Salvage (3 page)

More followed the first creature
and she tracked them quickly, firing in rapid succession, laying
down an enfilade that came dangerously close to hitting her ship
mates.

The creatures were oddly
angular. Neither bipedal nor quadruped. Their limbs seemed to work
in any direction, allowing them to move with erratic, quick turns.
They had short bodies, with small heads. What really chilled
Stephanie as she fired blast after blast, was their eyes. They were
very human, and very intelligent. They were also, unmistakably,
filled with hate.

Markus Han reached the airlock
and started to open the chamber. The others piled in and she
followed, after laying down an intense barrage to discourage any of
the creatures from getting too close.

They cycled through into the
Heimdal’s airlock, panting in fear, waiting for the door to open
into the shuttle. No one even looked at their EV suits. They could
not possibly afford the time it would take to put them on. Besides,
they did not need them inside the shuttle. They stumbled as one
from the airlock as the door opened into the cargo bay.

Stephanie put the multigun back
into its cabinet, slamming shut the door. It automatically locked.
She went forward into the cockpit.

“Welcome back,” said Pål.
“Things got hot, I see.”

She almost laughed with the
relief of tension as she thrust herself into her co-pilot’s
seat.

“What the hell were those
things?” Pål continued.

“They were us, I think. If we
lived in an unshielded environment for centuries.”

“Human? You’ve got to be
kidding!”

“Oh man, I wish I was.”

Pål eyed the control panel. A
red light blinked. “Everyone is back then. No one left behind?”

“Everyone that is coming back is
here,” said a voice behind them. Stephanie swivelled around to see
First Officer Jensen float slowly through the hatch.

“Then who the hell just cycled
through the airlock?” said Knutsen.

Screams from the two men in the
cargo hold ended abruptly. Pål cursed and punched the main drive at
the same time as the attitude jets. The Heimdal surged forward,
ripping itself away from the great bulk of the Argoss. The sound of
rending metal could be plainly heard as the craft tore itself from
the side of its host.

Jensen’s eyes went wide, and he
was pulled back through the hatch. He fired his blaster, again and
again. There was another scream, this one inhuman.Stephanie
launched herself out of her chair. She went through the hatch,
slower than usual, but faster than she wanted.

Inside the cargo hold, she
bumped up against Markus. His throat had been torn open. Blood was
being suctioned out of the air by the automatic maintenance
systems. The other man was also dead, and Stephanie felt a
momentary shame that she did not even know his name. Jensen was
holding his hand over a cut on his upper left arm. The thing,
whatever it was, had slashed at him with razor like claws.

She got a good look at it this
time. It was floating, with its impossibly long and sticklike limbs
moving in odd directions. If this thing had once been human, it had
been a very long time ago. It was hairless and smooth, and dark
skinned, but it wore clothing made from the same material as used
by the crew on all the ships. But this only covered its groin, like
a loincloth. There were no tools, or weapons. Its head was small,
its mouth wide with a bank of needle like teeth.

“Is it dead?” she asked
hesitantly.

“Yeah. I put enough of a charge
into it to kill a dozen men. It’s dead, alright.”

“We need to get it back to the
Bitter Sea. They need to know what happened.”

Jensen nodded. One look at their
‘cargo’ and no explanations would be necessary.

“Did you radio them?” he asked.
“Let them know what the hell happened?”

Stephanie shook her head. “No.
The ship’s on the other side of the planet, and the Endurance is
still exploring the gas giant. We don’t have line of sight for
another thirty minutes or so.”

The thrust of the engines
kicking in pushed the creature up against a bulkhead. Stephanie
secured it with strapping, then started forward to the cockpit.
“Get yourself strapped in, Jensen. We’re not gonna hang
around.”

He nodded, then secured himself
in much the same way that Stephanie had tied down the creature.

She propelled herself through
the hatch and pivoted, swinging down into her seat. She strapped in
as Pål banked the Heimdal sharply to avoid a support strut on the
Argoss. They had to warn the other arks. She started to relay what
she knew of the situation into the databanks, updating the ship’s
log.

Jensen put the shuttle in a
close orbit, using the planet’s gravitational pull to propel it to
greater speeds than would be possible with engines alone.
Stephanie’s hands started to shake. She gripped the console firmly
to stay them.

“Shit, what the hell is that?”
she said, pointing to a flashing red light. Collision. Warning.
Missile. Had the damned mutants
fired
on them?

“They must have launched some of
the Argoss’ mines. Goddamn.”

The mines had been designed to
explode in close proximity to a moving target. Intended for
clearing asteroids, it would be just as deadly for them, if they
hit it.

The explosion that blossomed on
the port bow blasted the ship, and it knocked out the fusion drive.
The shuttle streaked towards the surface of Palsenz, vapour from a
blown seal turning to a trail of ice as they plummeted towards the
surface of the planet.

Stephanie Chu had been well
trained. She activated the protocols to seal the hull breach, but
nothing she could do would restart the engines.

“Brace for Impact,” Pål
screamed. They were rocked by the planet’s atmosphere, causing the
shuttle to buck and twist as it fell. The temperature inside the
cabin rose noticeably, but they would not burn up. The vessel was
too well built for that. Jensen struggled to fly the ship, but
without power it had the aerodynamics of a brick.

It went down, ploughing into the
rocks and sand of the Badlands, the harshest landscape on the
planet. The salvage operation was over.

Thank you for reading this story. If you enjoyed it, I urge you to
leave a review. In this modern age, reviews are the lifeblood of
the writer. Also, you might like to check out the next instalment
of the series,
Hunted
.

About the author

MJ Kobernus lives in a small
town in Norway with his wife and youngest daughter. He is the
self-proclaimed inventor of Flash Philosophy as well as the founder
of Nordland Publishing. An ardent motorcycle enthusiast, he has
been likened to a bear on a tricycle, a comparison he has taken to
heart. He has a keen interest in the metaphysical. Ask him about
it. Go on, I dare you.

MJ Kobernus is the author of the
Guardian series, which you can find on Amazon, Barnes & Noble
and pretty much any of the many outlets where you use a mouse to
navigate.

The Guardian - Blood in the Sand

The Guardian - Blood in the Snow

The Guardian - Blood in the Fire

You can visit MJ at:

http://www.amazon.com/author/mjkobernus

http://metaphysicalgeometry.blogspot.no

www.facebook.com/TheGuardianFantasySeries

nordlandpublishing.com
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