XV
"Let me go through this one more time," Thorn scowled at the screen displaying a somewhat haggard and tired-looking Stevens. His face was streaked with grime and sweat, his eyes glazed and distant as he glared into the video pickup. "You can't get any of the pilots to the bridge. You tried to disable the engines, but lost half of the men I sent you to these things in the process. And you didn't even get to the controls to disable the engines."
"Christ, Thorn, there's nothing we can do from here. Pull us out of here…"
Thorn cut him off with a dismissive wave of the hand, shaking his head.
"The Eden already has a quarantine enforced on it, nothing gets off. We've hacked in to some of the systems we can, jettisoned all the escape pods: we can't chance any spread of this infection to other ships in the fleet, which means we can't allow you or anyone else to cross over."
"Fuck that," a voice from off screen spat, and the face of another man bobbed into view: Thorn had read through enough dossiers in the past couple of hours to be able to identify the man as John Tomly, one of the pilots aboard The Eden. "I'm a pilot, I'll just fire this thing up, drop out the hanger and come on over."
"If anything leaves the ship without my say so, our weapons will automatically target, track and destroy them. Think your fly-boy piloting skills can evade a class seven military targeting computer?"
JT muttered something under his breath, then retreated out of view, leaving Stevens to be the sole occupant of view screen. He ran a shaking hand through his close-cropped hair, then cradled his head in his hands.
"You're saying we're fucked, then," he finally said, exhaling through pursed lips. "No back up coming, no way off this crate. What're you saying we should do, break out the cards and play poker? Sit on our ass while we wait for the engines to burn out? And how long's that going to take?"
"I understand that you've been through a lot…"
"You don't understand fuck-all," Stevens spat, glaring menacingly at the screen before he caught himself and slowly, deliberately, raised his hand and touched the tip of his finger to his furrowed brow. He spoke again in a low voice. "You don't understand fuck-all, sir."
"I know you've been through Hell, soldier, I know that. Listen, I need a level-headed man over there to keep everything in line, the last thing I want is for anarchy to break out amongst the troops, and at the moment that level-headed man is you. Don't fuck up on me here, Stevens. While you're over there, you need to make yourself useful. You can't get to the bridge, and you can't get to engineering. In the meantime, see if you can get hacked into the security network; find any pockets of survivors there may be. If you can't get to them, at least instruct them on what to do until someone can get to them."
"What about the lifeboats?" an unseen voice from off-screen asked. "Can't we grab one of them? Get a message out to any other survivors…"
"The lifeboats have gone," Thorn waved his hand dismissively. "The quarantine on the ship can't be broken, we can't afford to let any of those creatures spread. The lifeboats were jettisoned not long after we last spoke."
"Left us to hang out and dry," Stevens shook his head, looking glumly at the keyboard resting beneath his fingers. He nodded towards one of the people beside him. "See what you can get from the network, hack in to whatever you can."
"I've got some limited access codes," the ship's pilot crossed across the background behind Stevens, offering his assistance to the Comtech. "I can get you through some system securities."
"I'm going to send over a small shuttle," Thorn announced, tapping a series of commands into the keypad fixed to the arm of his chair. "Just a one-man shuttle, loaded with enough supplies to keep you going while we assess the situation and put some plans into action."
"We could do with more men," Stevens pressed the urgency of their situation. Thorn shook his head.
"We've got a plan to get The Eden turned around, but I need as many of the men onboard as we can spare. You're holed up in the hanger, you only need to hold your position. The creatures haven't made any attempt to break in yet."
"They're hammering at the hatch now. The only thing that's keeping us away from them is a pressure hatch and a pile of slag that used to be crates."
"They've stopped," a woman's voice. Steven's Comtech, or maybe his doctor friend? It was hard for Thorn to say. Stevens scowled at her, clearly trying to bluff a little extra resource for his men. Despite himself, Thorn found himself grinning at Stevens, who clearly had some balls in trying to pull the wool over his eyes.
"But they could just be waiting for us," Stevens tried to reason his argument, but the slump in his shoulders indicated he knew he was beat.
"A compromise," Thorn offered. "The man I'm sending over in the shuttle with the supplies, he'll be a formidable addition to your forces. Along with food, he'll bring a few more crates of ammo. Keep me updated with what happens, let me know if you find any survivors."
Thorn thumbed the screen off, turned to address the rest of the bridge.
