Violent Wonder Page 8

  It was no spider.

  It looked vaguely humanoid, standing on two legs, but where its femurs should have connected with the pelvis it connected with two human skulls, one on each side. The skulls were filled with a mass of dark-red tissue that connected everything, and climbing upwards, the thing was missing its ribs and guts like the dead bodies had been.

  The real kicker was the head. The neck rose up to reveal the missing pelvis where it sat like an upturned crown, and attached to each side of the hip walls was a long stock of tissue with an eyeball at the end. The eye stocks hung upright, making the whole head look like some sort of grotesque mockery of a snail.

  Slowly, it raised its arm. There was no hand affixed to the end of the forearm bone but suddenly there was a familiar scrabbling noise as one of the rib spiders skittered out of one of the open doors and jumped. It landed on the figure’s arms and strings of flesh latched onto it.

  The tall humanoid creature rotated its new hand and flexed its wrist; it curled its fingers into a fist and pointed with one long bony finger.

  The machine gun roared with blue light as Kit pulled the trigger and the creature rocked, staggered, and finally fell to the ground. Raquel wanted to be thankful for having been able to watch the horrid thing get put down, but she couldn’t celebrate the victory just yet—she couldn’t celebrate because each end of the long corridor had suddenly filled with the sound of hundreds of shuffling feet.

  “Move!” Nadia yelled, and they began to run. The tight hallway was suddenly choked with bodies as the humanoid creatures ran forward uttering a deep and guttural howl that emanated from somewhere inside of the pelvises that served as their skulls.

  Having reversed their direction, Kit was at the front now with Raquel next to him. They both fired their weapons in bursts as the monsters poured forward, big chunks of bone and flesh being blown away by the high-density energy bolts. The sound of firing weapons came from behind as well, and without looking back, Raquel knew that Nadia and Hector were facing just as many targets, if not more.

  The group made it to the corner of the hall in no time, managing to keep the creatures from pushing forward. The problem was now they had a pile of bodies to climb through and as they began to wade back toward the kitchen, the rib spiders began to press their second attack.

  One of them came streaking overhead on the ceiling and dropped down into the middle of them like the other one had. Nadia took one precious second to turn and stomp on it, but in that time, the swarm of bodies in front of her closed another five feet.

  “We can’t fight them all,” she yelled. “There’s too many.”

  “What are we going to do when we get to the cafeteria and we’re out in the open?” Kit asked. “Run or ground-and-pound?”

  “Depends on how many there are,” Nadia replied, her voice only audible over the firing weapons because of their comms. “Leaving is our priority though, so if we can make it quickly through then we should. We can regroup on the ship and figure out what to do about these guys then.”

  “Yes,” Ritz said frantically over the comms. Raquel had almost forgotten that they had been watching and listening. “Regroup at the ship. Just get off, okay? We can figure out what to do afterward.”

  A few of the pelvis heads made a valiant effort to block their progress from the hallway to the cafeteria but Kit and Raquel cut them down with waves of blue fire.

  Good thing too, because as the last one fell, Raquel’s gun clicked dry. “Empty,” she yelled, dropping the magazine into an open hand. She reached around to clip it to the mag-clamp on her back and then grabbed a fresh one from her hip. She slammed it home and pulled the bolt, the weapon humming back to life in her hands.

  When she looked up however, she felt her blood freeze in her veins.

  Waves of the creatures were pouring over and around the tables, some of them wielding their grotesque hands, some of them just flailing with their nubs. The rib spiders were everywhere on the floor and walls and ceiling.

  “Move along the walls,” Kit shouted, snapping Raquel out of her stupor. He turned and laid a blanket of fire along the left-hand side of the wall where some of the spiders were pressing in, their spindly bodies falling off in a shower of bone-chips and liquified flesh. The crew made a mad dash for the kitchen doorway.

  While Kit focused on the darting rib spiders, two pelvis heads suddenly filled the entrance to the kitchen, their eyes dangling lidless and obscene. Raquel blew each of them away just as they started to run.

