Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (29 page)

It only took us half an hour at half speed to reach a mountain pass we
couldn’t go around. Inside the pass we found our way blocked. The Erebus
has scraped the top of the mountain while descending and caused several
avalanches. There was no way up or through. We were stuck. On the other
side of the mountain was everything and everyone.

We stood around for hours while Lore found a vantage point and began
scanning for other possible ways around. Going around the entire mountain
would take days. Time we didn’t have.

Lore scan luckily found an underground passageway. A natural cave
system that ran inside the hollows of the mountain that had been carved out
by the Lethe. Using his heavy weapon rifle he blasted a hole and forced an
entrance wide enough we could fit our skimmers through.

The tunnels were lit by a strange white coating of crawling aphids and ash
bugs that clung to the wet surface. None of the tunnels we were in were made
for anything larger than small cargo though and we soon found ourselves
walking once again.

“Once we’re out of here on the other side we should be able to see the
Erebus, from there we can asses what to do and make our move against
Balkava,” Hayden said.

It seemed he had no quarrel with killing Balkava though for some reason
it still seemed wrong. I know that I couldn’t - there was never anything she
did on the Erebus that I saw her do that would have made me think she was
going to be the end of the human race. Both Balkava and Aira had saved my
life many times without either of them I wouldn’t be alive now. Aira saved me
when I was a child and Balkava saved me from Celes, an elder that had gone
rogue and insane. An elder from her own ship. The elders were what had
been wrong with the Erebus for years. Condemning the weak and favoring
the strong; Balkava did this to an extent but never to the tyrannical levels I
had read about in the past and most definitely not the past I had seen. The
‘Sons of Sol’ were never as bad as the ‘Black Suns’ as seen in my visions. One
of the things Aira explained was that the ‘Black Suns’ were in fact a splinter
group of the Templars the basis for which formed the ‘Sons of Sol’. In the end
I wouldn’t be the one pulling the trigger, this was Aira’s vendetta and I just
wanted to see Hera again. I had to stay out of it and hope for the best.

Inside the underground passage we found more ruins of what was. Each
seemed to tell a story. The longer we stared at a wall the clearer every image
seemed to become. Parts of this Orbital had been ripped from the dead world
but other parts were ripped from Errikus itself and other planets that we had
never heard of. There were millions who lived on this world and it had once
been joined together by several others creating a cross like shape. The other
orbitals had all but disappeared nothing left but ancient drawings and graffiti
on the walls. Some of the images even looked like the Lethe had been at war
with another strange alien race. War never seems to end. An endless cycle of
violence found in nature as two or more species fight for dominance.

Halfway through the passage we found a small river. It was here we got to
see the first animal (aside from a bird) that didn’t attack us or want us dead.
It was floating on the edge of the riverbed like a jellyfish only it was four feet
wide and two feet tall. It had three large white blemishes on top of it that
looked like they could have been eyes or some other kind of sense we don’t
know about. When we approached it we saw it slowly begin to move away as
if it was afraid of us. In the river we could see strange looking fish and algae
that seemed to glow. It was a magnificent creature. We rested for a little while
and watched it gorge itself on fish that seemed to crawl inside of it. It
reminded me of us, the whole of humanity seeking shelter inside the void only
to find the Skrav and everything else we hate about the universe waiting here
for us; we had become the fish and Eden had become our final resting place.
It was tragic that the fish would die but yet it had to so that the jelly may
thrive and survive. Was that our destiny? Where we to die so that the
universe may find a way to survive without us? Whether we were here as a
species or not it didn’t matter the universe would continue like nothing
happened.

Hayden looked over at me, he could tell I was thinking pessimistically and
told me to stop. Our moment of solitude and peace came to a quick end
though. We weren’t alone inside the tunnels. The Skrav were making their
way through from the other side.