"Have we matched velocities and course with The Eden?"
The pilots operating the helms nodded solemnly, their eyes fixed on their instruments. Though he hadn't been summoned to the bridge of The Vengeance, Cray had managed to weasel his way back onto the control deck and was close to hand, eager to know what was going on aboard his ship, and how much of a close call he'd had after leaving. Thorn noted the smirk on his face, felt his gall rise.
"I don't recall asking you to be here," Thorn murmured, barely sparing him a passing glance.
"Thought I'd see how my boy was doing," he nodded towards the view screen that had previously held Steven's image. He slowly shook his head. "Losing half the team's not too good."
"Before you get too smug and gloat about how 'your boy' is handling this, keep in mind that those men lost were from this craft. I knew some of them, played cards with some of them. Though they were my subordinates, they were still my friends, and in all honesty, I think that if you were in charge there would have been a lot more casualties, and not just military."
"My men have been wiped, too," Cray argued the point, though he didn't sound as if he was too cut up about it. "I'm not too happy about that."
Thorn snorted in derision, shaking his head at the barefaced lie Cray thought he would be able to pull off. His face was completely devoid of any loss or emotion other than glee that his nemesis seemed to be losing men.
"Docking procedure commencing," announced one of the ensigns from his station, looking up momentarily and catching the eyes of Thorn. He nodded in approval, pushed himself up from the seat, and strolled across the room to the console. Cray looked to be in two minds over whether he should follow, then reluctantly decided to stay close to Thorn, falling in line a couple of feet behind him.
"Bring us in closer," Thorn nodded again, watching as one of the holographic displays flickered to life, a crude depiction of The Vengeance as it approached the flank of The Eden, slowly but surely falling in to position beside it. Docking ships in space was a regular occurrence, and something that Thorn had done and witnessed a hundred times before, but each time he still found himself holding his breath as one vehicle encroached on another.
The proximity of The Eden set alarms blazing, the bridge of the military cruiser awash with red light as the sensors around the craft detected the encroachment of the hydroponics ship within what the ships artificial intelligence considered its personal space. The ensigns all around the bridge worked in unison, ferrying message back and forth as their hands danced over the controls and silenced the alarms, overwrote safety procedures, and brought the two craft closer together. It was slower than normal, the process taking far longer because the bridge of The Eden was vacant, effectively a ghost ship left adrift in the star field.
"Easy," Thorn muttered, exhaling through clenched teeth, his eyes fixed on the holographic representation of the two ships slowly merging in to one. Each flashed from red to green, a silent alarm that required the utmost attention of all skilled pilots on the bridge as they slowly guided the crafts together.
"We're within range now," announced the ensign closest to him, his voice wavering slightly as he concentrated on the readouts on his panel.
"Deploy the clamps, put it all on screen."
The holographic image of the two ships blinked off, was replaced by a series of views pulled from sensors fitted around the hull of the military craft. The views were confusing and distorted at first as the lenses within the cameras tried to focus on the gunmetal-grey hull of The Eden as it nestled alongsideThe Vengeance, its uneven hull spattered with bulging growths filled with all manner of vegetation and animal life. The hydroponics domes were opaque, the briefest of life within them flickering beneath the polarised surface as they gazed blankly on the Behemoth cruiser nestled snugly beside it. The skin of the military craft shuddered and became active as thick docking clamps extruded themselves from their housing, the break in the airtight pockets they'd previously resided in releasing jets of air that froze into crystalline structures and drifted away from the craft like giant snowflakes. The clamps, seventeen in total along the side of The Vengeance, slowly reached out towards the hydroponics ship, their immense electro-magnetic pads touching the sides of the craft just as they became active, bonding the two craft together. With the coupling complete, the clamps started a slow, gradual retraction, drawing the two craft together and merging them into one unsightly craft, like Siamese twins joined along the side, though these twin sisters were by no means identical.
"Coupling complete," reported the ensign beside Thorn as the ship shuddered briefly once the docking clamps had stopped drawing them together. He sighed in relief, then looked to Thorn with a grin, nodding his head. "Airlocks extended to the starboard and doors remaining sealed as commanded."
"Excellent work," Thorn slapped the young ensign on the back of his shoulder. "Keep synced up with the computer aboard The Eden, make sure we mimic their every movement, I don't want us to get ripped apart mid-transit. Make sure we're locked on to the same course until we can slave their systems to ours. Security."