  From her right, there was a blur of motion and out from under the closest table lunged one of the powerful creatures, this one with those long spear-like fingers on each hand. It hit the group like a bowling ball. Raquel tried to bring her gun to bear but another full-grown one dropped from the ceiling and landed on her, followed by at least two more spiders.

  Raquel saw Nadia spin, but as she did the nearest creature’s arm shot out and smacked into her, knocking her gun aside. Raquel tried to bring her gun up but suddenly there was another one. And another. In no time at all, they were neck-deep in the things and it was so tight that she couldn’t even raise her gun. A hard nub of an arm smacked across the bridge of her helmet, making her see stars. Then she took another hit in her gut and then another across her right shoulder blade.

  Still holding her rifle with her left hand, Raquel’s right arm dropped to her side and drew the Slugger. Bringing it up, the gun boomed as she blew a crater through one of the creature’s heads. Taking aim, she took out three more, the big metal slide rocking back, kicking out the fat empty shells.

  Then Nadia was there too. She had managed to bring her rifle back around and used its stock to smash one of the creatures in the face, sending it stumbling backward. Once enough room had opened up, she sprayed it with fire and then continued to hose down all of the other spiders and humanoids until her gun clicked dry. Not wasting any time reloading, she quickly clamped the empty rifle to her back as the foot-long plasma blade erupted from her left. Then, reaching down to her side, she drew a short and stubby looking machine pistol.

  In the commotion, Hector had fallen to the ground, his rifle sliding away. Raquel reached down and quickly pulled him up, but as she turned, two more of the pelvis heads were there in front of her. Before she could aim with her sidearm however, one of them split up the middle in a blaze of blue light, its separate halves falling in opposite directions. She then watched as Kit swung back down with his Tesla Saber and cleaved the other one diagonally in half.

  “Raquel and Hector,” Nadia said, dropping into a low stance. “Put your backs to the wall and hit anything that’s further than ten feet from us. Kit: Ground-and-pound.”

  “Okay,” Kit said. “Let’s move as best as we can. But we’ve gotta thin these guys out a bit. Stay close but give us some room to work.”

  They didn’t need any more instructions. Hector fell back against the wall, drawing a sleek looking black automatic pistol. He raised it, crouching down into a shooter’s stance and Raquel did the same, taking a moment to holster her pistol and reload her carbine.

  The two Marauders went to work.

  Nadia and Kit sprung to life in a blur of blue blades and submachine gun fire. Kit swung and stabbed and blocked, limbs and heads falling in every direction. Occasionally he would swing his sword in a wide arc over his head and as he did Nadia would duck. In turn, after taking care of the targets in front of her she would turn and fire beneath a raised arm or over his shoulder, spiders and humanoids blowing apart in sprays of gore.

  As the fight progressed, they steadily moved away from each other until they each controlled their own deadly radius; Kit swinging and slicing, Nadia stabbing and punching and firing quick bursts.

  Between the gunfire, glowing blades, and flashlights that no one had turned off; they had just enough light to see what was going on. The strobing effect of the guns and narrow range of their flashlights made the scene feel frantic and confusing however, and Raquel was thankful she had the Ma
rauders with them. The Arc Suits’ Heads-Up Displays were able to pick and sort out individual targets which—from the wearer’s perspective—turned the battlefield from a chaotic wave of noise into a visually articulated set of priorities. Raquel’s suit, on the other hand, had no such feature, as it wasn’t wired into her very neural network like the Arc Suits. So she had to make do with her good-old-fashioned five senses.

  For her and Hector’s part, they picked off as many in-bound targets as they could. Raquel had switched her carbine to semi-automatic and was now placing quickly aimed shots through necks and heads and hand-sized spider bodies. She could hear the pock-pock-pock of Hector’s pistol beside her and occasionally witnessed the corresponding demise of one of the creatures.

