Whew. First update in a good while. Happy New Year, enjoy chapter five.
The first thing he noticed was that time wasn't flowing properly. One moment it slowed to a crawl, everything moving as if it were underwater. The next, it raced like a holovid being fast-forwarded, corridors becoming gray blurs.
The act of being awake gave him the dual sensation of a hangover's throbbing headache and the strange feeling of familiarity, as if everything he saw was reminding him of a dream he'd had the night before. Through the haze of annoyance and curiosity, the warps in time seemed almost nonexistent.
To him, nothing could stay in focus for more than a moment before something else was thrust to his equally brief attention. A shout one moment, a wet slickness on his hands the next. None lasted more than a few heartbeats.
But suddenly, he was forced to focus. The blue stripes would not let him have his waking slumber. It angered him, though he did not know why. No, not anger…anger was something from the forgotten times. This was simply an urge to destroy. Not out of malice or hatred, but simply…because.
No one thinks to ask a fire why it burns, or a plague why it spreads. And in the same vein, Chen never wondered why he killed.
The blue stripes impaired him. It cut his legs from beneath him when he tried to charge. It cut his arms from beside him when he tried to claw. Chen tried to move, but his limbs were unresponsive, replaced by a creeping cold. One of his kin leapt forward, only for the blue stripes to erase him.
The blue stripes loomed over him. Chen looked at them with curiosity. They hovered at the height of most men's heads, but it was not a man. It dripped with blood and bile, and raised a hand to Chen's kin, freezing them in the air mid-stride. It raised its other hand, this one screaming through its whirling metal fangs. Chen's kin fell apart.
The group mind cried for its destruction. But it refused to end; it continued to glow in spite of the death that swirled around it, like a black cloak.
Then it looked down at him, and the Reaper's face was nothing but stacked blue stripes. Its red right hand screamed for Chen's death, and it was not denied.
Sherman stared wordlessly at his left hand. For a second, it was complete, unmarred. But as reality ensued, his fourth and fifth fingers were still gone, forgotten on the deck after what felt like a lifetime.
Bass' comm icon lit up. The officer was talking, but no words came through. Sherman stared groggily at his commanding officer, dumbfounded by how his helmeted head moved and his hands gestured, but no words came through.
Now that he thought about it, no one else was speaking, either. Hark mouthed an unheard curse as he brought his improvised weapon to bear. Even the Marines' rifles refused to speak. Muzzle flashes pulsed like strobe lights, but lacked their normal staccato.
Sherman looked down at his damaged appendage again, letting the Jackhammer hang loosely in his right hand. A sharp sensation near his neck interrupted him, and suddenly it became so loud that his helmet automatically applied sound dampeners to prevent him from going deaf.
"…an order, got it?" Bass' voice finally returned, "Stay with me, trooper!"
The crackle of Dean's pulse rifle and the banshee wail of Kaczynski's Grinder accompanied the barrage of death that the Marines poured down the corridor. The rounds sparked off walls, a few hitting their targets. Howls of pain and the impact of projectiles on flesh were barely audible over the gunfire.
"Too much time already," Bass signaled to Dean to move as the gunnery sergeant replaced his subordinate on the firing line, "Sherman, are you good to move?"
"Yeah, I…" Sherman blinked, trying to fill in the gaps of his blurry memory, "I mean, yessir. Good to go, sir."
Viktor Hark hadn't felt so useless in a long time. He had a weapon worthy of his Marine allies, however jury-rigged it might be, but their training and equipment still put them on a completely different level.
The muzzle flashes from their weapons lit up only a few meters of hall, and the failing lights left most of the hallway shrouded in darkness. The Marine RIG units had, among numerous other things, integrated infrared and night vision modes. Whatever nightmares were stalking them, the Marines could see them as clearly as high noon.
Hark, on the other hand, was caught between two feuding mindsets. One side was cursing the limitations of his naked eyes, and how it effectively disabled his otherwise devastating C99 contact beam.
But on the other hand, Hark knew that whatever lurked in the darkness, there was a part of him that was grateful that he couldn't see them.