Thorn turned away from the men and women still working over their consoles and speaking into a headset nestling over his ear.
"Sir," the response was swift, as if the security section had been waiting in anticipation, ready for his commands. They'd been briefed about the situation, and knew what they had to do. Still, it would do no harm for Thorn to remind them once more.
"Remain stationed by your assigned airlocks. Remember, no one is allowed on or off the craft, no exceptions. Keep those seals tight, and your weapons ready. Are the oh-gee team ready?"
"Ready, sir," a new voice sounded over the communications relay. "Team prepped, and I've got the shackle ready. We're already on our way."
"Excellent," Thorn smiled, returning to his chair and lowering his bulk back down into the frame. He looked over at Cray, finally offered him a seat beside him. He reluctantly accepted, his face a mask of intrigue and confusion.
"What's going on?" he finally asked.
"We're going to use a shackle, hook us up to The Eden, and get the craft under control from here. If we can't get the pilots to the bridge, we'll bring the bridge to the craft." The shackle wasn't the correct name for the device, but that was the name it was universally known by, as once it was fitted to a craft, it slaved the systems of that craft to the parent, shackling the two together and making them move as one. Though the computer of The Edencould be read from the outside, it couldn't be tampered with. Cray nodded, understanding the procedure and silently impressed with it. He wouldn't have thought about it, he would have had his men press on up the ship as best as they could. As if Thorn could read his mind, he nodded softly.
"Yes, if you sit here a little while, you might pick up a few pointers on leadership," his comment was nothing short of a slap in the face, but Cray kept his cool as best as he could. He was sure that if he hung around long enough, Thorn would screw up, and he'd love to be there when he did.
0
Cole Harper was a member of the specialised zero-gravity strike force stationed aboard The Vengeance, one of the few Marines in the fleet who had been trained for special operations in the airless vacuum of space. He embraced the feeling that came with stepping out into a weightless void, that peculiar sensation that fluttered in his stomach and made him feel that he was alive. Every time he stepped out into the void, he remembered how small and insignificant he actually was when compared to the "big picture" around him.
This time, though, it felt different.
He stood on the lowered cargo ramp of a dropship that had nestled on the hull of The Eden, towards the front of the vehicle, and looked out across the fifty meters gap between the parked craft his target, the front viewscreen of the bridge. Nervously adjusting his grip on the equipment he held – a pulse rifle and the shackle he needed to install in the bridge itself – he peeled one foot up from the ramp and slammed it down against the hull, gingerly stepping out onto the hull and walking slowly, just like he'd been trained. All around him, he was surrounded by either the steel of machine or the airless void of space, and his breath echoed in the confines of the armoured helmet he wore, the face plate heated to create minimal condensation as he breathed.
"Take you time, Harper," the voice of the dropship pilot crackled over his intercom as he left the shadow of the smaller shuttlecraft, pausing slightly to look over his shoulder at the grinning man sitting in the cockpit. He waved casually, rapping the window of the cabin. Although the sound couldn't travel in space, it could be heard over the radio. "Ain't like I got anything better to do. Just don't fly off on your own, you hear? I ain't gonna chase your fool corpse across the cosmos just 'cause you sneeze and loose your footing."
"I'm always careful," Harper motioned towards his magnetic boots, then tugged the umbilical cord attached to the harness of his pressure suit. "But I'm linked up to you, too, so I won't go far."
"Maybe you do this quick enough, we take you on a little ride, huh? A little astro-skiing?"
"We'll see how I make time," Harper laughed, shaking his head, the motion of which was lost in the toughened casing that surrounded him. "Keep the channel open, I'll let you know when we're coming back."
Behind Harper, a pair of soldiers followed him closely, one nursing a pulse rifle as he would a child, the other pulling a small explosive charge that trailed behind him in the zero gravity. His rifle was slung over his shoulder and trailed behind him just like the charge.
"How come we get this duty? I hear the ship's got the plague… why're we breaking quarantine? Why not just abandon it and nuke the fucker?"
"Collateral damage? All the civs, all the livestock, pretty much everything aboard the craft that's worth a dime… you want to explain to some board of execs why you blew up a ship instead of just popping a window? See, Chuck, this is why you're never allowed to carry the charge. You stick to covering our ass, I'll keep an eye on the charge."
