Tandem of Terror (12 page)

When Danny woke up, Glenda was dead. Whether
she'd bled out or the heat had killed her, he didn't know. Outside
the cave, the storm had broken. Smoke rose in wisps from areas
where the ground was still hot. The storm had been a bad one. Danny
imagined that the Chimerians were already on the move. He was faced
with only two choices, try for the shuttle or sit here and wait to
die. Opting for the later, he scooped up his gear, cramming it back
into his pack and set out of foot to cross the barren wastelands of
Chimera, hoping he could remember the way back to the landing zone
where the drop shuttle sat waiting.

Danny never saw the Chimerians who oozed out
of the rock of the mountain itself as if they were a part of it. He
didn't see the crystal spear either that came flying through the
air towards him from behind until its shining point burst out of
his chest. Danny toppled to the ground onto a still smoking blast
area left from the storm. His flesh sizzled on the hot soil it
touched as the Chimerians gathered around him to inspect their
strange prey.

Jonah and the
Dead

Eric S Brown

Darkness had become his world. Jonah tapped
the switch on the right arm of his armor, opening the suit's
controls. The dim light of its LCD hurt his eyes. According to the
data on the screen, he'd been trapped here for over two hours now.
The armor's power levels were still dropping much more rapidly than
they should. He needed a way out and soon or it wouldn't matter if
he escaped or not. He wouldn't have enough air or power left to
reach the surface.

He twisted around against the constricting
walls of rotting tissue and tired again to rip through it. His
metal encased fingers dug into the wall but no matter how hard he
strained, he couldn't tear it. The tissue was too dense. The
bleeping noise of the armor internal alarm system made him scowl.
The suit was warning him that the acidity level of the liquid
around him was beginning to take its toll on the armor's integrity
as if he didn't have enough problems.

The personnel of Marinaris Base 1 never
thought they'd have to deal with the virus which was spreading like
wildfire across the globe above. No one knew where it came from or
how it started. Indeed, the word virus was hardly an apt
description but it was the closest thing that science could label
the microorganism which leapt from host to host killing the body
then reanimating it in a perpetual state of rage and hunger for the
flesh of the living. Even when it crossed species, no one in the
base seemed concerned until dead fish began to flock outside the
facility. The fish circled the base, day and night, hunting for an
opening through which to get inside. Often they would hurl
themselves time and time again into the heavy glass of the
observation windows which were built to withstand the pressures of
the ocean's depth leaving splatters of blood and skin on the
glass.

The Marinaris Base was self sufficient. They
grew their own food and drew power from geo-thermal generators. The
airlocks and the sub bays had been sealed off and life went on, the
only difference was the biologists spent their time trying to study
the dead virus and find a way to kill it not studying the mysteries
of the dark and beautiful world around them.

The whales had taken them all off guard. They
came from out of nowhere. Three of them in all. The mass and
strength of their enormous forms was more than the walls of the
Marinaris base could withstand as the titans rammed into it. Jonah
managed to make it to the storage room where the suits of armor
used for exploration of the trench were kept and donned one in time
to survive the flood of water which filled the facility as its
power shut down and its structure ruptured in numerous places. He'd
blasted through one of the exterior walls with a well placed charge
of C4 and hit open water. The surface counterpart to the Marinaris
Base still floated above as far as he knew and his plan was to
reach it and try to call for help.

The whales were still in the area though.
They moved faster in death than in life. One of the monsters got
the drop on him and had swallowed him whole, damaging his armor
with its teeth in the process. Now he raced the clock to escape its
digestive tract before the reaper came to collect his soul.

He still had some C4 tucked away in his
suit's storage pack and the suit's arms were equipped with cutting
torches but neither helped him. Using the power needed to cut his
way out of the whale with the torches would drain his suit to the
point of being immobile. The C4 was an equally deadly option. A
whale's stomach wasn't a massive cavern, especially when
constricted from decay, like in the cartoons. Its walls pressed
against the exterior of his armor trying to crush it. The C4 would
blow him apart too even if it did rupture the whale's corpse.

Jonah squirmed to get into a position where
he could see the control panel on his arm's LCD again. He tapped a
few keys and shut off the suit's CO2 scrubbers. If he was going to
die, it might as well be comfortably. As long as the acid didn't
breach his armor before the CO2 caused him to pass out, his dreams
would be eternal. He thought of his wife above, who was likely long
dead, and imagined her arms around him as he closed his eyes and
stopped struggling, going away to a better place.

Drifter

John Grover

December 26
^th
2308

10:45 pm

The deep space salvage vessel Tiamat cleared
the nebula without incident but was still unable to establish
communication with home. For days they were lost in the misty
tendrils of a nebula glowing with blue hues.

It was the first time something actually
obscured the massive bulk of the ship, a craft resembling an
enormous sea creature. Sweeping shades of slate and coal
highlighted its smooth, rounded frame with blunt edges, complete
with a tail for balance and a dorsal fin on its back. It glided
like a graceful whale through an ocean of stars.

Yellow-amber lights that trimmed the fin's
spine and speckled the ship's grey underbelly glowed dimly through
the veil of space. It was one of the largest salvage ships that
scoured the universe.

A collective sigh of relief washed through
the crew as the stars shimmered onto their view screens.

Darius Thorne, captain of the ship, stared
out the porthole of his quarters wondering when they'd reestablish
a link with Earth. He hoped soon. He commanded countless search and
rescue missions with the ship and her crew, and never had they been
off on their own with only the silence of space answering their
calls.

