The Void

CHAPTER 17

Alex checked his watch. They’d already been on the basin floor for an hour — they were burning time… and precious oxygen.

Their original plan was to find the shuttle, retrieve the image disc, and then be on their way out within ten hours. If things proved more complicated, then they were prepared to hunker down overnight. But that was worst case.

He turned to the civilians. “Let’s move it up, people.”

They headed into the gloom, trying to remain silent, but failing as the slime squelched beneath their boots.

“Captain?” Russell Burrows waved to him. “A word?”

Alex turned to nod at Sam, who let him fall out from the center of the group to catch up to Alex.

“This is weird,” the NASA scientist whispered.

“No shit.” Alex continued to watch the mist.

Burrows cleared his throat. “You, ah, guys been in this type of thing before?”

“No,” Alex said. “Not exactly like this.”

“So, we’re flying blind then?” Burrows asked.

“We adapt, we do our jobs, and then hopefully, we all go home in one piece.” Alex glanced at the man, seeing the hint of fear in his eyes. “You’ll be fine, as long as you and your group follow instructions.”

Casey Franks raised her hand, and the HAWCs froze. Alex threw an arm out in front of the NASA engineer. “Stop. Quiet.”

Scott McIntyre and Anne Peterson crowded in close to each other, and Morag O’Sullivan and Calvin Renner also froze, eyes wide, but listening intently.

After a moment, Morag whispered to Alex. “What are we listening for?”

“My nerves to snap.” Renner said back under his breath.

Alex ignored them, concentrating as he tried to locate the sound, but it seemed to be everywhere.

“I hear it,” Anne said softly. “It’s like… insects buzzing.”

Alex rotated slowly — it did sound like insects. There was a soft hum coming from all around them that definitely wasn’t artificial, and reminded him of a parkland on a summer afternoon — a low background zumm, not unpleasant, but steady.

“Like some sort of locust or cicada, but… not quite the same,” he said.

“There’s nothing indigenous like that up here,” said Anne.

“Motion sensors say nothing is out there,” Sam said.

“What if it doesn’t show up on the sensors?” Calvin Renner said. “What if it’s like some sort of… entity? All around us.”

“Like a ghost?” Garcia grinned. “Boo.”

Renner’s face twisted. “No, smartass, I meant—”

“Quiet.” Alex glared, closing them down. “Something’s there.”

Renner raised his head. “What is it? There’s nothing—”

“Shut it,” Casey snarled. “Boss senses something; means there’s something out there. Now shut the fuck up and stay alive.”

“Stay alive?” Morag stiffened.

“Jesus, lighten up, will you?” Renner snorted and turned to sneer at Morag.

Max Dunsen eased up next to the cameraman. “Hey, asshole.”

Renner turned to look up at him.

Dunsen grinned like a death’s head. “Listen, mate, take a look around — does this place look like Bondi Beach to you?”

Renner stared for a moment. “Uh, where?”

Casey Franks scoffed. “Jesus, Dundee, like who the fuck knows where that is?”

Dunsen spun to her. “Shut up, Franks.” He turned back to Renner, edging even closer. “Fucking Waikiki, then. Well, does it?”

“No, sir, it doesn’t.” Renner held up his hands and backed a few paces away from the towering HAWC. “Look, I’m just the pictures guy.” He turned away to Morag and rolled his eyes. “Fucking GI Joes,” he whispered.

Alex blocked them out and tried to open his senses and push out into the mist. Just when an image started to form in his mind, the buzzing stopped.

The sound wasn’t right. In fact, now he wasn’t sure the buzzing was occurring externally at all. It felt like it was everywhere but nowhere, like the tiny whine still singing around them, but the more he concentrated, the more he thought the sound had been inside their heads. And he sensed a constant presence, everywhere.

He continued to search. His neck still prickled and a gentle pain began behind his eyes, adding to his frustration. It was like the feeling you had in a pitch-dark room, when you held out a hand, seeing nothing, but knowing that something was probably there in the dark, seeing you without you seeing it.

The pressure in his head increased slightly as if something was reaching back at him. He sealed it off. What the hell is in here with us? He exhaled. We’ll find out soon enough. He turned to his team. “Garcia, double-point with Franks.”

The swarthy HAWC nodded and joined Casey Franks, who bumped fists with the man, their knuckles making a clacking sound from the armor-plating cover.

“Stay alert, people.” Alex turned, as Sam joined him.

“What is it?” Sam kept staring directly ahead.

“I don’t know; it’s weird. I get the feeling we’re being watched. And it’s pissing me off that I can’t tell from where or by what.”

“The bug sounds?” Sam asked.

“If they were bugs,” Alex said. “We need to stay sharp. This is not our turf anymore, and I get the feeling that who or whatever it is can see us a lot better than we can see them.”

