman, but still had to crane her neck to look Lander in the eye.
"Yes, Administrator," Lander replied, glancing over to see that Rozen had joined Nytus at the desk. They were tweaking and discussing the vox-caster, which Nytus was using to try and boost the signal of the micro-bead network.
Administrator Kress looked at Bota, who stared back at her silently and with wide eyes. "Thank you for bringing her back," Astea said to Lander, a gentle tone to her voice, her trained accent pleasing. "She is a timid one, she must have been terrified to run off like that. Tensions are very high here. I suspect you've barely gotten a word from her."
"No, Adminstrator," replied Lander, "but I will keep trying. I believe she might have some information that we are missing."
Astea returned her full attention to Lander. Her eyes connected with his, her expression serious and firm. There was a quality to her that made her difficult to ignore. When he looked at her, her intense eyes came into sharp focus, and the rest of the world blurred and faded.
"Your comrade, Private Hein," she said, her tone demanding his attention, "was pestering her, intimidating her. It could not have helped her mindset. I suspect his actions caused her to retreat further into herself." She paused as her eyes searched him, "You do not like Private Hein, do you." It was phrased as a statement, rather than a question.
"Private Hein is a member of Six-Zero-Two, Administrator, I..." Lander started.
"I know, I know," she said. For a moment her demeanour had changed, her voice was kindly now, almost motherly. "You do not want to say it because you are a professional soldier, and I am an outsider. I understand. Truthfully, you do not have to say it, Private Lander, I see it." Her expression grew in intensity again, her voice penetrated his thoughts. "I see your disdain for him, your caution, and it is not unwarranted. If things go bad here tonight, Private Lander, if things go really bad, I almost feel that he will endanger us..."
Lander looked at her, his eyes widening a little, his mouth closed together tightly.
She breathed, and some of the intensity fell from her. She looked at him with a small smile, she had become the charming administrator again. "I am sorry," she said, "this situation is getting the better of me, I think. We are all frightened here. I can see that you are a fine soldier, Private Lander. I know that you will do the right thing."
She straightened her uniform and stepped back, giving him a slight bow. He stood and watched her walk away, a feeling of uncertainty welling up inside him.
A voice came over the micro-bead.
"We've found another one of those things."
Nytus leaned forward in his seat. The communication had come from Hasken. He tapped the button and asked her to clarify.
"One of those … mutants, like the one in Jagg's picture," was her reply, "I can hear more, too, further in..."
Sergeant Rozen stepped away from the door and walked towards Nytus, his Guard-issue boots causing echoing footsteps against the metal floor tiles. "How did they get inside?" he said.
"Can you contain them?" Nytus spoke over the micro-bead, his gruff voice calm and military.
The familiar thud of Hasken's favourite stub pistol reverberated from the direction of the North corridor, muted by the distance it had travelled.
"This one's contained..." Hasken's cocky voice came back, but there was a fuzz of distortion that Nytus found concerning.
"Be careful," he said, his tone serious as he shared a glance with Rozen, "I'm starting to lose your link..."
Facility IX – North Sector
"I've got to shut these cursed things up," said Hasken, glancing back at Hein. The hideous, twitching form lay at her feet, leaking a thick, coagulated blood-like fluid from the gun-shot wound and from it's multiple beaked mouths and gaping cavities. It smelled like stale sweat and tingling atmosphere, with a blood-metal tang.
"Of course you do, Dana," encouraged the smiling Hein from behind her.
They had reached the storage room that Hasken had found earlier, where the noise had led her, back before the storm and the power-cut and the deaths. The mewling was maddening, pathetic, disturbingly reminiscent of a newborn. The prospect of motherhood, of birth, had always been something that deeply unsettled Hasken, and to now hear these sounds that were like a parody of a baby's cry, and to see these deformed, tiny, fleshy creatures that were making them, brought bile to her throat and filled her with a ferocious urge to snuff them out.
