The Void

CHAPTER 42

The scream jolted Alex to full consciousness. From the floor of the space shuttle he spun one way, then the next, and found Morag, her upper body covered in some sort of bag-like creature with hundreds of thrashing, thread-like arms that pulled and jabbed at her suit trying to force its way in.

He leaped for her, grabbing the thing, but found it hard to grasp as it was boneless and slid from his hands with a revolting greasiness that made it impossible to grip.

Morag screamed and danced, her panic was becoming all-encompassing as she ran at the side of the craft to bang her head and the thing into the steel wall.

“Stay still.” He followed, punching a hand hard down into the mass, rupturing its surface and then seizing something that felt like muscle strands inside the thing. He dragged it back, and obviously sensing a threat, the creature let go of the woman and began to grip his arms instead. It started to work its way up toward his face visor.

“Get back,” Alex yelled, as he drew away from Morag.

He threw the thing with all his strength and it smashed into the wall, but it immediately bounced back, moving at unbelievable speed, using its thrashing tentacles as limbs. It shot around the inside of the craft’s walls, heading back toward what it must have thought was easier prey — Morag.

She shrieked and dove for the discarded RG3. She snatched it up, spun and fired without aiming. The woman’s teeth were gritted as she punched large holes in the floor, walls and ceiling.

Alex leaped out of the way as Morag continued to fire and miss, as the thing dodged and weaved, and went from the floor to wall to roof faster than the eye could follow and much faster than Morag could aim and shoot.

It paused in a corner for a moment, pulsating a flaring red, every atom of its being displaying a hot fury. But its inactivity was enough; Morag fired, and this time hit it.

The shot blew away some of the tentacles, but the others simply grabbed them and drew them back into the mass. It scuttled behind some debris, and she continued to spit projectiles into the area. After a few seconds, a large hole began to open in the shuttle wall.

“Cease firing.” Alex slowly rose, waving her down.

He could sense pain, anger, and frustration coming off the thing in waves. It was hurt, but still dangerous.

Then he heard it again — the sound, the thrumming buzz that was now almost sing-song in its cadence. Alex frowned.

“Oh Jesus.” He spun to Morag. “The sound, the humming… I think it’s calling.”

“Huh? What, to us?” Morag spun back to the thing. “Well I’m not buying.”

“No, to the others. The Morg,” Alex responded.

“Shit. Then we kill it now, and get out the hell of here.” She hefted the gun.

Alex felt a gentle probe to his mind, and he turned to focus on the thing. He pushed in and could feel it then, feel the weird intellect that was so alien to anything he had ever encountered in his life. He drove deeper, and saw its plans, saw its desires and its hungers, and then he saw its home world, a place of towering trunks that dripped slime and wriggled with life. There was no sky, just billowing clouds of spore-laden gases.

He winced — a tiny spot of pain began as more was revealed. He saw things that defied description; they flew overhead on membrane wings, walked on sharp dagger-like legs or on column-thick stumps, and some burrowed through the muck. There were those that were tiny, or some the size of dogs that were more like bony-plated sea creatures, and some were enormous and trumpeted like elephants from mouths that had moving parts and hanging tentacle feelers.

But Alex knew their secret; they were all slaves, all somehow linked and subservient to the hive mind that belonged to the thing in the asteroid fragment. This was the horror that had come from the void, and either arrived here by accident or design. It had done this to countless worlds. And now it wanted them.

The pain struck him then; the spike to the mind, the cleaver, the axe, the ice pick all in one. Alex threw hands up to either side of his head, and couldn’t help the scream that tore from his lips. He pounded at the helmet he wore trying to drive it out, as if there were blaring sirens in his skull.

He was driven to his knees from the agony, and he lifted his eyelids to see Morag down on the ground, convulsing like she was being given an electric shock. Through the blistering agony, Alex knew what it was doing — it was basically short-circuiting them, so the creatures it called to would arrive in time.

Slowly long elastic tentacles appeared from behind the debris, and then the hideous pulsating sack dragged itself out, and moved toward the woman. It flared with color again, but this time a deep purple, perhaps the color of pleasure or anticipation.

Alex grunted with the torment. His face was running with perspiration, and he tasted salt and knew his nose was streaming blood. He stared at Morag, his vision blurred, and her features began to change. It was Aimee; she was on the grass, sun on her raven-black hair and electric blue eyes staring back at him.

She smiled, and her lips parted: help me, she mouthed.

Alex’s head throbbed with a pain that emanated from deep in its core, as a cerebral rail spike went all the way down to the hidden place in his mind where The Other was chained. It found that deep, dark hell where a monster of a vastly different kind lurked.