It was an Eel that attacked us
first.
I had only ever seen one in my visions. It was more threatening and scary
then I had ever imagined. In real life I could feel my body tense as it slithered
it’s way through the dirt and snow and emerged its mouth agape and teeth
ready to shred any living matter to pieces. We fired on it the moment we saw
it. It’s blood left a trail on the ground in the shape of a snake. Our weapons
were far more advanced and lethal then the weapons fought with during the
first invasion. As menacing as the Eel was we made quick work of it.
When it finally stopped moving the ground shook and emerged several
Skrav. The scouts began their attack. Lore did the most damage to them
tearing them apart with his heavy weapons rifle. Aira, Hayden, and I
probably could have just set back and watched as the Skrav fired on his metal
body leaving nothing but small dings and scratches. Black blemishes that
covered his yellow hide. The scouts were unprepared and it showed. The
entire firefight was over in one maybe two minutes and we had not a single
casualty.
Hayden wanted to look closer at both the Eel and dead Skrav but no one
else could stomach being in the area any longer. Even Lore seemed hard press
to move on. We should have listened. The Skrav were so weak because they
were nothing more then a small scouting party. Each of them had been
marked with a tracer. It would have been easier to take our chances turning
back. When we walked into the next chamber of ruins we found ourselves
inside a domed city surrounded by Skrav elite. The Skrav elite had armor
bonded to their bodies blades grafted to their wrists and even their second
pair of arms the small ones near their stomach had been retrofitted with metal
claws.
Lore was the biggest target and the first one hit.
He fell to the ground. We weren’t the only ones fighting with heavy
weapons anymore. Each of us went to take cover behind the nearest
dilapidated building we could. Hayden and I separated to one side while Aira
ducked behind Lore for cover. We were outmatched and outnumbered.
On a ledge high above us they had a sniper. A really good one.
Aiming down at us from a high pillar above our heads in all there must
have been thirty or forty of them surrounding us. It was too late to turn back.
Each shot seemed to echo throughout the chamber. The Skrav were
beginning to rush us.
Hayden was the first of us to go down but not dead.
A Skrav came over the side of the ruin we were hiding behind and struck
him with a shot to the left shoulder. Neither of us had time to react or block
the shot. Hayden threw his right hand in the air the sword he always carried
with him. It pierced the visor and helmet of the Skrav.
In the gloom we could see shadows surrounding us, like dark paint against
a light canvas one was holding what looked like it could be a rifle. The dark
silhouettes didn’t look like Skrav though, could it be the Scourge had found
us as well?
Silence fell.
Not a single shot was fired.
I was doing my best to stop Hayden’s arm from bleeding but he was nearly
passed out against a wall. The Skrav blast had given him a bad dose of
radiation on top of hitting an artery. My best friend was bleeding out and
there was nothing I could do. The aphids in the chamber seemed to scatter
and fade out. Soon we were overcome with darkness. The Skrav could be
anywhere. All we were doing now was waiting for the inevitable. Lore lit up
like a light bulb. When he did we could see throughout the entire chamber.
Most of the Skrav had been slain and lay dead across the alleyways. The
strange shadows stepped into the light in front of us. They were humanoid,
pale as the white around us with black charcoal markings along their naked
flesh. They had adapted to the cold so much so they needed very little if any
clothing at all. Their faces seemed stretched upwards and curved at the top
making it seem like their faces bulged. They spoke in a language none of us
could translate not even Lore though no one can say he didn’t try. Each of the
pale white figures was holding a bio-organic rifle that seemed to blend with
their arm. I wasn’t sure if they were holding it or it was a part of them. Then
one opened its mouth. Its jaw split in a trifecta creating a triangle of tongue
and sharp pointed teeth. They had killed the Skrav and challenged us like an
animal would any other trespassing on their territory.
Several shots to the face killed one. Several shots to the torso killed
another. They died just as well as Skrav or any human would. It seemed
strange now that this was our enemy. After Lore killed several dozen I almost
felt sorry for them. Then they changed color. Their bodies shifted and
blended with the snow while another turned black and red his flesh no longer
naked but muscular and solid. Their weak fragile flesh had turned hard as a
rock. It grabbed me by the throat and there was nothing I could do as it
pushed me onto the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Aira
digging her claw into the body of another ripping away at it’s hardened flesh
using all the strength she had.
Once it fell to the ground several limbs sprouted from its upper body.
It wasn’t dead. It was evolving.

I can’t breath. There is too much water and nothing to grab onto.
Why can’t anyone hear me?
Am I not screaming?

A light breeze blew over my face and produced a cold chill waking me
from my unconscious. I wasn’t sure how long I had been out or even how I
got that way. Everything around me was upside down and I couldn’t feel my
arms or my legs. I was being carried.

