Parasite, p.17
Parasite, page 17
Gin was frozen over her communications station, fingers hovering a fraction of a centimetre above the panel, head quirked to one side as she waited for an answer. “Captain Matthews, I repeat: there are people on this station in urgent need of assistance. Please confirm.”
The radio was silent except for bursts of static. A horrible dead weight settled in Maren’s stomach as Gin turned to look at her, distress painted over her face. We were too late. They left.
Then a voice flooded the room, breathless, as though its owner had been running. “This is Captain Matthews,” he said. “Ginevieve, I’ve received your message. How many on your station need assistance?”
“Three,” Gin said then moved the mic away from her mouth so she could let out a string of curses as she slumped over the panel, shaking with relief.
“Copy. We have plenty of space. We’ve just come from your sister Station 491, but it’s already been overrun.”
The beasts hit the door behind Maren. She tried to brace herself, but the force threw her forward and jarred her neck.
“I’ll be honest,” Gin said. “We’ve got a couple of problems here, too. Do you have any defence technicians that can help?”
“Yes, several. Stay put. We’ll come to you. Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?” Maren called, hoping Matthews would hear her from across the room. “Can you get here faster?”
“Negative. When you didn’t reply to my earlier communications, we prepared to leave your planet. We’re almost at the atmosphere, and I’m just now diverting the ship to land.”
Maren looked at the red screen in the corner of the room: it read twenty-four minutes. That would be enough time—just barely enough—for her and Gin to leave the station and get on board the ship before the flare hit, but there would be no time for Matthews’s defence technicians to rescue Saul. And Saul’s getting on that ship. That’s not negotiable.
“Okay,” Maren said as the beasts hit the door. The metal screeched, and Maren thought it might break. She shoved her back against it, and, mercifully, it held... barely. “We’ll make it work. Meet you outside ASAP.”
“Confirmed,” Captain Matthews said, and the line cut off.
Gin pulled the headphones off and swivelled towards Maren, her face full of bright exaltation that died as soon as she saw the door. “Oh, shoot. Damn.”
Tendrils were creeping around the bulging doorframe and trying to grab Maren. She stomped on any that came near her feet and ducked to keep her head clear of the ones above her. “Get back,” she called to Gin over the wailing noise the monsters were emitting. “I’ll shoot through them, then we’ll make a run for it.”
The motion behind her stilled. Maren took a deep breath then leapt away from the door, twisting and aiming her gun in the same motion. She fired twice, and the first shot blasted through the warped metal. The second hit the metal wall halfway down the hallway, which was empty.
“Wha…”
They heard you say you were going to shoot, so they got out of the way. They’ve tasted those guns enough times to be wary of them. But they won’t be giving up, not this easily. They know you need to get to Saul, so they’re going to wait and let you come to them.
Maren bobbed her head, trying to see down the hallway. The fight had broken most of the lights, and the single remaining fluorescent was flickering. She could see the doors lining each side of the path. Some closed, some open, any one of them potentially hid their attackers.
Gin was sheet white as she placed a hand on Maren’s arm. “We’re going to run?”
“No,” Maren murmured, as an idea started to form in the back of her mind. “No, I don’t think we’d be lucky enough to get past them again. Watch the hallway a moment.”
Maren pushed her friend to stand in the place she’d been occupying and pressed the gun into her hands. Then she pulled a small switchblade out of the utility set she kept in her pocket and jumped onto the control panel. Above the panel, set high in the wall and painted a matching grey to discreetly blend in to the room, was the grill that covered the ventilation system.
Most members of the station overlooked the vents. Maren herself had never really noticed ducts before she’d been put in charge of maintaining them. Since being stationed in 334, though, she’d spent countless hours crawling through the vents to reach inconvenient parts of the station that had suffered heat damage. She knew the passageways so intimately that, even without the map she usually brought, she was confident she could find her way to the rec room.
The transmission from earlier in the day had said the Cymic Parasites absorbed their host’s memories. Maren was banking on the idea that neither Mark nor Holly had been consciously aware of the ventilation systems, and so the monsters wouldn’t be, either.
Maren dug the edge of the blade under where base of the cover was pressed against the wall. She gave it a tug, pulling the vent free so that it swung on its top hinges.
“Here, quickly,” she hissed to Gin as she pocketed the blade.
Gin was fairly lax about letting her friend lean against the board, but Maren would never forget the look of horror that crossed Gin’s face when she saw Maren’s boots digging into the knobs and dials of her much-loved control panel.
“It doesn’t matter!” Maren grabbed Gin’s arm and tugged her onto the panel as well. “Jeeze, you communication clowns get so uptight about your precious equipment.”
“Only because you maintenance morons keep stuffing it up!” Gin huffed back but handed back the gun before letting Maren haul her into the vent.
“Crawl forward as quietly as you can,” Maren said. “It connects with another vent after about a dozen feet. Go into that side passageway so I can pass you.”
Maren waited until Gin’s shoes were in danger of disappearing from sight, then with a final glance at the door to make sure it was empty, she hoisted herself into the vent.
It was a narrow space, barely large enough to let her crawl on her hands and knees, and it took a fair bit of squirming to turn herself around so that she was facing the entrance. She hooked her fingers through the grill and pulled it down until it locked back into place. It wouldn’t stop the Cymics from following her if they realised where she and Gin had hidden, but at least it wouldn’t look astray if—rather, when—they became impatient enough to enter the room.
And that didn’t take long. Maren had barely managed to get herself facing forward again before a terrifying wail flooded her ears. Maren held her breath as she listened to the shuffling, scraping sounds coming from the creature as it searched the room. A loud bang, followed by a sizzle, told her the control panel had been destroyed. It was quickly followed by another wail and the screech of metal being torn apart.