Aimee. Alex hissed from between teeth clamped tight. The feelers reached out toward her, moist and questing.

Never, he raged, as anger infused every cell within him. His body flooded with adrenalin, steroids, epinephrine, and other unidentified chemicals from the knotted mass inside the core of his brain.

Alex balled his fists and planted them underneath himself. He pushed, feeling like he weighed ten times more than he should, and screamed from the effort. He got to one knee and then up on his feet. Step by step, like he was walking in lead boots, he shuffled toward the asteroid fragment, ignoring Aimee and the approaching creature.

Faster, he urged himself. Or perhaps it was something else entirely that forced him onwards.

Alex had seconds now, as the feelers were only feet from the downed woman, stretching out to alight on her. He saw himself lay hands on the huge chunk of asteroid, bunch his muscles and then yell in fury as he dragged the huge iron-based rock from its cradle.

Alex turned, and took two steps, his legs wobbling from the strain, and insanely lifted the rock above his head. Just as the first of the tentacles alighted on Aimee, he swung his arms, the huge rock smashed down on top of the thing, making the entire craft rock. Immediately the buzzing thrum was shut off.

Alex suddenly fell to his knees, back in control. He was breathing like he’d just run a marathon. He concentrated on slowing it, to ease back on his oxygen usage.

“Aimee.” She had vanished. No, home safe. More blood dripped from his nose, but the agonizing pain receded to nothing. He crossed to the woman, who groaned as he rolled her over. Behind her visor he could see blood also flowing from her nose, ears, and the corners of her eyes.

“Morag.” He eased her up. “We need to go, now.”

She groaned again and blinked rapidly. “I can’t see.” Her face screwed up. “Oh god, my head.”

“Take it easy. Breathe deeply,” he said, holding her.

She grimaced and then coughed. He could see blood on her teeth.

“I feel like shit.” She blinked again, and the whites of her eyes were near totally red. But her brow creased, and she managed to focus on him. “What happened?”

There was a soft chirruping from behind him, and he spun quickly. Alex let his eyes run over the Orlando’s bay area, but could see nothing.

“Wait here.” He quickly crossed to the asteroid fragment and using his boot, pushed it over — there was nothing underneath it.

“Ah, goddamnit.”

He quickly crossed to Morag and dragged her up, holding her. “C’mon now.”

“Is it dead?” she asked groggily.

He put his arm under hers. “No, and I don’t think we can kill it that easily. But we’re leaving anyway.”

She slowly brought the gun up. “I can fix that.”

Her arm shook, and he pushed the barrel down. “Not today.”

“We need to kill it.” She straightened a little and her lips curled.

“No time now.” He walked her to the opening in the side of the craft, keeping watch on the ceiling and every corner he could. Alex knew the thing might be outside, but he planned to be moving fast.

Morag leaned against him as her legs were still wobbling. She looked up at him. “You came back… just by yourself.” She snorted. “You’re insane.”

Alex smirked. “That’s what they tell me.”

She handed him the weapon as they paused at the tear in the ship’s side. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He peered outside, checking the weapon as he did so. “There’s more Morg out there, and we also need to get the hell off this mountaintop before we’re turned to ash.”

“What was that thing?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.

He glanced back, still not seeing any sign of it, but hearing the buzzing deep in his head again. He knew it was still nearby.

“I don’t think it knows itself. It’s like…” he thought for a second or two, “…like some sort of termite queen. Spreading its seed. It wants to establish a hive, a colony, starting here. It’s terraforming first, trying to make the environment into something it’s familiar with — like the world it came from. But it needs raw material.”

“Us.” Morag shook herself, sucking in a deep breath. “The hell with that.”

“This is our world. Don’t worry, retribution is coming,” Alex said resolutely.

He looked her up and down. “You okay?”

She rubbed at her shoulder, her mouth twisting. “I can travel.”

“Morag…” he gripped her arm. “We’ve got to do more than just travel. And I need to be unencumbered to clear a path and for defense.”

She nodded, but didn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know. I can try.”

Alex took one last look around at the now dark and foreboding gloom that concealed everything. “Stay close in behind me. Don’t stop, don’t turn around, and don’t focus on anything else but the center of my back.” He stared into her eyes. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” She looked back into the bay area. “See you in hell, you ugly lump of shit.”

Alex began to jog.

She followed.

Alex kept up a steady pace, but not fast enough that he’d get too far ahead of Morag. They had to make it to the crater wall within ninety minutes, and then scale it and be over the rim in another few minutes. Nearly impossible, he knew, but the incentive was that the entire place would be an inferno minutes later.

He glanced around; added to that, he knew they were being followed. Something was keeping pace with them, staying just out of sight. “Stay in tight,” he said over his shoulder. Morag didn’t reply, and probably couldn’t as he knew her strength was nearly all used up.