‘What am I doing here,’ I asked myself. Not aloud. I didn’t want whoever
it was carrying me to think I was awake. The answer was obvious - I was
trying to get home. I just had to remind myself. Home seemed so far away
now and I felt so helpless. On the ground below me I could see footprints
from whoever or whatever it was that held me over their shoulder.

I couldn’t even move my lips to scream. There seemed no end to the
walking. I was paralyzed. Down every icy slope I could see the snow and ice
dripping and smell the air as if I was standing next to a riverbed. Further and
further my assailant carried me sometimes throwing me on the ground and
dragging me across the hard rock surface. From the corner of my eye I could
see Aira and Hayden being dragged and carried the same way I was. Each of
us looked like ragged dolls. Lore was nowhere to be found. What use would
they have had for a giant cyborg anyway; they probably killed him since he
was by far the most different from the three of us. I couldn’t help but ask
myself just what would wolves do with a machine? Lore was probably
completely alien to them and so they had disposed of him.

After hour after hour passed until the freak
finally set me down.
I watched its skin turn from a black and red hardened shell back to a pale
white. It’s organic rifle seemed a natural extension of it’s own body but then it
ripped it off. It was stuck to him like a leech and its tiny legs squirmed as he
set it down on its backside. Aira and Hayden must have been shot with the
same weapon I was - something exotic and out there that paralyzed every
nerve in our body.
Why didn’t they just kill us?
I could move my eyes but everything else seemed heavy.
I felt like I was in a daze. Aira was on the ground staring at me. She wasn’t
blinking and if I couldn’t see her chest moving up and down I would have
thought she was dead. All around us the shifters as there was no other word
to describe them spoke in a strange tongue that sounded more akin to nails on
a chalkboard then actual words or language. We were inside some giant
chamber filled with various holes and tunnels and massive bones that seemed
like the ribcage of a leviathan rose above us to a sharp point. These tunnels
and open chambers must run through the entire orbital. Some of the shifters
had their pale skin covered in bone armor sharpened at the shoulders, elbows,
and knees. Some of the armor looked like it still had red rotting meat
attached.
The aroma of burning flesh came over me like a blanket of disease and
sickness. The taste in my mouth like sulfur made me want to puke but none of
the muscles in my body would allow me to gag. In the distance I could see
shifters burning the bodies of their dead alongside several Skrav.
Was this their intent? To burn us alive? No. We had become prisoners of
war. If they wanted us dead they could have ended us. An hour past maybe
more and I saw what they truly had planned. The Skrav weren’t just being
burned they were being cooked. The shifters were cannibals. All around us
they came out from their holes and hiding places and began feasting on their
dead. They barked and growled at each other some fighting for another’s
meal. They kept us alive because they didn’t want us to spoil.
We were breakfast - fresh morning meat.
When we finally regained the ability to move Aira, Hayden, and myself
were each tied hands behind our backs with thick black thorny vines. One of
the shifters saw my frostbitten fingers and decided it would be no good for
any of them. He severed my black fingers with Hayden’s own blade and
tossed them to the ground were a black and green toxic looking hound came
up grabbed them and began chewing. My fingers were gone already and the
slight pain it caused was nothing compared to the other things I had suffered
in the last 48 hours. It was almost worth it being able to move my other
fingers in directions they couldn’t bother to go before.
“We’re really in deep shit now,” Hayden, said the moment he regained the
ability to speak. The shifters had placed some kind of small leaf on his wound
that seemed to act as a bandage – they were prolonging his life long enough to
make a meal out of him. “Maybe they will invite us to dinner,” I responded.
Trying to analyze our situation. My sarcasm didn’t help any of us. “Just wait,
this isn’t the right place or time,” Aira said giving me a dirty look in the
process. “Just give Lore a little more time, it takes a lot more to kill him then
a couple of animals,” Aira was smiling now looking down at the back of her
wrist. She had been talking to Lore the whole time via one of her own
cybernetic implants. Lore who wasn’t human and too heavy to carry and
could play dead on command was tracking us like a wolf on the hunt. It
would only be a matter of time.
Hours passed over us in silence. I tried to get some sleep but the only bed
I had was a pile of rocks. We were deep enough underground now that we
were no longer cold. The snow and ice ended the moment we were in the
chamber. “The orbital must be hollow,” I said. “It makes sense, if they did
research here they could study anything they wanted from below the surface
