Deep Space Dead (9 page)

“What the hell is it?” Demanded Arianna, her eyes still focused upon the lump of flesh. “What the hell happened here? Were they blown up? Did they kill each other?”

“They’ll be time to discuss this later,” said Jak urgently. “For now we need to find Bratten.”

They moved quickly after Bratten, almost at a run but at the same time watching their step, for the floor of the cave was treacherous and slippery with damp. As they came to the first fork they heard a low, guttural groan that echoed throughout the tunnel and off the walls, causing them all to pull up short. “Bratten?” Called Jak uncertainly. “Bratten, where are you?”

“Come quickly!” Called Bratten suddenly, her voice echoing along the tunnels. “Come up this next fork. I’ve found Wal!”

Arianna shone the flashlight up and down the ranger, who appeared a strangely isolated figure in the chamber of the cave. Wal’s uniform had been severely torn so that his shirt was completely gone on one half whilst his trousers were ripped at the bottom, the seams completely separated. He was just standing there with his head down but as the flashlight was turned towards him he turned and looked straight at them. Was it just the light, wondered, Arianna, or did his eyes burn like hot coals? She instinctively took a step back. The others gasped.

“Wal,” said Jak sternly. “Are you okay, man? Where are the others? What happened here?”

Wal did not reply, just continued to stare at them. Suddenly he bared his teeth and Arianna saw that his mouth was completely covered in blood. “What happened to you, Wal?” she asked in askance. “You’re hurt. Did you fall? Are the others safe?”

“Come along Wal,” said Bratten sternly, coming to put an arm around his shoulder. “Whatever happened here was clearly horrific. We need to get you back to the Tula, then we can start to find out what happened here.

He isn’t human, thought Arianna, with a sudden chill of dread, and she found herself crying out; “Look out Bratten! He isn’t human anymore!”

Suddenly Wal lurched and seized a hold of Bratten, swinging the wretched engineer completely off her feet and sinking his teeth into the side of her neck. Bratten screamed and struggled but Wal held her in a vice like grip. He ripped a huge chunk from her body and the torn flesh hung obscenely from his mouth. Bratten screamed again. The others watched in horror as Wal threw back his head and wolfed down the obscene mouthful in a couple of ravenous gulps, blood seeping down his chin and on to his ragged uniform before throwing Bratten against the wall where her bones cracked terribly with the impact against stone. Now he turned his eyes towards Arianna, threw back his head and let out a horrible, high pitched scream which rattled against their fragile eardrums. The others cried out in horror. Jak was the first to recover, rushing forwards and letting fly with an almighty punch. The blow just seemed to glance off Wal’s face as though he were made of stone and now it was Jak who cried out as he felt the shattered bones in his knuckles. Wal raised his hand and swung it towards the ranger. Jak was able to duck and roll away just in time. Wal’s blow smashed into the wall, dislodging a multitude of small rocks and the walls appeared to shake at the force of the blow.

“Step back!” Ordered Jak urgently, and he raised his pistol. Wal now threw back his head and charged forwards, moving with an unthinkable speed. Jak did not hesitate, fired twice in quick succession. There came a flash of light and Wal’s head disintegrated against the shot, his face collapsing and literally melting down on to his chest. The ranger’s legs continued running and now he stumbled into Arianna who let out a cry and leapt out of the way, watching in horror as what was left of Wal collapsed into the side of the cave.

“Quickly,” ordered Jak. “Shine the torch.”

Arianna held the torch whilst Jak tried his best to attend to Bratten. The engineer struggled and tried to grip her hands to her neck in a bid to stem the flow of blood. Yalor Hain came forwards and held her hands tight so Jack could continue.

“Well I’m no doctor but there’s a hell of a lot of blood,” muttered Jak worriedly. “Fortunately I can’t see it flowing freely so the injury seems to have avoided all the vital arteries. Still, it was quite a bite.” He regarded it in horror and shook his head. “I can’t think how any man could have done this. This is surely the work of a beast.”

“What happened here?” Asked Yalor Hain. “Why did Wal do that?”

“He went mad,” said Jak. “A few days down here and I would have gone mad as well. Damned fool that he is I didn’t see any trail laid to help them get out again, and he didn’t have his flashlight on him either.”