Another one flapped against the tiles, dragging its disgusting, senseless limbs along the floor with an oversized, claw-like wing and vestiges of what might have been legs, but appeared fetal and insectoid, and incapable of moving the creature in any way that made sense. It was coming around the secure door that Hasken had opened earlier. The room with the vents.
Hasken took a couple of steps towards the pathetic thing as it struggled to drag itself around the door. The stub pistol echoed again through the empty rooms and corridors of the facility. Some disfigured organ inside the creature exploded spectacularly, painting the lower section of door frame and nearby wall with a blotchy film of dark blood and spatters of a stringy, bright, yellow substance. She stepped into the room
More of them floundered and quivered on the floor between the racks of storage crates, lit only by the dull glow of the meagre emergency bulbs mounted into the low ceiling. Beaks with little black teeth, useless, mismatched wings, slick, staring eyes, sideways, leering faces, tongues and claws and feathers and stench. Hasken's autogun hung from her belt, her stub pistol gripped in two hands. The blubbering little creatures were easy target practice, none had the capacity to move quickly. They popped like gleaming pustules as she judged each one an abomination and unfit to live. Each pull of the trigger made her feel powerful. Her mouth shaped into a red-lipped sneer.
She reloaded. The room became stained with blood and brightly coloured fluids. Some of them she had to shoot again, as wet eyes followed her from quivering, bloodied flesh.
"Get them, Dana," said Hein, his face in shadow but his eyes somehow drawing the sparse light of the room, highlighting the yellowed corners and bulging pupils. He came around the door. "Get them."
She approached the corner of the room and stepped around it. One of the vent coverings had been removed, and lay dented and twisted on the floor. Gurgling, mutated forms clustered below the opened grate. Another pulled it's twisted form out of the darkness of the vent and fell to the floor with a wet sound and a pathetic cry.
"We should … report this," she said, standing at the corner, watching the mess of flesh and tiny, convulsing bodies. Something else emerged from the vent. A long slip of pinkish flesh, stretching and contorting in a way that didn't make sense, like the tentacle of some unknown, blasphemous xenos. "Hein..."
"Kill 'em, Dana," came Hein's low, breathy voice from over her shoulder, "take that pistol and kill 'em all, show them you're no coward."
She rose the stub pistol and was about to squeeze the trigger, but the appendage that emerged from the vent caused her to pause. The formless, whip-like end of the pinkish limb stretched and parted, and three long, groping fingers formed there, complete with scraping, pearl-white claws. The fingers felt around until they found something to hold, and then began to pull. A creature began to emerge, its shape changing even as it hauled itself into the failing light. Another appendage grew, and it fell, and what were something like arms then became something like legs as it stood the height of a man amongst the mewling mass of mutants. An alien intelligence stared at her from black, beady eyes that grew wider and then shrank and were enveloped in the sinewy skin, only to re-emerge somewhere else on the creature's vile visage. A mouth lolled open, the blueish insides of it's maw convulsing and rippling like some cavernous, glittering pool, surrounded with clattering teeth.
The thing looked at her with an unknowable intelligence, some form of twisted consciousness so different from hers that it struck a coil of mortal terror deep into her soul. This creature was of the void, so far beyond her understanding that her mind began to withdraw, her instinct began to fail. She took a step back as the thing changed again, arms formed where moments ago there were none, one sprouted from it's mouth like some profane, clawed tongue, the other rose high, and an energy, fearsome and disturbing, crackled around it.
It made a sound, a preposterous, buffoonish laugh, hollow and distant, like it came from across a great abyss.
"Get it, Dana," came Hein's unseen voice, "before it gets you. Kill it. Show us what you can do."
She pulled the trigger and the stub pistol clicked. Empty. She had wasted a second clip on the mewling little creatures and their deformed, still-living eyes. She dropped the spent pistol, allowing it to clatter onto the blood-stained floor. She reached for the autogun in her belt. She rose it, attempting to open fire on the pink-skinned horror.
The thing moved with outrageous quickness. It took two lurching steps on twisting, uneven legs, and chuckled absurdly as it threw a bolt of energy from it's crackling, raised claw. The blueish, purple warpfire engulfed her before she could raise her weapon.