Since Earth began exploring beyond the known
solar system, every nation and company with money to burn was
sending missions into space for one reason or another-- -events from
exploration and treasure seeking to colonization and religious
pilgrimages. With fine-tuned reactors and power sources that
allowed travel beyond the speed of light there was no stopping the
people of Earth.

It quickly became apparent that not everyone
was skilled enough or prepared for space travel. Ships ran out of
fuel, had collisions with asteroids, ran into anomalies, got lost
or even their crews were known to get severe cases of cabin
fever.

That was where Tiamat and others like it came
in. Their mission: search for and rescue lost and drifting ships
and tow them back home. They would do reconnaissance and then
salvage what was left of the ship and its crew.

Darius watched the stars stream by, studied
the icy debris in the distance as it reflected the light of nearby
planets, took note of asteroid chunks that floated near the ship
and sighed, trying to keep his anxiety in check.

He trusted his pilot, Landon Moon, to keep
them on course and continue relaying communications. He was a
decent man and hell of a pilot. Landon had been flying ships around
the galaxy since he was seventeen and was more comfortable in space
than on Earth. Darius had flown every mission with him. There was
no one onboard he trusted more.

Chief security officer Dianna Ballard was new
to the ship. She replaced the former chief who committed suicide
back on Earth with a laser drill from his hovercraft's repair kit.
It was an unexpected shock to the entire crew and to his team of
four military grunts that were still a little leery of her
experience.

Before this mission, Dianna had only headed
up security at the aerospace center and had never been into space.
When the job posted on the system net, she jumped at the chance.
She longed for a change of venue and a way to satisfy her curiosity
about the universe.

Finn Blackwood and his wife Meg were a
husband and wife medical team, serving both the crew and civilians
they encountered on their missions. Both were all business and
usually very private. They'd met at the Inter-space Medical School
and married a year later. Their relationship was all passion and
fire, and had moved very quickly to marriage but that was all they
would publicly share about it.

Rounding out the ship's crew was the
engineer, Jared Pascal, a good old boy with a southern twang. He
often wore overalls, just like they did in the old days, when
repairing the pulse engines or greasing the gears. He laughed quite
often and took little serious except when it came to his ship. He
loved the Tiamat with all his heart.

Darius was roused from his thoughts by a
shadow outside his window.
Impossible.
He stood and studied
the passing stars. A moment ago he swore the silhouette of human
being floated by. The long hours in space flight must have finally
got to him.

He moved closer to the window and peered into
the ebon. There was frost coming off the glass. Darius turned to
walk away when a whisper caught his attention.

"
Why Darius?" It was the
voice of his wife. He was sure of it even though she'd been dead
for five years.

"
Sophie?" It sounded as if
she called from outside. He lifted his hand to touch the window.
This is ridiculous. It can't be.

Darius hadn't experienced nightmares in many
years. Not since he came to terms with that awful night. The night
his world changed. So why now?

"
Why," she asked once
more.

"
No, you're not out there."
Just before his hand touched the glass the intercom buzzed on he
desk behind him. It was the pilot.

"
Yes, Landon."

"
We got a drifter ahead of
us, captain."

"
I'll be right there."
Darius pulled his hand away and left his quarters.

The long spiraling halls of the ship seemed
so empty and dull. Company regulations prevented any sort of
decoration or color other than a bright white. This made it easier
to detect damage or leaks but made the ship very sterile and
Spartan, a culture that Earth had adopted in the last few hundred
years where science supplied the answers and the mysteries of the
universe only existed to be studied and solved.

Each hallway contained a panel that activated
by the crew's body heat, one touch gave them access to system
readings, ship temperature, archived files, catalogs on every
inhabitable planet known to Earth and much more.

The command center was separated from the
rest of the ship by a short flight of stairs that descended to a
set of armored doors. Each step lit up with florescent light as the
captain stepped on it.

Upon entering the command center, he set his
eyes on the battered ship floating on the view screen. It looked as
if it had been through a war. It drifted slowly to the side,
aimlessly, without power. Some scorching blackened its hull and its
lights were off. A red religious symbol, almost faded, covered the
roof.

"
It's a missionary ship,"
Landon said as the captain approached the controls.

"
Any communications?" Darius
asked.

"
Negative. Not a peep out of
them. No distress signal and they don't seem to be receiving our
greeting either. I'm not scanning any power source. They're just
floating around out there."

"
Not surprising. Most
drifters do. But we usually get some sort of communication. Any
life signs?"

"
Just one."

"
One? A ship that size can't
run with one crew member."

"
You got me."

"
Something happened over
there. Put a tractor beam on her. We need to tow it back to Earth,
but first we need to check for survivors. There's got to be more
than one."

Dianna stepped to Darius's side. "My team's
ready, sir."

"
Excellent, just let me put
a suit on and we'll transport over."

Dianna's eyes widened. "Sir, the Captain
doesn't leave his ship with his second in command. That's against
all known protocols."

"
Something smells funny
about this drifter, Dianna," Darius began. "I feel I should go with
you."

"
It's not an option, sir.
The situation could get dangerous. The ship could be poisoned or
there might be no air."

"
The scanners show the
atmosphere is normal," Landon chimed in.

Dianna shot him a displeased look and he
quickly turned around. "Something incapacitated the ship and it
could be life threatening. My team takes lead."

"
Very well, take the
Blackwoods with you. There's a survivor that may need medical
attention."

"
Will do."