it also made living space easy. All they had to do was mold the land right and
they could have as many artificial rooms as they wanted. “
One of the shifters approached us. It was salivating at the mouth.
“Tesh- Kar, Tesh-Kar,” It said those same words over and over. It seemed
like a good enough name for whatever the hell they were.
Another hour passed and then Lore walked into our prison bashing the
head of our Tesh-Kar guard against the wall. His armor was covered in dry
blood. He carried his heavy rifle over his shoulder like a miner would an axe.
He opened Aira’s cell first by grabbing the bone bars and breaking them lose
from the ground. The Tesh-Kar was nothing without their leech weaponry.
Perhaps they had been bonded to it in some way they could sync their minds
together. Hayden tried to use one and it did nothing but move up and down
his arm slithering and crawling leaving a small glue like substance behind.
Lucky for us Lore came equipped with extra weaponry. Most of his body was
nothing but shielding the only parts of him that remained human were his
brain, heart, and maybe some of his spine and nerves all of which had been
integrated with out-tech and human engineering. The hollow parts of his
armor stored small pistols, grenades, and two extra M7 Rippers. It wasn’t
First Descent’s preferred choice, most of us used M44’s and the like, but we
had been trained to use every rifle onboard the Erebus at one point or
another. This was part of the training Balkava herself had given me. Maybe
Aira was right after all and Balkava was planning to create an empire, an
imperium of soldiers born and bred for battle knowing nothing but
utilitarism. That was how she had treated First Descent sending us into battle
against the Skrav, against the Antliods. She could use the simulations to
create a fictional heaven or hell – rewards and punishments for those willing
and unwilling to follow her. She had all the means of starting a new world
order. Humans after everything we had done were already feared by most
alien civilizations. If she took out the Skrav nothing would oppose us. Alien
empires would surrender to us because of our exploits alone.
Lore began leading us to the exit but something was wrong. The ground
around us seemed to shift and move. We had made a fatal mistake. When
Aira clawed one of the shifters to death after our first encounter it mutated
and evolved into something else. It’s very body twisted into a spider-like form
spouting new eyes, legs, and teeth. All around us shifters began to screech
and cry in pain as they took new form. It made sense now. This is why they
paralyzed their ‘dead’ and cannibalized them; none of them ever really die
they become something else, something hostile even to their own kind. This
had to be something they had adapted to survive on this hostile world or a
genetic mutation, one of the Lethe’s less kind experiments. All around us the
Tesh-Kar shifted into their hardened black armor grabbing whatever
weapons they could to do battle with their dead brethren. Their shelter had
now become a deathbed filled with chaos as various mutants climbed ledges
and walls and killed one another. The four of us ran through the first tunnel
unaware were it might lead us or what trouble would find us next.
Deeper and deeper into the hollows we ran. We used several grenades to
blow walls and block passages but for every hole we made another was open
in front of us. Finally we crawled through a passageway barely big enough
for Lore and we crossed into an open field. We were outside the mountain
outside the hollows and the caves. The only problem was nothing looked the
same as it had before. There was no sign of the ruined cities or the wreckage
of the Erebus instead in place of both there before us was a wide jungle and
another ship. It’s hull was made of bio-organic metal. It looked like a hybrid
of Skrav and human design. It was so familiar. Parts of it were reminiscent of
the Tritan while others seemed taken from Skrav daggers and warships. It
was small, maybe only large enough for a few hundred people and nowhere
near the size of generational ships. At most the wreckage seemed to resemble
a torn down rustic cross that had been sitting for years overgrown with moss
and jungle. There were only a few shifters still following behind us. Each
stopped at the site of the wreckage like some kind of invisible wall held them
back. What kind of force was keeping them from moving closer? The closer
we ran the farther behind they stayed. I thought perhaps this was once their
ship? Could this be some kind of sacred relic to them? Had they landed on
Eden long ago and forgotten their technological ways degrading into the
animals they were now?
When we were a good distance away we turned back and saw them
attacking each other. I wasn’t surprised. We had no choice now but to move
forward as there was no going back the way we came. How much of the
underground was crawling with those freaks? It was becoming more and
more clear that like us they weren’t natives here. Maybe that is what this
place does to people; it turns them into monsters.