"Knock it out you two," Harper shook his head. Of all the Marines he could get teamed up with, why did he have wind up with Chuck and Marcus? Marcus wasn't too bad, but Chuck was more of an annoyance than a hindrance to the mission. "Just make sure you keep us shielded with that dropship, the last thing I want is for one of our suits to get punctured by a piece of debris."
Harper couldn't help fight the smile that spread across his face.
"Well, at least keep me and Marcus shielded, anyway."
"Fucking comedian," Chuck grumbled to himself, adjusting his grip on the rifle. "The fuck'm I doing out here, babysitting a fucking bomb from what? Ain't another fuckin' spacewalker for another million fuckin' light years."
"Protocol," Harper said, rolling his eyes, "You want to tell Thorn you think you doing your job's a waste of time? Cause I can patch you through to him direct…"
Chuck waved his hand dismissively as the trio approached the thick, reinforced window that led into the bridge, placing his gauntlet against the surface and rapping it gently, cooing in a soft voice: "Anyone home?" The windows were polarised, so nothing could be seen of the interior from the outside.
"Sensors've got nothing in there," the crackle of the pilot from the comfort of the dropship relayed the information his instruments gave him. "No life signs, no heat sources, nothing. It's open season for you guys."
"Oo-rah," Marcus stepped forwards and swung around the charge, pressing it against the reinforced glass and pushing the primer button, watching as the corners of the device gave off a soft red glow as they heated up, fusing itself to the glass. The trio stepped back from the panel, weapons raised and ready, then Harper gave the nod.
Marcus thumbed the triggering device he held.
The charge erupted silently, a sudden flash of magnesium sparks flaring to life, only to extinguish just as quickly in the oxygen-free environment. As brief as the low-yield explosion was, it did its job, shattering the window into a thousand fragments and exposing the interior to the harsh vacuum of space. The glass fragments hung suspended in place, twinkling like a curtain of stars, while the escaping atmosphere from the from the interior of the ship cut off as bulkheads were automatically sealed in place to prevent any further seepage. Harper stepped forwards, lifting his weapon and nudging aside the fragments of glass dangling before him while nudging a switch in his helmet with his chin, activating the halogen spot lamps attached to the side of his helmet. The bridge within was dark, a thick and choking blackness that pulsed with flickering control panels and flashing readouts. Several screens flashed warnings about the hull breach in the bridge, and that the automatic shutters had been disabled, as had several other systems in the bridge: the result of the breaching charge that not only destroyed the glass, but also emitted a weak electromagnetic pulse that knocked out most of the systems in the bridge, including the gravity plates in the room. Not that that mattered for Harper and his men, as their boots kept them in place as they pulled themselves in through the veil of thick, shattered glass and into the bridge itself.
Papers and pens hung suspended in the air above several of the desks, frozen in a moment of time, while a thick, tar-coloured liquid floated above an overturned coffee mug, and random items of clothing seemed to hover above the deck. Harper swept his spotlights from one side of the room to another, stopping dead in his tracks as his beams of light played across a glistening, tumour-like growth that seemed to dominate one third of the room: a shimmering, organic structure that was grey-black in colour and comprised of pipes, ridged sections and grotesque shapes akin to enlarged and exposed ribcages and melted loops of distended intestines. The structure covered the wall and part of the floor, merging with a complex network of slime-covered roots that joined a collection of translucent grey oval pods together.
"The fuck is that?" Chuck motioned with the muzzle of his rifle, pointing to the obscure creation.
"Don't know," Harper shook his head. "Stay away, it could be anything. A meltdown in the power grid, damage from the charge: it might even have something to do with the quarantine, so don't touch shit, you hear me?"
Chuck muttered wordlessly to himself, standing beside Harper as he located the main navigation console and tore the front panel off, letting the plate float away as he fixed the shackle in place and keyed in the activation code. A small black screen scrolled through a series of coding before illuminating a red status light.
"Shackle in place," Harper announced, giving the pair of soldiers with him the thumbs up. "Walk in park, am I right?"
"Copy that," the dropship pilot's voice crackled over the intercom, faint and punctuated with static. "Vengeance confirming the link-up now. We've got it, why don't you head on back."
"They sent the three of us to do this?" Chuck complained, lowering his rifle as he started to trudge back towards the open viewport. "Talk about a waste of resources." He was so intent on leaving the bridge, he didn't pay attention to where he was walking, and lost his footing on a thick cable that snaked across the decking. With one of his magnetic boots loose, his second boot peeled away from the deck and he drifted upwards, turning slowly in an arc and feeling his back knock against the ceiling.