He caught a glimpse of movement, outside the fusillade of gunfire. That was more than enough for Hark to thumb the activation stud and squeezed the trigger. The contact beam belched a stream of white-hot energy. Whatever had moved, it vanished in the blast, along with a section of the corridor wall.
Bass hit him on the shoulder, shouting for him to keep moving. After the medic's disappearance, Bass had them on the constant move. A wise decision, as it turned out. The slavering hordes were only seconds behind his decision, and any stand they might make would have most assuredly been their last.
Hark let loose another blast of pulverizing energy, then turned and joined the group's retreat.
Kaczynski's teeth rattled in his head as he fought the Grinder's recoil. His own strength and the suit's stabilizing arm were hard-pressed to keep the weapon under control. The Grinder was intended to be fired while anchored by its magnetic brace. The rate of fire Kaczynski was maintaining while unanchored would have been laughed off as insane by any of the other company support gunners, but with the swarms coming from seemingly everywhere at once, to cut off the stream of shells would be to sign his own death warrant.
He'd always tried to be the stoic foil to Sherman's hot-headedness, but the entire situation was pulled straight from his worst nightmares. He'd read about historical battles where the side with superior firepower was defeated simply because they fought an enemy who had more bodies than they had bullets. It was a cautionary tale of undersupplying troops, of the dangers of numerical superiority…not something that could ever happen.
From the corner of his eye, Kaczynski could see that Bass triggered Sherman's stimpack. Their suits came equipped with autoinjectors of combat stimulants, which could be dispensed at the whim of their immediate superior. Sherman's loss had left him in a dangerous state of near-shock, which thankfully the stimpack had jerked him away from.
Kaczynski snarled a curse as his HUD let out a warning drone, his ammunition counter flashing yellow. The demons continued to bay for their blood, and the Grinder's roar held them back. But his ammunition supply was dwindling far more quickly than he'd ever thought possible. He still had his sidearm, but against creatures this resilient, it would be next to useless.
Now it flashed red. Thousands of rounds became hundreds, and the weapon lowered its cycles to conserve what precious little remained. One of the creatures made it past the devastating firestorm, leaping toward Kaczynski with its four arms poised to cut him apart. Kaczynski howled as fear became fury, slamming the still-whirling barrels into the beast mid-flight and slamming it against the wall.
It opened its segmented mouth, but the full weight of the Grinder smashed its head into pulp against the metal bulkhead. Kaczynski swung the weapon again, this time hitting what looked like a demonic cherub. The infant-turned-monster was small enough that the weapon turned it into little more than a smear when they collided with the opposite wall.
Another lunged forward, and then another.
Always another.
Kaczynski knew full well that Grinder would run dry within moments of opening fire again. Countless squirming shadows also told him that he could kill ten of them with each remaining shot and still be overwhelmed. Success was impossible. They were…
A strange sense of calm cut through the rage and fear. They could not succeed. No matter what they did, the result would be the same. Kaczynski felt, for the first and last time, that he was finally free. Free of Tanith, free of this nightmare, free of it all.
He couldn't even see Bass and the others now. Wherever they were, it didn't matter. Stanislaus Kaczynski found his peace at long last, and pulled the double-triggers of the Grinder one final time.
The Grinder sang, and the monsters danced in the light of its flames. It sang a song of death, of their death, of Chen's death, and of Kaczynski's own imminent demise. Kaczynski hummed with the weapon's dirge, no longer even aware of the shrieks and howls of the countless nightmares that sought to tear him apart. One scything talon cut through the armor on Kaczynski's thighs. But the Grinder continued to sing, and the monsters fell to pieces before its melody.
The music died with one final note, exploding the head of the foremost creature. Just as surely as his ammunition was spent, so was the life of Lance Corporal Stanislaus Kaczynski. The Marine slumped against the closest wall to take pressure off his wounded legs, and waited for the gibbering darkness to claim him.
Twin spears of energy, fired in quick succession, obliterated the nearest of the attacking creatures.
His mechanical arm might've been a crude model, but it was strong nonetheless, aided by his natural strength, and hefted the contact beam while he slung Kaczynski over his shoulders.