Another ranger, whose name was Gala Jezc, took her own flashlight and went over to the body of Wal, knelt down over him. “Look at this,” she breathed worriedly, pointing to the ranger’s arm which had been shredded to the bone. “It is almost as though somebody was gnawing upon it.”

“Maybe they resorted to cannibalism?” Suggested Jak.

“On a man who was still alive?” Said Arianna incredulously. Jak did not reply.

Just then there came a hideous scream echoing throughout the tunnels that caused them to leap up in the air and spin around. “What the hell was that?” Demanded Arianna.

Jak seized the flashlight with one hand, readying the pistol with the other. “Get her up,” he ordered, nodding towards Bratten. “We need to get her out of here and back to the rovers. We can take off and patch her up along the way. Something has clearly happened here to send them all mad. I’m not going to stick around a moment longer than we have to.”

“Listen!” Exclaimed Arianna, reaching for her own pistol. “I can hear running.” Everyone paused and listened. The sound echoed across the walls, bounced off them so it was impossible to tell what direction the noise was coming from. “Too fast to be footsteps,” said Yalor Hain. “It sounds more like the flow of fast running water.”

“Even more reason to get out of here,” said Jak. He went over to Bratten and hoisted the engineer over his shoulder and began to work his way back towards the exit, following the lingering light of the laser pistol. The others followed close behind. Still the noise all around them. None of them spoke, all saving their energy for getting out of the cave as fast as possible. Jak went first, carrying Bratten. Yalor Hain, Gala Jezc and Arianna followed behind, in that order.

They passed by a narrow crack in the rock. What happened next took place in a fraction of a second although Arianna saw it all as though in slow motion. There came a flash of bright red light, two in fact, which shot out of the crack in the wall. A large hand seized hold of Gala Jezc’s throat and slammed her against the rocks with such force that her head was burst open in an explosion of brains and skull. Arianna skidded to a halt whilst the others swung around. A creature was upon Gala Jezc, feasting upon her, ripping huge chunks of flesh from her neck and shoulders, clawing the skin off her arms and body with terrible, elongated talons. Arianna cried out, leapt back and fired the laser pistol, the first time she had ever done so. Parts of the creature’s body disintegrated and it let out an inhuman cry, spun around and looked straight at her. Despite the burning coals that now formed its eyes Arianna was horrified to recognise the features of the geologist, Fretia Bel. She rose the pistol and fired again. The light went out of the creature’s eyes and it was still.

Yalor Hain bent down towards Gala Jezc. She was clearly beyond hope, the brief few seconds of the creature’s attack had been enough to mutilate her almost beyond recognition. But now there came more screams, more wails and groans, echoing throughout the passageways beyond. “There must be thousands of them!” Cried Arianna, swinging the pistol around in an arc. “But those rangers didn’t set out with thousands, there weren’t that many of them!”

“It is the echoes,” said Jak urgently, although he sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. “Let’s get moving again. Quick!”

“Something is sending them mad!” Said Arianna, as they hurried along. “And it isn’t just the darkness and it isn’t just that they got lost. I’ve never seen any human move so fast and their eyes…”

“Not now,” snapped Jak harshly. “We can talk about it when we get back to the ship. For now we should focus our energies on getting back to the rovers.”

They turned the corner and started along the narrow straight passageway. “I recognise this!” Exclaimed Yalor Hain. “We’re almost there now, just a few hundred yards.” Knowing they were on the home straight the party picked up the pace.

“Wait!” Exclaimed Jak. He skidded to a halt and turned around. The others did the same. Two hundred yards behind them a multitude of red lights hovered up and down before them. Arianna could see the lights were moving fast and with them came an inhuman screaming. Arianna staggered back in horror. They were coming too fast and there were too many to kill. “With me!” Cried Jak. He raised the pistol and fired at the roof of the tunnel. The shot flashed and crashed against the stone, sending some of it tumbling to the ground. Arianna and Yalor Hain both raised their pistols and fired and as they did so the rocks and debris tumbled down before them. They hurried back as the rock slide increased in intensity. From beyond the freshly brought down rubble there came the sound of a multitude of thuds. Suddenly a hand shot through the rubble and seized hold of Yalor Hain, yanking him backwards. Arianna hurried forwards and fired but not before a head shot through the wreckage and buried its teeth into the ranger’s shoulder. Arianna fired twice more, splattering the creature’s head against the rock.