"Quit fuckin' around," Harper sneered, slowly making his way towards him and reaching out, trying to snag his ankle as he floated helplessly.
"I tripped on one of those cables," Chuck snapped, clearly infuriated at the fact he'd lost his footing.
"There's nothing there to trip on," Marcus went to help him, but he was distracted by a glimmer of movement in his periphery vision. He turned, moving slowly to make sure he didn't find himself floating free like his comrade, and watched in disbelief as a figure peeled itself away from the twisted plastic-like construction, like a sniper wearing a Ghillie suit rising from the scrub: invisible one moment, then there the next. Only the suit this person wore wasn't like any suit Marcus had seen before. Sleek armour, jet black and toughened, with an enlarged helmet casing that seemed aesthetically and functionally out of place, as if the suit designer had been on a drug-induced trip while designing it. It had to be a suit; it couldn't be anything else; nothing could survive in the vacuum of space.
The protective visor of the mysterious suit slip open, revealing the black polarised faceplate beneath: maybe it was something that had been issued to key members of the crew to keep them safe from whatever plague had infested the ship? It stalked gracefully across the bridge towards him, and Marcus watched enthralled as it moved, almost swam, through the zero-gravity bridge, trailing a lengthy umbilical cord that was surely attached to a life support system somewhere. Before Marcus could say anything, the suited figure clasped his shoulders with its decorative gauntlets, pulled him in closer towards his helmet. It was a tried and tested method of communication in space if radio silence had been called: while sound didn't pass through space, the vibrations from one faceplate to another did: could it be that this strange suit had all the money pumped into decoration and aesthetics, and nothing into systems?
As the figure pulled closer, it dawned on Marcus that there was something not right about the suit. There didn't appear to be any joints, and as the light improved in the dark and murky room, the suited figure seemed to be more and more… organic? The truth finally dawned on Marcus as the black faceplate turned out to not be a faceplate but the deep, cavernous mouth of the creature.
"Fuck me," he muttered, enthralled as his faceplate knocked against the glistening teeth of the creature. "Harper?"
The pharyngeal jaw of the creature exploded outwards, ripping through the reinforced glass and punching through Marcus' face, his gurgling scream cutting off as the air rushed from his suit and stole his breath.
Harper turned around in time to see the dark creature plow its extendable inner jaw into the helmet of Marcus, watched as blood gushed out in shapeless mounds and crystallised in the coldness of space and the final jet of air that seeped through the ragged hole in the faceplate. Marcus went limp in the creatures grip, and as the creature turned away from the corpse and released it from its grip, Marcus remained upright, his boots remaining attached to the deck and his arms slowly lifting from him as the lack of gravity meant there was nothing to pull him back to the ground. Harper didn't even think about the physics-defying creature that advanced on him, the animal that seemed to thrive in the airless environment, he simply lifted his weapon and squeezed the trigger. The rifle in his grip thundered soundlessly in his hands, the vibrations of the weapon rumbling in his arms and the brief muzzle flashes casting macabre illuminations across the baroque structure that was suddenly alive as more of the creatures seemed to unfurl from previously unseen hiding places: crevices that could barely contain a man giving birth to pairs of the nightmarish abominations.
Chuck added his own weapons fire to the fray as the marauding creatures advanced on him, stabilising himself against the ceiling with one hand and firing blindly with the other, adding his own silent staccato of explosive rounds to the assault.
"The fuck are they?" he screamed, his terrified scream almost piercing Harper's ears. "What the fuck are they?"
"Fall back," Harper shouted, slowly backtracking towards the opening. "Don't let them flank us!"
It was easier said than done. Despite their hours of training in zero gravity environments and the equipment they carried, the alien creatures were far more graceful than the Marines in their movements, practically swimming through space, digging their talons and claws into consoles and walls as they propelled themselves along, tails coiling and extending like a powerful spring. The quicker of the creatures had already swept around behind them, blocking their escape and hemming them in, while another pair of the malevolent creatures swooped on the floating form of Chuck, powerful hands locking around limbs and pulling him first one way, then another, until his arm twisted and snapped free, trailing globules of glistening blood in its wake. With one limb removed, the rest were soon to follow as another pair of creatures leapt on him, like sharks in a feeding frenzy spurred on by the scent of blood.
