Chapter X: Extra Vehicular Activity

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Part Three of the Sunday the First update. Uh. I have no idea what else to say here. Um. Have any of you creative types played The Beginner's Guide? It's by the same guy who made the Stanley Parable. If you haven't, I'd highly recommend it. If you've not really 'made' anything, I'm told it's not quite as appealing, so keep that in mind, delightful members of the invisible chorus.

Another pun title for this one. Extra as in additional and extra as in outside of. Fun, huh? I was quite proud of the layers in that one.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

The Tether was in deep, deep shit.

The building ahead of us was fortified tight, metal furniture of all shapes and sizes pushed up against the windows so the engineers hiding inside actually had something to hide behind. Three swarms of those blade-armed monsters pounded against these amateur (?) fortifications while their Unitologist handlers (or possibly Judas-goat guides) took potshots from a distance. None of the engineers seemed to be shooting back.

I could see people moving about inside though, so... something was definitely wrong. We crept forward at Copse's behest. "We need to get a better viewpoint. Wait for a break in the fighting and we'll make a run for it." David gave him a look. Copse amended. "Fair point. Okay, new plan. We'll run, and you can be abandoned in the scrum as bait. Sound good?"

David continued to glare at him. Copse just grinned.

David grinned harder. Copse grinned wider.

Chloe stepped in before this game of brinksmanship could hurt anyone. "Alright, fuckin' stop that shit already. We got a whole bunch of dudes to get through and three people who can actually hurt anyone and I'm about to bring that down to one, so get planning."

They both turned to glare at Chloe.

She grinned, then leant over to peer at the Tether building. .

The two men sighed the sighs of two men who know their battle is merely postponed - and will be continued as soon as the women responsible for the postponement are out of earshot. Hayden and Nathan made that sigh a lot. "Fine." Copse muttered, creeping off to the right and perching hilariously precariously on the awning of a nearby building.

The rest of us hung back. Chloe would've enjoyed the drama, I think, if she hadn't been so distracted. Us sitting around looking quietly at each other, scored by the semi-regular cracks of gunfire in the background really was like something out of an old action movie. I poked my head out and peered into a nearby pane of glass. Yep. Unfortunately, I wasn't ready for my close-up. What little mascara I'd bothered wearing when Kate had recruited us for her little weird escapade-robbery thing had started to run properly now. I guess all the sweat from running around in blind fear had been kind of a b-word for the chemicals.

I attempted to pull up my sleeve to wipe away some of the run-off, but... these suits don't really have sleeves.

"Get over here." Copse reappeared suddenly in the middle of my vision. I later learned he'd been there for three minutes. "I have a plan. Guaranteed success." When we'd all gathered as instructed, he held up his hands and ran us through it. As he finished, he grinned.

"I cannot believe that worked." I muttered, rubbing my hand over my eyes. "Like, how the heck did that actually work? And where the heck did he get the skeleton model?"

I looked over to my wife, who just gave me a vague shrug as she hoisted the sack of monster-limbs over her shoulder. I knew what that meant. 'Don't know. Don't really care. Problem solved, lets get on with the next thing.'

She was probably right. It was still confusing though.

I looked over to see Joyce and David hugging it out. She was still shaking, and he was murmuring to her in a low voice what I knew were entirely reassurances. Both the men she'd married had been in dangerous careers, so she'd had her fair experience of worrying. When David had first had to calm her down in front of us, Chloe's opinion of him had shot up in an instant.

I ambled over to Copse. "Hi Copse. Your plan worked."

He nodded in satisfaction. His eyes flickered over the scene, surveying it like a lion over all the light touched. He did wince slightly at the blood and viscera, but apparently he was most satisfied with his kingdom. "Yes it did. 'cause I'm a genius."

That was when the Tether exploded.

First the building went up, metal warping and windows exploding outwards. Then, through the large (and slightly cracked) plexi-steel viewport, we saw the long wire-bundle that connected the station ring to the inner sphere just... snap. As the thick cable flew toward us - and the worryingly explosion-induced vulnerable viewport - Chloe shouted out "Oh shit!" and started sprinting toward me.

We ran. Feet pounding, blood pumping, hearts screaming, we ran. And it wasn't enough. We barely cleared half the room before the cable shattered the viewport entirely and the cold, empty vacuum of space came in to say hello.