Viktor Hark had seen the Ishimura claim too many good men. Heroes all, and each taken well before his time. Hark was a broken soldier on the wrong side of sixty. If standing at the jaws of death was what it took to snatch a younger man from it, the Viktor Hark was glad to oblige.
The hordes surged forward, and Hark aimed the compact supercollider. He squeezed the trigger, belching a beam that struck the creatures like a comet.
For half an instant, the laser's radiance brought light to the blackest shadows. It illuminated every fang and claw, every sheath of sinewy muscle and suit of pallid skin. For that half instant, Hark defied the darkness. And in the instant that followed, the contact beam annihilated it.
With a grunt of exertion, Hark moved to catch up with Bass.
Bass slammed a fist on the door controls, firing off one final burst before it closed. With the heavy door separating the Marines from the horde, Bass allowed himself to begin breathing normally again. The tide always found a way past whatever obstacles he could set up between them, but it always took them time.
"Where are we?" Dean reloaded his pulse rifle with shaking hands. Its normally adequate magazine was running dangerously low, and he didn't have nearly as many reserves as he had when they set out. Bass took a moment to check his HUD's schematics.
"Hydroponics," he answered, reloading his rifle as well, "If the floor plan I've got is right, we should be…" He trailed off, noticing that Hark, and the badly wounded Kaczynski slung over his shoulders.
"Maker's balls," Sherman murmured, reaching a hand toward his friend, "Is he-?"
"He's alive," Hark panted, laying Kaczynski down on the deck, "Took a nasty swipe across the legs, and I don't know where his gun went, but he's alive." Sherman breathed a sigh of relief, but Bass was not placated.
"When did this happen?" Bass demanded.
"Not a full minute ago," Hark replied, confused, "What's eating at you?"
"Simple," Bass snarled, "You drag one of my men to cover with his legs mangled, and I don't see a damn second of it." His index finger crept around his rifle's trigger guard. Kaczynski's head drifted to one side, facing Bass, his voice crackling weakly through their helmet comms.
"Don't trust him, gunny…" he groaned.
The pieces were falling into place. Bass had led his under-strength team for the better part of two hours with no casualties. But a half hour after picking up Hark, he'd taken two casualties, one of them likely dead. First Chen was lost, taken while Hark's story and improvised equipment had bewitched them. And now Kaczynski was down, and Bass could tell that he was seeing the same things Bass was.
"What, are you saying I had something to do with it?" Hark said with astonishment.
"I'm saying that it's only after we pick you up that we lose two good Marines," Bass replied slowly, as if he was holding back much more aggressive wording, "And I'm saying that you're the only thing that changed before we lost them."
"Are you joking?" Hark spat, "I dragged him here while you were-"
"I look after my men!" Bass shouted, cutting him off, "You're not one of them, and since you joined us, I've lost two of them. How long until the next, Hark?" His pulse rifle primed with a high-pitched whine, and Hark's expression turned from confusion to outright fear.
"Maybe you take Dean after you finish off Kat," Bass leveled his rifle at the crewman, "Maybe it'll be Sherman. Or maybe you'll have the balls to bump me off next."
"Look, gunny, I meant no disrespect when-"
"Don't trust him, sarge," Kaczynski groaned again. Hark ignored him, but Bass had heard enough.
"Who's next, Hark?" Bass demanded, his HUD's target reticule burning gold, "And what then? You take strip us for armor and guns and keeping running?" Hark's mouth moved, but he couldn't form a reply. Bass's trigger-finger tightened.
"Answer me!"
"Gunny!" Bass' rifle was suddenly forced down. The officer took a quick step back, and Sherman took his hand off the rifle's top barrel.
"He's your goddamn friend, Sherman," Bass seethed, "Don't back this piece of shit over Kat."
"Gunny-"
"He'll 'catch a swipe' across the throat next. And none of us will catch a glimpse of it, either, but who wouldn't trust a broken veteran?"