“Why am I hoping it is just a bunch of Russian torpedoes?” Sam snorted.

Alex just let his eyes move over the haze. Around the group it swirled and billowed. The civilians began to bunch up in the center like a herd of animals sensing circling predators.

There were some rock extrusions like islands in the muck, but also waist high mounds that could have been nothing more than great lumps of the slime. He had an urge to fire a few rounds into one.

The HAWCs, perhaps picking up on Alex’s unease, tightened their grips on their guns. Already, the heavy, opaque atmosphere made it a ghostly twilight. But Alex knew once the sun went down, there’d be no moon, no stars, and the darkness would be absolute. The HAWC visors had quad vision equipped with thermal and night vision, but the fog would probably even reduce those applications’ usefulness.

Alex suddenly felt the buzz again in his head, but this time ramped up, accelerating; he whipped his gun up.

“HAWCs!”

The first attack came fast.

Something came out of the gloom in a blur, larger than a man, and so damn fast it was impossible to make out. Several guns made sputtering sounds as projectiles flew toward it, but even though the HAWCs had reaction times much faster than normal people, they were still too slow and the thing had already sped past where they had put their darts.

Max Dunsen took the hit and grunted with pain as he went down hard. Casey Franks leaped to stand in front of him to give him cover.

“I got ya, big guy.”

Dunsen rolled and came back to his feet. “Owe you, mate.” He immediately pulled his RG3 rifle from over his shoulder.

“Form up!” Alex yelled the words as he saw that amazingly, Dunsen’s tough armor-plated suit was slashed across the forearm and thick, red blood was running down his sleeve. “Halo ring.”

The HAWCs drew into a tight circle, facing outwards and pushing the civilians in behind them.

“What did you see?” Sam Reid asked the injured Dunsen.

Dunsen shook his head. “Was too bloody fast, but I damn well felt it — hit me like a fucking train.” He looked down at his bleeding arm. “Shit. A train with teeth.”

The heavy mist swirled, agitated, as something moved around them. Alex could hear heavy breathing like that of a large animal.

“We’re being circled,” Alex said. “On my ready…”

The thing had vanished, but then it, or another one like it, came at them from their other side. Only Alex was fast enough to react and fire. The resulting unearthly squeal made Morag shrink down and cover her head.

The creature darted across their field of vision before vanishing again into the haze.

“It’s testing our defenses,” Sam said.

Morag grabbed Sam’s back, as if trying to keep him close. “It’s testing us? It knows to do that?”

“There’s more than one.” Alex’s head turned as he sensed something invisible to everyone else circle around them.

Morag turned to her cameraman. “Renner, hope you’re getting this.”

The man grimaced behind the small camera he held up to his face. “I’m trying. But everything’s happening too fast. Autofocus can’t keep up.”

Something darted out, staying just far enough back to be indistinct, and hung there for a moment. Its huge misshapen form remained for a few seconds and Alex had an impression of large, glossy-black lidless eyes in an elongated bulbous head. The HAWCs wasted no time concentrating their fire on the apparition. The squeals of pain brought delight from the squad.

“Yeah, eat that shit.” Garcia fired again, and every HAWC watched the shadow pass in and out of the curtains of cloud.

The thing roared, vanished for a moment and then reappeared. The HAWCs now sent hundreds of rounds per second at it, and knew they must have hit it, but still couldn’t bring it down. It appeared again, and again, as if it was taunting them.

Alex tracked it with his fire, sure he was hitting the thing, but it refused to go down. It was then that from the opposite side of the group another of the creatures launched itself at them. It grabbed Anne, and Alex felt time slow around them. He turned to see it, the thing, holding the female NASA scientist, and looking down at her, and her back up at it. Time froze as the pair, one human and one abomination from hell, locked gazes.

Anne’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the ground, unconscious. The thing looked like it was bending to lift her. Alex bared his teeth, preparing to charge through the group when the HAWCs standing either side of the stricken woman went to close ranks. Even her NASA colleague, Scott McIntyre overcame his fear to push at the thing, but all he managed to do was get in the way of the HAWCs’ RG3s and stopped them from getting off clear shots.

In the blink of an eye, the creature gave up on Anne, and flicked out one long limb, taking hold of HAWC Steve Knight and yanking him off his feet. Scott McIntyre was pushed aside, but not before getting ripped by one of the spikes extruding from the thing’s arm like a row of huge thorns.

Alex pushed though the group then, but the creature spun away and then like a shadow vanished into the opaque walls, taking Knight with it.

“Man down, man down!” Sam roared orders and guns swung back and forth as the swirling fog closed around them.

Morag was crouched beside Anne Peterson and for a few seconds there was confused chaos around them, until Alex Hunter strode forward, and the group parted like a biblical sea. He began to run.

“Stay on guard,” Alex yelled over his shoulder as he went after his soldier.