As the air was pushed out of the room, it dragged us with it. All of us were yanked off our feet and pulled toward the void. Chloe, still running for me, was just... taken. Feet first, she went flying back from me. I screamed.

Fight or flight took over as I desperately tried to grab onto something, anything to stop myself from being dragged out there. My fingers grazed the edge of something solid and I grabbed on. I caught a glance of a dead monster face and screamed, letting go of the solid bone blade that my fingers had wrapped around and flying implacably backward again.

It felt like space had reached out, long tentacles grasping, wrapped around my ankle and was just dragging me in to eat me whole.

Three shots rang out, followed by rapid cursing, then another dozen or so that I quickly lost count of in my sheer, thought-blinding panic. Moments before I felt like I'd finally fly out and be lost in the black, it let go and I fell to the floor with an undignified flumpf.

"Ow." I heard Chloe mutter from somewhere in the direction of my feet.

I poked my head up and saw her sprawled protectively between me and the viewport, gun extended, and ass over teakettle. She was struggling about trying to get up. After a second, she noticed me watching her and stopped, then grinned. I blinked for a second, but couldn't help the grin back.

We'd lived. The Tether was absolutely destroyed though.

Somewhere off to my left, Copse huffed and tapped his comm. "Hey, Temba?" There was a pause. "Yeah. I was worried about that. Sorry." Another pause. "Yeah, it's more gone than my ex-wife." Another pause, then a dark chuckle. "That should work. It'll be good to fuck those guys over."

He hung up. "We've got to go rob an EarthGov depot." He sighed. "If this gets out, I'm going to be fired for sure." A moment passed, then he grinned. "If I gotta go out, I'm glad I'm going out in style." Another moment. "Or at least in a more air-tight seal."

Chloe shuffled over on her back 'til she was beside me, then leant her head on my shoulder. I could feel her shaking. I reached up and interlaced my fingers with hers, rubbing my thumb along her knuckles until she stopped.

Copse hopped to his feet, a slightly terrifying grin suddenly appearing on his face. He clapped his hands, then looked around at all of us. "What are you all lying around for? Lazing about on the job like that! Slackers never prosper! It's not like you nearly just died or anything!"

The man who'd been warning us to be quiet this entire time was now shouting bad quips at us. This was weird.

Chloe poked up her head. "I thought that was cheaters?"

Copse just shrugged. "Them too. Now, up you get! Or I'll leave you for the little popcorn ones to grab." He paused. "I'm sure there's a breakfast cereal reference in there, but I can't quite get anything snappy that pops out to me."

After a moment of quiet, we all grumblingly scrambled, stumbled, and otherwise drunkenly staggered to our feet and moved over to Copse. He nodded approvingly. "Right. Now, since the Tether is..."

"Non-functional," David offered at the same time as Chloe said a succinct "Fucked."

Copse nodded. "Right. Fucked." David and Joyce eyed him with disapproval. He didn't seem to care much. "Since it's fucked, we're going to have to go through space. Temba says there's an EarthGov depot about five minutes thataway," He waved vaguely off in the direction opposite to the one we'd arrived from. "We should be able to get a few air-sealed suits from there."

The EarthGov depot was almost invisible, tucked away in an access-corridor behind a few brightly glowing stores peddling what Chloe called 'cheaply produced crapware', whatever that meant. David noticed it first, nodding his head over to the doorway. He and Copse 'took point' on the door while Chloe watched our backs.

I stuck with her. She was eyeing the surrounding area with an intensely suspicious eye. Like she was about to start accusing random items of being Cylons. I almost made a joke about it to her, but I didn't want to distract her. She'd take it more as a suggestion than a joke and would do it just to make me laugh.

A few moments of agonisingly patience-devouring waiting later, Copse whistled us over. The door hung open slightly, a short piece of metal jammed into the central locking mechanism to hold it there. He made a few gestures to the others that I didn't understand, then mouthed to me "Up against the wall. We're going in first, wait ten seconds, then follow. Got it?"

I nodded and went where I was told.

Copse counted down with one hand. Three. Two. One. As he shook his fist, he, David, and Chloe all went in. Joyce and I stayed as still and as quiet as we could for ten long seconds. It felt like forever. But eventually forever came and went and we had to go in. I slunk across to Joyce and took her arm. "Come on. We should follow them, right? David would've said if it was a bad idea."

Joyce shuddered nervously for a second or two. Quickly though, she pulled herself together. She nodded to herself, then to me. "He would have, you're right, Max. Let's get in there."