"Gunny, I-"
"He'll put on a show, carrying him like this, but mark my words, once he gets too heavy-"
"Gunny!" Sherman shoved Bass against the bulkhead, "He's dead, Gunny. Just…stop."
Bass did stop, and the red haze lifted from his vision. The scene before him seemed to change as starkly as night from day. He saw Dean, crouched alongside Kaczynski, making the sign of an Old Earth religion. Hark was pressed against the opposite wall, his grizzled features still marked by fear. Sherman's voice was breaking, on the verge of tears.
And Bass was the one with his gun raised, trying to kill in the name of the dead.
"What did…what do you mean?" Bass shook his head, thinking for a moment that he just needed to shake away this new filter over his eyes, "Who's dead?"
"Kat, sarge," Dean replied quietly, "Kat's dead."
"No," Hark's fear became confusion once again, "That can't be right. He was alive when I grabbed him." Dean turned Kaczynski's head, revealing a centimeter-wide hole on the back of the helmet.
"He probably was. One of…them…probably got him while you were carrying him. It went clean through. Probably went without a sound."
"But he's…" Bass muttered, letting his rifle hang slack in one hand as he slid down the wall, "Hark was..."
"…trying to save him," Sherman finished bitterly, "Trying to save him when we didn't even see him go down."
Bass was abruptly seeing the world as it was. Hark was the only one who'd seen Kaczynski fall in the chaos, and had risked his life pulling him to safety. He'd have just been food for the horde if Hark hadn't intervened. He was no more responsible for Kat's death than…
Bass took a deep breath. Hark was no more responsible for Kat's death than Bass had been for his men who'd died on Tanith. He'd been seeing patterns where no patterns existed, laying blame when there was no one at fault. He was no better than the media that had chosen to crucify him for the Tanith disaster.
"I'm…" Bass noticed for the first time that his hands were trembling. He wrapped them around their respective spots on the pulse rifle to stop them.
"Sherman, you're acting CO," he pushed himself to his feet, "My judgment's compromised, and you're long overdue for a promotion as it stands." Sherman was taken aback.
"Sir, I don't-"
"No debate, private," Bass cut him off, "My last act as CO is promoting you to acting. If you and Kat hadn't been buried by Tanith's mess or been so damned happy as troopers, you'd both have made staff sergeant by now. You're fit to lead, and I know enough to see that I'm not."
"Understood, sir."
Bass glanced up in time to see Sherman snap a crisp salute. Dean did the same. It was as close to a sendoff as Gunnery Sergeant Bass could expect. After this was over, he'd likely be hanging up his uniform. He was still young by noncommissioned officer's standards, but aged decades in just a handful of years as surely as if he'd let time do its work.
The chatter of the horde was humming through the walls. Bass would need to wait to make amends with Hark, if that were even still possible. Sherman ordered them up, now only four men from what was once a full platoon, and their push through the bowels of the Ishimura resumed.
Bass fired off a burst as a creature dropped from a ventilation duct, tearing its head from its body as Dean put several rounds into its chest for good measure.
At point, Sherman's Jackhammer boomed, dropping another abomination. Riding high on adrenaline, and his suit's auto-injector administering an anticoagulant to prevent any bleeding before he could bandage his hand, the acting CO was no longer even slowed by his lost digits. Within minutes of combat, he'd practically forgotten he'd ever had an extra finger and a half.
Even Hark seemed to have recovered, having looked into the eyes of death in Charlie Bass and come back alive, refusing to give the creatures what even a Marine could not take.
Bass had stepped down because he knew he was not in a right state of mind. He'd folded under paranoid delusions, and almost executed a civilian for crimes he could never have committed. That much had been clear to what remained of his team, and Bass had no desire to cover any of it up.
What he'd not told any of them was Kaczynski's warning. He'd heard it as clear as any other, goading him, pushing him to violent action even with a hole through the back of Lance Corporal Stanislaus Kaczynski's head. What he'd not told any of them was that even left behind, rigged with an incendiary charge for a funeral pyre, Kaczynski had not yet fallen silent.
"Don't trust him, gunny…" he whispered, past the thunder of guns and the trample of boots, "Don't trust him…"