“I’m fine,” said Yalor Hain as Arianna knelt down to examine the wound; an ugly tear but it had avoided the main arteries. “Might need a few stitches but I can still walk and run.”

“How did they get through?” Demanded Jak. “We must have brought down a hundred tonnes down?”

“I don’t know but did you see his face?” Said Arianna. “It wasn’t a ranger, it wasn’t anyone I recognised from the starship.”

“It was white,” acknowledged Jak. “But it was also dark and you can’t see clearly here. Of course it was somebody we knew. They’ve all gone mad, all got some sort of disease, probably been exposed to some underground gasses or something like that, some hallucinogens.”

Arianna looked up. The thuds and grunts and the sound of masonry being thrown aside vibrated through the rubble. “Come on,” said Jak urgently. “They’re not done just yet.”

Yalor Hain and Arianna helped Jak carry Bratten and together they hurried forwards and charged out of the cave and into the daylight beyond. Jak paused at the cave entrance to bark orders at the rangers he had left stationed outside. “Take one rover,” he instructed them. “We’ll take the other. There’s not time to charge the others up.”

“Listen!” Exclaimed Arianna. From the cave there came the echoing sound of several almighty crashes followed by the terrible screams commencing once more.

“They’re through!” Roared Jak, dragging Bratten towards the rover. Arianna and Yalor Hain hurried after him. They laid Bratten roughly in the back of the rover then piled in themselves. Yalor Hain remained in the back with her whilst Arianna sat next to Jak, who piloted. No sooner had Jak charged up the engines when a multitude of creatures burst out of the entrance to the cave. Arianna now saw them for the first time and it was all she could do to gape in open mouthed astonishment. They poured out in huge numbers; wiry, emaciated beasts, their skin the colour of moonlight and moving faster than Arianna had ever seen anything move before. Their legs were long and lean and there was not a morsel of fat upon their bodies, just tight muscles which emphasised their strength. Though they were naked they also appeared sexless.

The second rover was slightly closer to the cave entrance and had started first. Right now it was rising in the air at a height of thirty feet. The creatures leapt up, soaring through the air with such ease and speed that for a moment Arianna thought they had taken flight. Their hands latched on to the steps of the other rover and weighed down upon it. Arianna and the others looked on aghast, unable to assist, at the panicked faces of the rangers inside. One of the creatures climbed up with astonishing agility and started smashing at the windows, which cracked and shattered almost straight away and now the creature was through and upon the doomed rangers. The rangers inside were thrown one by one down to the waiting mass below, who did not leave them for a second. Blood spurted into the air and splashed on to the white bodies of the creatures, creating a painful contrast.

Jak wasn’t looking at any of it, instead he was concentrating on raising the rover into the air. Suddenly the machine jolted and lurched. Arianna looked down and stared straight into the flaming red eyes of one of the creatures. Jak swung the rover upwards sharply and lurched it from side to side in a bid to dislodge the monster. There came another jolt, then another. Three of the creatures now latched on to the lower part of the rover, pulling it downwards. Now the other creatures looked up and turned their full attention towards the remaining vessel. “Hold tight!” Roared Jak. The ranger accelerated the rover fast but the creatures on the ground set off after it in hot pursuit. Meanwhile the ghastly trio continued to climb upwards towards the fragile windows. Arianna cried out as one of them pulled itself up to the window and raised its fist, ready to strike. Suddenly Jak spun the rover around in a corkscrew. Arianna and the others were thrown against the roof. The creature vanished but the other two had a better hold and clung on tightly. Jak zigzagged through the air, spun and looped the loop. Another one fell but the creatures were still pursuing and one still clung on stubbornly. Jak turned the rover and flew it low over the mountains then dipped even lower. There came the sickening crunch of bone as the creature was crushed against the rock face and now let go at last. Arianna turned to see the rover fast approaching a sheer cliff. Jak swung the steering stick upwards and they made it by a fraction. Now at last they were rising, safely upwards, over the sulphurous clouds and towards the blue sky beyond. Arianna looked down one more and saw yet more creatures thronging from the cave, spewing like poisonous lava from the bowels of the earth and at that moment there seemed to be no end to them.