Between the two of us, we managed to pull the door open enough that we could scoot in. It was pitch black inside. Only a little light made it in through the door, casting a dull sheen over a small area in front of the doorway. Everything after that was just... empty void. Joyce began to shiver again. I started rubbing my thumb over her knuckles. Not enough to acknowledge her nerves, but enough to remind her I'm here. I... never was very good at this. Chloe was the only person I could ever comfort properly.

Dog, I hoped it helped a little bit, at least.

We crept forward into the black. We made it about two steps before the door slammed shut behind us. I let out a squeak, and Joyce's arm began to shake again. "Joyce, I-"

A dull thworping sound, uh, sounded, and slowly, several deep red lights began to switch on near the floor. I sighed in relief. "It's just emergency lighting. We have the same thing at the station." Thank Dog for Victoria's insistence on regular safety drills. Victoria. Man, I hope she's doing okay. A moment of cynical realism passed over me. She probably isn't.

Joyce's shaking drew my attention back to the situation at hand, so I leant in. "Don't worry, Joyce. We're fine, they're fine. It's all gonna be okay, I promise."

She nodded mutely. I sighed internally. That was probably the best I could hope for with my crappy efforts, right?

We continued on, vainly hoping that the others would be close. Wowzers, this place was bigger than it looked. The main corridor ended in a right-angle turn to the left, so we slowed a little before it and crept up to it. I kept Joyce behind me and poked my head out enough that I could see ahead. Yep. More blank grey metal corridor under dull red lighting that surrounded us with an oddly pervasive, bassy drone. It reminded me of the one time Chloe had managed to get me into an Industrial Darkwave Goth Club in the bowels of some station I can't even remember the name of.

Never again. It was great. But never again.

We turned the corridor and followed it along, listening out for any noise beside the low thrumming of the lights. Nothing. How the heck had they gotten so far in ten freaking seconds?

There were two doors about halfway down the corridor before it opened a little wider into a small area filled with lockers. The locker area was... well, trashed would be an understatement. It looked like those things had crammed themselves in there then tried to have a rave. Needless to say, the area was... bloody.

It took me a moment to set the image somewhere in the back of my head where I could forget about it, so I barely noticed when Joyce started to shake again. It was like... a distant realisation. Like when you sit on your foot for too long and it starts to feel like it's not connected to your body, then you stub it on something.

I tried to drag Joyce forward, and she very gradually did come along, but I almost had to wrench her away from the room. I still have no idea how I managed it - I'm a total weed.

We retreated back to the doors, and I pulled Joyce through one without really thinking. Bad idea. Something shrieked in the room and we both turned and ran, getting to the corner without thinking anything more than blind panicked screaming. The lights flickered as our feet pounded against the metallic floor with repetitive clangs. We'd made it a third of the way along the first corridor when the flickering became flashing and the flashing became darkness.

We kept running regardless. What other option did we have? Unfortunately, Joyce wasn't as fleet footed in her... older age as she used to be. She quickly stumbled and fell behind. We couldn't see whatever was chasing us, we could just hear the screams and the hungry howls. I quickly doubled back and looped her arm over my shoulders, lifting her to her feet as best I could, then we dashed ahead, like the last few metres in a three legged race.

Whatever mysterious stress-induced strength had let me drag and pick Joyce up vanished as my pathetically weak arms and I buckled under her weight. We crashed into the floor with an echoey thuk-scrape sound that probably sounded the dinner bell to another horde of those things. Where the hell were the others?

I was the one to recover first, scrambling to my feet and desperately trying to yank Joyce up with me. "Come on, we've got to-"

A door opened somewhere behind us and the corridor filled with sudden light, illuminating the slavering monster just a few steps away. It was tall, but bulky where the others had been thin, built like a linebacker or a Gears of War soldier. The two chittering mandibles that'd formed out of what used to be cheeks, lined with broken and misplaced, misshapen teeth, dripped with viscera and what I distantly identified as drool. Pulsating pustules ran across its shoulders and down its back, and two long, wickedly-sharp hooked blades arched above its head. Its eyes, though milky-white and without any recognisable pupil or iris, were locked onto us.

We froze. It tilted its head at us, oddly like a curious puppy. The eyes blinked once, twice. Something in its mouth, a tongue, but not a tongue, whipped out and ran across those scattered lines of teeth. Then, it reared back and made to charge.