Confused and overwhelmed by the inexplicable attack, Harper retreated from the bloody miasma emanating from the limbless torso of Chuck that hung limb and bloody in the air, away from the gruesome wraith-like figure of Marcus that still stood erect, his ruined head surrounded by a halo of blood. His escape route was cut off, and with the glistening structure dominating one of the walls, he couldn't find the door leading into the rest of the ship: even if he could, he wouldn't be able to initiate the manual override to seal off the adjoining corridor and form a makeshift airlock on his own. He stumbled onto the carpet of roots and webbing that covered the floor, his breathing shallow as he struggled to keep his wits and senses. The swarm of aliens had seemed to forget about him in the midst of the carnage and blood, and maybe he would be able to survive this ordeal if he could just hide: whatever the creatures were, he didn't think they'd be able to sniff him out, but they may be able to track him by his umbilical cord to the waiting dropship. He could try initiating an automatic recoil of the lifeline, which may pull him through the frenzied creatures, but he didn't want to underestimate the speed at which they could lash out and tear him apart as he was pulled through their midst. If push came to shove, he knew he could walk home, so he detached the cord from his belt and gave a sharp tug on it, activating the winch system in the hold of the dropship. It slowly retracted, leaving him alone and unattached, but ultimately less traceable.
He hoped.
The numerous consoles that littered the bridge were more than large enough to hide the bulk of his suit, and he crouched low, listening for any telltale signs that may indicate one of the creatures were approaching. All he could hear were the crunch of teeth against bone as his fallen team mates were chewed on by the creatures, the sound of razor sharp fangs grinding against skulls picked up by the comlinks in each helmet.
"Does anyone read me?" Harper whispered into his pickup, hoping to get through to the dropship pilot. "Jesus Christ, is anyone there?"
The only response he get was a static hiss, something clearly interfering with his communications relay. Maybe a residual effect from the EMP from the explosion?
He looked as his gauntlets as he pulled them away from the surface of the console he rested on, thin strands of the resinous material that coated the wall and floor around him. Was it possible that whatever had been sprayed on the walls and floor around him actually dampened the signal?
Harper shook his head, crouching low and checking his rifle, making sure his form was hidden by the console or the large organic-looking pod that lay beside it. He wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't look like any of those creatures, and it provided cover, which suited him fine. As he shifted his weight, his brushed his hand against the surface, feeling it give slightly before springing back to shape. Harper imagined the pod would be cold, and not just because it was in an airless environment: it seemed to glisten with a coating of gel, and Harper watched in fascination as the top of the pod seemed to quiver, then peel apart: from his low position on the floor, he couldn't see into the opening, but could see something stirring as a thin yellowy poked over the lip, then another. Harper swallowed hard and froze, holding his breath as he watched another pair of legs appear, and then part of the creature rise into view; a leathery spider with a ropey tail made of powerful muscle. It crawled over the rim of the egg, the arachnid seeming to home in on Harper, despite it having no visible senses. Harper felt cold fear in his stomach, a lifetime of arachnophobia embodied in the impossible creature that was crawling towards him. He found his body responding to him just as the creature lunged at him, but his reactions weren't quick enough for the lightning-quick spider as its finger-like appendages clattered onto his helmet and engulfed it.
Panicking, eyes darting from side to side, Harper could see the fleshy pink underside of the creature pressed against his faceplate: when he was younger, he'd hoped to impress a girl by taking her to a up-market restaurant that served real meat – none of the soy-processed garbage most places served. He'd ordered a plate of oysters, aware of their aphrodisiac properties and hoping that nature would take its course: it hadn't, but the appearance of the fleshy underside of the creature's carapace reminded him of that expensive and fruitless meal. As the creature scrambled at the helmet, its fingers finding purchase as it latched on and squeezed tighter, a lipless mouth poked and probed the faceplate, smearing slime across the visor as it tried to find its target. Harper's gauntlets scratched at the back of the creature, trying to pull it off, but its strength was surprising, despite its size. Lashing out with its tail, the vice-like legs squeezed tighter, the protective visor cracking and crumbling beneath its strength. Harper could smell burning plastic seeping in through the cracks, then with a gut-wrenching crack, the faceplate shattered. The cold of space washed across his face, quickly followed by a more unpleasant coldness as the fleshy meat of the creature poured into the confines of his helmet, pressed against his face and forced its way down his throat.