Bathed in the billowing fire that seemed to sear the very edges of reality, she looked stunned for a moment, then she screamed.
Though the fire burned, it did not singe or redden her skin. Instead it pulled and twisted, changed and malformed, drew bones outside of skin and folded limbs. She rose into the air, engulfed in the demon fire, her form stretched, her limbs grew and twisted, the mask of agony on her face contorted into something unrecognisable. Flesh stretched and wrapped around itself, changing colour. Flak-armour changed to air, weapons turned to dust. Wet, kaleidoscopic eyes opened all along the convulsing skin.
In those last moments, she felt something that was both terror and euphoria. New life, new power, new understandings. She felt the glorious blue fire.
Hein was lurking in the doorway. His eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. He felt as though he had been woken by a clatter of discordant music. He shook. His heart beat wildly in his chest, his stomach tied in knots. Everything that had happened between his arrival at the facility to this point, felt as though it had been a dream. When he tried to picture it, it was as if he was looking through murky, abyssal waters. The picture before him now was horrific beyond understanding. He stared in helpless awe at the maddening horror that had been Dana Hasken less than a moment ago. He screamed at it, fear and aggression flooding over him like a suffocating wave.
He lifted the flamer. He pointed it at the far end of the room, where tiny, mewling forms were dragging themselves around the corner. The twisting mass of insanity suspended over them writhed and grew within a profane, blue glow. He held the trigger as if it was the last thing that connected him to reality.
Still crying out, he filled the room with a relentless, white-hot inferno of searing chemical-fire, burning what was once Private Dana Hasken, and everything around her. The fire flowed like a river.
Facility IX – Reception Area
"What's wrong with him?" whispered Lander, leaning in towards Nytus.
Nytus shook his head. "Gone to hell," he whispered gruffly, "like everything else tonight."
Hein had come back from his sweep alone and with most of his promethium reserves spent. Aside from the circles around his eyes where the protective goggles had been, his skin was tanned a painful red from exposure, and his hair and flak uniform were singed and discoloured. He was covered with a thick film of sweat and dirt. His eyes were wide and his hands were shaking. He stank.
Rozen was a picture of calmness in front of him, standing statue still and looming over him while he raved. Since Hasken's signal had been lost a high-pitched fire warning could be heard from the North sector, and flashing red lights strobed throughout the corridor.
"It ain't the Mutts we gotta worry about," Hein's voice was strained with smoke damage and exhaustion, he gesticulated wildly as he spoke. "It's the things in here. Something came after Hasken and it changed her, you understand? It turned her into something else!"
"Is she dead?" Rozen said calmly.
"Yeah, she's dead," Hein raved, "but not before she puked up her own tongue and it wrapped around her head, and her legs folded in and her guts came out and waved around like tentacles ... and her skin turned purple, and her bones stuck out like spikes and her blood went blue and spread out like mist, and beady little eyes opened up all over..." he slowed down, exhausted, his voice escaping him as he sagged.
"Get your head back in the fight, Private," spoke Rozen, unfazed. He stepped closer, grabbed Hein by the arm. "There are four of us left. I need all of my men. We mourn our lost comrades when the mission is complete."
Nytus watched Hein carefully. He had never seen the volatile soldier act this way before. He seemed cowed, terrified and, perhaps most surprisingly, close to tears. Hein's shoulders dropped, he started to speak again, but quietly, almost a whisper. Nytus had to step closer to hear what was being said.
"There's something, down there," he pointed the end of his flamer down the East corridor, where warning lights flashed. "Something in the core, in the black, some words that … that I forgot..."
"You're not making any sense, Private," said Rozen.
The volume of Hein's voice rose steadily as he spoke. "We need to go down there, and open that door, and empty the rest of my tanks and drown that thing in lit promethium, you get me? Does that make sense, Sergeant?"
Administrator Kress stepped in next to Rozen. "That would be a very bad idea," she said with concern.
"Agreed," said Rozen, "that isn't going to happen, Hein, we need to defend this position. The four of us, here, can hold off whatever comes in from outside, and whatever is in the North and South sectors, but I need you to focus."