I started to curl in - some vain attempt to protect a still-shaking Joyce, I like to think - but a loud bellow drew us out of our terror.

We looked up just in time to see David swing his cane like a fucking golf club, burying the handle directly under the thing's chin. It howled and he stepped back, swinging again, this time at the right elbow (?). It hit and the long, bladed, bony arm just snapped. The monster took a swipe at him with the other arm, which David sidestepped neatly, kicking out into the thing's leg. It collapsed to the ground immediately, where David planted his foot on the thing's shoulder, grabbed hold of the blade-arm and yanked it out of the socket, then stabbed it in the chest with its own freaking arm.

We stared at him for nearly a full minute. He suddenly groaned, his hand whipping down to rub against his leg. He leaned heavily onto the cane, swaying like he was about to faint. I started to get up, hoping to dash forward and grab him.

Chloe beat me there. As his bad leg buckled, she ducked her head under his arm and hoisted him upright, supporting that entire side of his body like a living cane. She flashed me a grin, then began to tease the old man. "Now now, Davey. Can't let the ladies see you pass out after such a fucking awesome piece of badassitude. Never knew you had it in you, old man."

He growled out a retort, breathing heavily through it all. "I've been... winnin' fights since before you were born, young lady. Show... some damn respect!"

"Hella respect, dude. I don't think I've ever fucking respected you more. That was awesome." She grinned at me, then shoulder-checked a briefly embarrassed - though flattered - David step-douche Madsen.

The lights suddenly flickered on. I groaned. "Seriously? You go off when the monster is after us, then turn back on when it's gone?"

Chloe chuckled at me. "It's like Mise en Scene gone mad!"

I turned and raised an eyebrow at her. She shrugged. "I do listen when you talk about your camera shit, y'know."

I smiled at her, fond as ever. Chloe is a sweetheart, and I'll fight anyone who says different. Well. I'll go get David to teach me to fight first, THEN I'll fight them. Patience is key in photography, you know.

David suddenly dodged away from Chloe, then kneeled down by Joyce. Another sweet scene unfolded as he comforted her, arms wrapped tightly around her as he rocked and murmured.

Copse promptly came in to ruin it. "We need to keep moving, people. I think the suits are... in there." He pointed to the bloody room, and another wave of nausea passed over all of us.

"Shit."

"Yep."

Chloe sighed. "I'll go in."

I shook my head. "No way, Chlo'. I've already been in there. Copse and I can go get the suits."

Chloe turned her head and looked at me. Looked me down, looked me up, looked me in the eye. "You sure?" She asked, her voice quiet and tentative.

I nodded. "Yes. I'm sure, Chloe."

She went quiet, then suddenly grinned. "Right then. Maxie, Copsie - fuck, we really need to work on a better nickname for you, dude - you two get in the room that tampons forgot and we'll stick around here. I could probably use a breather anyway. Forgot to grab my cigs on the way to help out Kate, so it's not like I can light up outside or anything.""

We all stared at her in mild horror before shuddering and getting the hell on with it. Ugh. I am not going to be able to get that description out of my head the entire time I'm in there, am I?

"This is a stupid idea."

"No, this is brilliant."

I looked up at Chloe, utterly baffled and aghast. "You already got tossed out into space once, Chlo'. Do you really want to do it again? And bring us with you?"

I looked away from Chloe, over to where Joyce was helping David with his suit and Copse was checking the seals on the suits of a couple dozen engineers while quipping about steers and war voices.

I looked back to Chloe. She just shrugged. "It's not like we have an option, Maxie. Just gotta make the best of this shit, right?"

My mouth dropped open. "Who are you and what have you done with my wife? Optimism?"

Chloe grinned. "Hella surprising, ain't it? Figured what the hell, it's not like shit could get any worse, monsters murdering everyone and all, so it's gotta get better, right?"

She had a point. I opened my mouth to quip back, but Copse's sudden appearance blew the mood entirely. "Right then! Everybody ready?"

We all begrudgingly nodded, so Copse moved over to the Tether control panel. I frowned. Were the side airlocks controlled from there, or..? Or.

Oh shit.

The shield covering the shattered viewport just... vanished and we were all sucked out into the void, screaming all the while. Dog, I really, really, really do not like that man.

Spaaaaaaaaace.

AN1 - I had no idea how to solve that problem. So I didn't. Hollywood magic, people. Hollywood magic.