  The four of them carved their way slowly but steadily to the door. Occasionally, a pelvis head would make its way between the two pairs, but either Kit or Nadia would make sure they were able to cut it down before it could make any progress in any direction. In what seemed like hours but was probably more like a single minute, they were at the door and the attackers had noticeably thinned, some of them turning and sprinting back into the dark corners and crevices of the ship.

  “We’re here,” cried Hector, as he lowered his gun and ducked into the room, Raquel right behind him.

  “Hector, wait! We’re—” But she never finished.

  Without warning, Raquel watched as a huge shape beside the walk-in freezer struck down from above like a fish and smashed into Hector. Illuminating it with her flashlight, she was able to discern what looked like a massive red tube about three feet in diameter rising up and hunching over in the tight little kitchen. Looking like a giant slug, the thing was wet and dripping with what appeared to be hundreds of throats and intestines and stomachs all tied and woven together into a tight pulsing muscle with a wide mouth on the end.

  The mouth had Hector down to his shoulders.

  His screams echoed over the comms as Raquel raised her rifled and fired, just above where his head would be. He scrabbled with his hands at the opening but to no avail, and when Raquel’s gun clicked empty for the last time she swapped it for the Slugger and pumped the last of its magazine into the giant worm-like thing.

  Blue light suddenly roared down next to her and the top third of the worm’s body was sliced off in a spray of what smelled like stomach-acid. Disengaging his saber, Kit quickly stepped up beside Hector and helped him pull the sucking mouth off of his head. Something cracked as the suit’s seal broke and the mouth finally pulled away to reveal Hector’s helmet-less head, the top of his armor giving off a slight smoke where it was wet with digestive acids.

  The creatures must have sensed a lull however, because all at once there were more rib spiders and pelvis heads coming from the kitchen’s exit. Kit pushed Hector behind him and reignited his sword. Sounds of gunfire grew from behind as Nadia fought off the last of their following attackers.

  Suddenly, the walk-in freezer blasted open right beside them, knocking Raquel off of her feet. As she staggered back up, two frost-crusted pelvis heads came staggering out. Both Hector and Raquel raised their sidearms to fire but as soon as she pulled the trigger she remembered that it was empty. The big hammer clacked down uselessly.

  Hector shot the closest one three times and then put two more rounds in the second, but as he did, another rib spider dropped down from the ceiling onto his head. Screaming and stumbling he tried to get the thing off but it was too strong.

  Raquel watched in horror as it plunged two of its sharp little legs downwards into Hector’s face. He screamed and howled as the spider wobbled about on top of him. Raquel made a mad dash toward him and tried to help him pull it off but before she got there, it wrenched its two front-legs upwards and yanked Hector’s eyes out of their sockets with a snapping squelch.

  Hector wailed as the creature deftly dodged Raquel’s hands when she snatched for it, and then it went skittering off into the darkness, holding the two eyes over its head like a pair of skewered olives.

  Raquel was shocked to stillness. She didn't know whether to walk up and hug the man’s face to her chest or put a bullet through his head.

  The decision was made for her however as he suddenly jerked and a small mist of blood sprayed from his mouth. Quickly moving around to the side, Raquel immediately saw the cause.

  One of the pelvis heads that Hector had shot was laying on the ground but was still alive; and now it had its hand buried deep in Hector’s back. Raquel lunged and tried to smash it in the face with the butt of her pistol but the thing swatted her away with one of its giant spiked hands. She moved in again but this time it managed to put two long fingers through the joint in her shoulder.

  Pain blossomed with red heat as she screamed and then the monster withdrew its fingers and she stumbled back.

  Falling to the ground again, Raquel watched as Hector’s attacker placed its hand—fingers slick with Raquel’s blood—on Hector’s back just above where it had stabbed him with the other. Then there was a sickening sucking noise as it pulled with its right arm and Hector’s entire head and spinal column came out through his back, the inside of his neck and scalp blooming backward like a pant-leg being tugged inside-out.

  Raquel lunged forward again, her adrenaline muting the fiery pain in her shoulder. She swung the pistol handle and cracked the thing in the head. Then she raised it high with both hands and brought it down over and over again, the heavy metal pulverizing the grey mass of warm tissue it had cradled in its obscene skull.