"We're gonna die here, or worse!" yelled Hein, "that thing is in the core!"
Nytus stepped in. Hein's ravings were terrifying the civvies. "Calm down, Private," he said sternly. "Take a moment, find your head, and get back in the game. The Sergeant said we're defending this position and that is what we are going to do. We need you."
When Hein turned to look at him Nytus was stunned by the animal fear in his comrade's eyes. "You are a soldier of the Aboran PDF," Nytus reminded, his tone meant to threaten as much as it meant to inspire.
In the background, Lander watched Hein through hooded eyes.
Rozen spoke again as he walked away, addressing everyone now. "We were sent here to protect this facility," he said, "and that is what we are going to do. The outer wall has been breached and the North sector is compromised, but the core is still protected. Six-Zero-Two, we are going to keep it that way."
"Sir," said Nytus and Lander in unison.
Hein stood unsteadily near the reception desk, his shoulders hunched, his body on edge. He fidgeted with valves and straps on his weapon in a way that would have made his comrades uncomfortable, were they not so distracted. Every few moments, he would glance behind him, at the flashing red lights that lit the way to the core.
Lander watched the frenetic, energetic form of Private Hein. For a long time now the flamer-soldier had been pacing, mumbling under his breath. Lander had caught parts of it.
"Dana... it got her … changed her … changed her ...it wasn't me … it wasn't me ..."
Something about Private Hasken's demise had clearly got to him
A noise came from the North corridor and Lander swivelled around. It was something like a chuckle, but caught short, like someone laughed and then instantly choked on a bone. Lander had to check himself, he felt on the verge of ending up like Hein himself. It seemed, as he gazed down the dark corridor,, that things waited around every corner, lurked in every doorway, scuttled across the open from shadow to shadow whenever he turned away. Lander took a few steps forward, glaring at the chaotic darkness of the corridor that was crossed with strobing, red warning lights. He stared into shadowy recesses and into silent vent covers.
The small voice from behind him shocked him enough that his huge hand reached down for his pistol. When he turned, he saw Bota.
"Get back with the others," he said quietly, "you should not be too far from the group."
"I … need to talk to you," Bota said in a small voice, looking back over her shoulder, "the administrator, has not told you everything."
Lander paused. She looked scared, but sincere. He glanced back at the reception area. Hein lurked in the background, and the weary, weathered form of Nytus stood in front of the desk, watching the darkness outside. Rozen and Administrator Kress were not in sight. Lander guessed they'd gone somewhere to discuss something privately, something to do with the facility and how they would defend it. Whatever the reason for their absence, it seemed that Bota now felt like she could talk to him.
He walked her back to the entrance to the East corridor and sat her on a bench, away from the others.
"What hasn't she told us?" he said.
Bota took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her hands were shaking, her brow creased with worry. "You must protect me, if I tell you what I am about to tell you," she said, her eyes shut tight.
"You have my word as a soldier of the Aboran PDF, I will look after you," replied Lander. He meant it.
When she opened her eyes, she started to speak.
"I was an assistant to the doctor here," she began, quietly, so that only Private Lander could hear. "Doctor Curz. She lived on site, she was strict, but she was an excellent doctor. We would do regular check-ins with all of the staff, including the security team..." Her wide eyes looked vacantly at the walls as she searched her memories. "I was the first one to notice it … one of the security team had developed heterochromia..."
"Heterochromia?" repeated Lander, confused.
"In this case, it means that his eyes were different colours," Bota clarified, "but they became that way suddenly, almost overnight, which was … odd."
Lander thought back to the aftermath of the gunfight with the Mutts at the gate. He remembered Private Edora saying something similar about one of the dead insurgents.
"Well, when I told Doctor Curz, she said she'd keep him under observation, but then within a few days, more of them had developed it … and then they started acting strange."
"Strange? In what way?" said Lander.
Bota gave the manic, fidgeting silhouette of Private Hein a long, meaningful look. It was answer enough.