The going was difficult because it was near-total dark now, and added to that as Alex ran he had to dodge around massive structures and lumps that grew toward the roof of the mist. It had changed even from when he had traveled in to rescue Morag from the Orlando — now there were new growths, walls, like coral nets that were powerfully adhesive. He saw several hard-shelled creatures hung within them, and the mesh actually dissolving the tough carapace plating on their bodies.

Pendulous, red bulbs hung from ropey branches like fruit, but instead of the sweet bounty they promised, upon approach they burst apart spraying some sort of toxin all around them, paralyzing their victims. Alex had shielded Morag from one burst, and now even his tough biological armor was pitted and smoking from the acidic rain.

They dodged around massive lumps that had things like seashells coating them that snapped tiny beaks at their legs as they went past. And once they had to duck as something the size of a small airplane flew down on leathery wings, and tried to snatch at them. It would have succeeded if Alex hadn’t fired a stream of projectiles up at the creature, sending it screaming away into the darkness.

Up here, this isn’t our world anymore. Instead, it was a snapshot of a different planet, complete with its own atmosphere, ecology and plant and animal species. This is what the biological lump from the meteorite wanted to make the entire planet like.

Alex felt the thump beneath his feet. It came again, massively heavy, followed by the grinding of rock and soil, keeping up a sliding surge as though someone were pulling a massive sled along beside them… or below them.

He stopped, waiting for Morag to catch up. She jogged toward him, and he saw how erratic her movements now were. She held out a hand grabbing his shoulder and hanging on, and then bending over to breathe hard.

She nodded to him, her face beet-red. “I’m okay.” She grinned. “I can go faster.”

Alex held her up. “Unlikely.”

He felt it again and turned slowly, feeling the grinding and pulling getting stronger, and closer. He scanned the growth around him, but his vision ended only a dozen or so feet out, and he still felt the effect of the weird thing in the shuttle exerting its influence on his mind to dampen his more acute senses. Regardless, he knew something was there, something big, and it was coming for them. He grabbed her arm and raised his gun.

“What is it?” Morag crowded in closer to him. “Can’t see a thing — it’s too dark.”

“There’s… something coming.” Alex frowned and pivoted, trying to pinpoint where the danger was coming from. He began to back up.

“Get behind me.”

Morag edged behind him as he started to walk backwards. He kept the RG3 up and pointed at the swirling wall of mist.

“Is it more of the Morg?” Her voice was small.

Alex strained, trying to reach out and feel if the deformed human beings were the danger he sensed. But it wasn’t the same, and the presence seemed to be all around him — lots of impressions, or just one very bi –

The ground exploded from beneath them.

Alex and Morag were thrown backwards as the tower of flesh surged upwards. When they landed in the slime, there was no respite, as it seemed everywhere more of the ground was breaking open, turning the land into choppy waves of breaking sludge as the gigantic worm burst to the surface.

Alex grabbed Morag, preparing to flee, but the worm was fully surfacing, already encircling and imprisoning them. This was why he couldn’t get a fix on what and where the danger was coming from. It was basically tunneling up from beneath them, everywhere, beneath them.

He looked up. “Oh, shit.” High above them and only just visible in the dark mist was a monstrous head, ringed with hundreds of teeth, each as long as his arm. Now he knew; this was what had been tracking them, what he had sensed the moment they had set foot in the crater basin. The worm was as big as an ocean liner, and Alex bet it had started out as some harmless nematode, buried deep on the mountaintop crater basin, or perhaps, more likely, was one of Orlando’s guests, now evolved to become an alpha predator of its new world.

Alex pointed the RG3, but even on its largest setting the damage he might be able to do would be just pinpricks to the massive monster. He aimed the gun as the huge mouth opened, twenty-feet wide, and then hung over them — he fired anyway.

The projectiles either bounced off its armor plating, or vanished into the gullet without it reacting at all.

Alex dialed the weapon up to full metal storm, and depressed the trigger, holding it down hard. A line of the projectiles shot away from him, so many that it looked like a beam of deadly steel directed at the monster — deadly that is, to any mortal thing less than about 200 feet in length.

The RG3’s magazine finally ran dry, and he dropped the red-hot gun to sizzle in the mud.

Glutinous rain fell on them from the huge maw, and he imagined the smell of the monster’s breath — flesh, rotting meat, and something dark and foul that was probably the stink of its belly.

Alex’s hand curled into a fist and he stared up into the monstrous jaw as it hung over them. Rage and frustration built to an incendiary level inside him. Morag stepped from behind him and burrowed in close to his chest, and he turned her face away from it.