  Nadia finished fending off her attackers a few seconds later and then quickly moved to help Kit. When the last of the monsters had fallen twitching to the ground and the area looked temporarily clear, they turned to observe Raquel, who was sitting in a pool of mixed blood, a hand clasped over her wounded shoulder.

  The two soldiers helped pull her to her feet, confirming that Hector was in-fact dead. Then they began making their way through the last stretch of private dining areas that lay between them and the airlock.

  9

  49

  Ritz watched in mute horror as one of his oldest friends died. He had watched as the giant gut worm lunged out of the darkness and clamped over the camera and Hector’s head. He had then watched as he was freed and temporarily rescued, only to have his eyes plucked from his head by some creature straight out of a nightmare. And then he had finally watched through Raquel’s camera as his friend and pilot had his upper half pulled inside out like an animal.

  The crew onboard the Leopold had all stared at the images being fed back to the ship’s screens. There had been gasps and groans and a whole spectrum of guttural reactions as they watched their crewmates fight off wave-after-wave of attack. As soon as the first creature had appeared at the end of the hall however—raising its obscenely long finger to point right through the camera and into his soul—Ritz knew that his crew would never be whole again. In fact, he knew he’d be lucky if any of the four people he had sent into that mess came out alive. Even Raquel.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like Raquel. She was a fine-enough person and if he was being honest, she had probably screwed up fewer times than King had, but as soon as he had unfolded the little piece of paper that had the word “stay” written on it while all the others had said “go,” he knew that this ship wasn’t for her. He had seen it with grand clarity and the fact of it shocked him.

  When they had picked her up on that God-forsaken dust world along with all of the other victims from the PUC facility, she was just some person that had needed saving. When she had chosen to stay, she was just some person that had needed a job. He had felt convicted on that matter, as they were constantly saving people who needed rehabilitation but never actually rehabilitating them themselves. Sure, he could have left that to the experts, but after all she had seen and been through, why not allow her the chance to do the same for someone else?

  So he had accepted Raquel’s request to join their crew and she had fared reasonably well, but what his crew requ
ired was a sort of destructive daring. Their mission was focused on asserting their will on oppressive forces and Raquel just wasn’t that sort of person. She didn’t have the drive. The curiosity.

  They were out here in space with all of the possibilities of the world opened up before them and given the choice to go forward or stay, she chose to stay. Now, Ritz had observed in the past that whenever Raquel was thrust into something, she was typically able to adapt and feel more comfortable the next time she was in that position. Still, there was a timid wariness to her that usually kept her away from the real guts of the fight.

  And maybe that made her good for the job but it didn’t make her good for the mission.

  Byzzie, on the other hand, was perfect for the mission. That girl had so much curiosity and technical knowledge that he would be surprised if she didn’t rule the galaxy one day.

  And that was what they needed: good rulers.

  The spineless bureaucrats that governed the PUC weren’t leaders, they were facile children trying to win popularity contests. They had no real dominating force in their hearts. Just like Raquel, they weren’t the type to go out and explore space. They just wanted to dictate every inch of the lives of people who had already done all that work for them.

  What surprised Ritz was that he wasn’t that mad at Raquel for her failure to save his friend. He wasn’t sure that he would have been able to do if he had been in that situation. The creatures were fast and powerful. They didn’t seem all that smart but they were brutal in a way that he had never seen.

  When he had witnessed the SEU raids on his home as a teenager, those murders hadn’t been brutal. They had been efficient. Matter of fact. His family and friends had simply been obstacles to remove on the path to a greater purpose: the common good.

  Ritz could respect that. He didn’t like it and he didn’t swallow that bullshit anymore about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, because when that was the case then everyone always ended up becoming “the few” in some instance or another; whether it be their skin-color, political beliefs, or religious ethics. At some point, the scales of the state would always judge something more important than you and subsequently deem you worthy of extermination. It had always been that way and it always would.