We set up camp and ate the last of our rations. The only food we had left
to survive and now it was gone. Hopefully if we had to spend anymore time
out here we could hunt and eat animals that lived in the jungle but that would
be a risk all itself. For all we knew everything on this world was poisonous or
worst died and came back the way the shifters could. Together we decided
our best bet was to see the wreckage of the starship and see if there was
anything we could salvage.
We had Lore check the area around us for signs of life; another advantage
of having a cyborg. Night was falling and we could hear several large
hellbeast nearby. Lore called it ‘target practice’ in his scrambled voice. The
night air was getting colder and we had no choice but to take shelter cutting
open one of the hellbeast and using its body and wing like a cave. One of the
strange things about the hellbeast - even in death they gave off body heat for
hours; it was something about the way they stored residual energy inside
themselves. It was like lying near a nice hot furnace.
Lore kept watch since he no longer needed any sleep or even downtime to
recharge; his body was adaptive and he was gaining energy from the stars.
The night came and went and the morning ‘sun’ rose.
Hayden was the first to wake catching several Vesp and cooking them like
rats on a stick. We were only guessing they were edible. They tasted like
nothing. It tasted like air only you could tell there was something solid there.
I imagined eating tofu or at the very least how I thought tofu would taste. A
few bites and each of us had become full. Perhaps that was their true purpose
- not as pest control or scavenger but as a form of sustenance for wanderers.
A full stomach had made me feel optimistic.
We approached the starship with caution. The closer we came to it the
more and more human it looked. It didn’t make sense. There were only three
human deep space ships. The trinity; the Erebus, Aelita, Tritan – were there
more lies buried in our past? It seemed to extend half a mile into the distance.
Long parts of it were buried under the ground. Wherever it had come from it
had crashed and it had been here a very long time. We walked for half an
hour around the base of it until we found a hatch. Lore touched his hand to
the cold flat surface. Some more out-tech poured from his hand and extended
over the door like glowing veins. Suddenly the door opened and the veins
disappeared. Another superpower. I could see more and more why Aira had
chosen him as her bodyguard - I just wish the Lore I had known didn’t have
to be dead for this one to be here. I think in the end he would be proud of his
sacrifice as it was still he who walked with his team and protected us.
As we entered each of us readied our rifles and stepped inside.
It was just like the outside, a jungle. Overgrown tree vines and flowers
bloomed in every direction. Fresh pure oxygen filled the air. One deep breath
would have made any of us (except Lore) pass out. We still had our breathers
from the crash so we put them on. They were one of the few things on our
armor not stripped from us by the Tesh- Kar. I was already dizzy and ready
to black out when Aira helped me to stop struggling and get my breather on
correctly. For a moment I felt like a child struggling to do something I knew
how to do right so wrong. I could feel the sting in my chest as I once again
felt like I was able to breath. Behind some of the vines and tree bark the
metal structure of the ship was still visible. Parts of it seemed rusted beyond
repair but other parts looked fresh - grown from the same biomass the Erebus
used to protect itself.
We walked through various corridors as Lore led the way. It was as if the
ship itself was whispering to him guiding him through the spaces. After about
ten minutes we finally stepped into a long rectangular stasis chamber. The
chambers themselves had been smashed to pieces the glass and structures
warped like the eye of a tornado. The floor had been flooded with clean
water. Pure H20 not a single strand of radiation or toxin (Lore checked). For
a few seconds each of us took of our breather and drank our fill. Behind the
stasis chamber Lore opened a door leading us to the bridge. It was the only
room that wasn’t covered from top to bottom in plant life though the ground
still retained all the colorful vines and flowers. Three massive monitors and
several chairs sat before us. This was most definitely the control room.
Lore walked over to the first monitor and touched it. I was expecting a
holo to appear, something more like the controls used in our assault ships,
shuttles, and I would assume the bridge on any of our human ships. Instead
language appeared on a flat surface in front of us followed by zeros and ones.
Lore began to translate the best he could but some of it was garbled and
meant nothing or was so foreign he couldn’t comprehend. The first thing he
confirmed was that the ship was absolutely human; the second thing he
confirmed was it was also a Skrav/human hybrid; and third the name of the
ship was the XA-1 prototype aka the Praxis. Slowly Lore began to recite the
history of the ship straight from it’s logs.