"After a while, people started going missing," she continued, the memories troubling her. "Key staff, people who had been here a while, leaders. Doctor Curz." She closed her eyes now and swallowed. When she looked at him again there were tears on her cheeks. She was shaking. "Outside the facility, to the North, past the barracks, there is a large freezer where we keep food and chemicals and some medical supplies. I was getting something from there, because I'm the only medic now, and … I noticed something wrong. Marks in the ice, things knocked over. I had to search around a bit. She was hidden but, Doctor Curz was in there … what was left of her."
She sobbed and Lander put a huge hand on her shoulder. He looked towards Nytus, who was looking his way. He called him over with a flick of his head.
"After the security team … turned on us," she continued, "they disappeared, and took the only transport with them. A day later, Administrator Kress arrived. She said she'd been sent in to take care of what happened and keep the facility operating, but she also told us to never reveal what happened with the security team, or there would be … grievous Imperial sanctions. I just want to get out of here."
"You will be alright," Lander said soothingly.
"This place had always been haunted," she continued, looking at the floor, her voice quivering as fears and emotions built up, "stories of blue lights out in the trees, of long-serving staff who had gone mad and been sent away..."
Lander turned to Nytus. "Something deeper than we realise is going on here," he said. Nytus looked grim and rubbed his chin, his eyes, narrowed by age, looked at the girl.
"...and there is something else," she said as she looked up.
"What is it, Bota?" said Lander.
"I studied Doctor Curz's notes, after she was … gone," she said. "One of the security team, the one who first developed the heterochromia, he was pretty far gone before they got to her. Her notes said that he kept repeating two words. Hegemon, and another one that I can't remember."
Nytus' eyes widened. "Excuse me for a moment," he said, before returning to the reception desk.
He had to use every trick in the book to get past the encryptions and firewalls on the local facility network. Those words, Hegemon, Sumari'thar, had been crackling over the vox-caster static periodically ever since he'd first detected it earlier in the day. He had started to try and dig into the local database already, in between working on the comms-link and the pict-feeds. Now that he had heard the words from another source, now that it was clearly more than just some random, scrambled signal, he decided that it was time to dig deeper.
He rifled through restricted files, using his most discreet, hand-held data slate that he'd connected to the network. Of the second word, he could find nothing. This did not surprise him, he doubted it was even low-Gothic.
The first word, Hegemon, had an entry.
He opened the file. Text scrolled past his eyes on the slate. Much of it was blocked out with solid lines and many text links were red and inaccessible. There was a section, though, that his security level allowed him into.
He assessed the information.
The Hegemon was an Imperial ship that visited the planet Abora for repairs nearly four-hundred years ago. The ship's destination was classified, as was its class. Nytus tried to dig further. Its mission, classified. Its cargo, its captain, its purpose, all classified. The only other thing that he could find any information about at all, perhaps due to the fact that it concerned the planet's involvement directly, was the reason it needed repairs.
One of its warp drives was malfunctioning, and the techs here had removed it.
A warp drive was a colossal, ancient engine that allowed the great ships of the Empire to travel through the Warp, that eldritch dimension beyond the materiall where the rules of time and space are thrown out, to be replaced by the unfathomable whims of chaos. Such machinery was highly valuable, priceless even, and its dangerous secrets guarded jealously by the tech-priests of Mars.
Nytus scratched his head. This threw up a lot of questions. Why did the Hegemon shed a warp drive here on Abora all those years ago, instead of have it repaired or simply shut it down and limp home? Why had no Imperial agent returned to retrieve it? What kind of mission could this Hegemon have been on?
These riddles were complex and troubling, their answers lost deep in a distant past. There were more immediate questions that affected them now. Where was the warp drive? Could it be that it powers this facility, and half of the planet?
Was there a malfunctioning, ancient piece of unfathomable machinery from a secretive Imperial vessel under their feet at this very moment?
Nytus felt out of his depth for a moment. He took a breath and looked up. The storm still raged outside the glass panel in the front door. What he saw through that glass was so unexpected that it took him a few moments to properly process.
There was someone outside.