“Go, go,” she whispered to Gin, who had come to a halt in front of her. With their noise masked by the creature’s furious destruction of the communications room, they crawled down the narrow steel passageway as quickly as they could.
The noise gradually faded behind them and then eventually ceased as the creature gave up on its rampage. Gin reached the offshoot and wormed into it so Maren could pass her.
“How long do we have?” Maren asked, careful to keep her voice quiet. Any sound they made would be muffled by the wall’s insulation, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
Gin had a far better head for time than Maren did. “Not more than nineteen minutes.”
“Damn.” The vents were safer than the passageways, but that came at the cost of time; if they’d been running, they would have been back at the rec room already. “Can you go any faster, Gin?”
“I’ll try.”
The vents were almost pitch dark, save for the slivers of light that speared through the grills placed every twenty feet, so Maren closed her eyes while she crawled, calling up the mental image of the ventilation system’s pathways. She led them past the meeting room and around the storage section then skirted the edge of the second-quadrant sleeping quarters. The only sounds she could make out were the shuffle of her hands and suit pants over the cold metal as well as Gin’s laboured breathing as she tried to match Maren’s pace.
Then two loud bangs shocked her so badly that she jumped, hitting her head on the vent’s ceiling. Her headache flared as her mind scrambled to figure out what was happening. Gunfire. Whose?
It couldn’t be Holly or Mark. They’d shown no interest in finding a conventional weapon when they’d been roving through the station. Does that mean it was Suriya? She’d been sporting that viciously sharp knife last time Maren had seen her, but it wasn’t impossible that she’d found a gun in the interim.
The noise sounded as though it had come from ahead and a little to the left of them. Which would put it in…
“The rec room!” she gasped. “Saul!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Three more shots echoed around her. Maren began moving again, ignoring her weary, aching muscles as she pushed herself through the vents as quickly as the cramped confines would let her. If Saul’s using his gun, that means they’ve gotten to him. Instead of hunting us, they’ve gone directly to our destination, broken through the doors, somehow, and he can’t even run—
Terror lent her strength. She rounded the final corner and saw the slivers of light belonging to the recreation room’s vent ahead of her. As she drew close to it, she wormed one hand behind her, pulled the gun out of her belt’s holster, and clamped it between her teeth. Then she kicked the vent open and threw herself into the room below feet first.
Saul was sitting propped upright in the lounge, the blankets Maren had placed over him discarded to the floor. He had his gun clasped in both hands, and his eyes narrowed as he aimed. Even from her position across the room, Maren could see the harsh lines of concentration crinkling his brow.
On the opposite side of the room, advancing on him with slow, careful paces that reminded Maren of a stalking panther, was Suriya. The knife swung idly by her side as she slunk closer to Saul, and the crazed delight on her face set Maren’s blood to ice.
Of course, she opened the rec room’s door. She’s the only person in the station with a higher permission than the defence technician.
Saul fired another two rounds. He wasn’t shooting to kill, or even to injure, but was aiming at the floor just in front of Suriya’s feet. The first shot made her hesitate, and the second caused her to take a half step backwards, but then she stepped around the smouldering black holes the bullets had left in the carpet and moved even closer.
“Suriya!” Maren yelled, aiming her own gun at the older woman’s face. “Get back!”
“She’s past reason,” Saul said. He sounded resigned. “She won’t talk.”
Suriya opened her mouth in a twisted grimace and laughed until her body convulsed from the effort. She let the knife swing like a pendulum, the light shining off its long, tapered blade. Her face seemed to have transformed in the time since Maren had last seen her; deranged intent had replaced the normal cool restraint.
Maren knew Saul was right, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying. “Suriya, relax. We can get off the station. A ship’s coming to pick us up. Just put the knife down, and we can talk about it.”
Maren thought their leader was contemplating the idea, but then Suriya lunged forward, knife aimed at Maren’s face. Her finger was poised over the trigger. She knew she had to pull it—the blade was a second away from slicing into her, but she hesitated. It’s still Suriya. Damaged, deranged, but still the same person inside. Can I live with myself if I kill her?
There was a loud crack, then Suriya stumbled to a halt, so close to Maren that she could feel the other woman’s breath on her face. Suriya’s eyes, bloodshot and wild, met hers, then Maren scrambled backwards, putting space between them.
A glitter of silver to her right caught Maren’s attention. The knife, its blade dented, lay on the carpet. Maren glanced to her left and saw smoke coming from Saul’s gun.
Saul finally raised his gun to point at Suriya’s face, his eyes hard and unforgiving, his voice dangerously low. “Move so much as a step closer to her, and I will kill you.”
Suriya’s eyes darted from Saul to Maren to the knife. Sweat stood out clearly on her face, plastering her hair to her forehead and neck as she chewed the inside of her cheek. Then the red screen in the corner of the room emitted a beep—a final warning in advance of the lockdown ten minutes away—and Suriya turned in a flurry of motion, snatched her knife off the ground, and ran for the door she’d come through.
Saul waited until she’d disappeared from sight and the door slid back into place before lowering his gun with a heavy sigh. “Come here.” He held one hand out to Maren. She went to him gladly and gripped the offered hand, acutely aware of how grateful she was that he hadn’t been hurt.
“You came through the vents?” he asked, and she nodded. “Clever girl.” A smile spread over his face. It was a genuine toothy grin that crinkled his eyes, and it made Maren feel like her heart might be melting through her ribs. “Well done, Maren.”
She reached out to brush his hair off his forehead then pressed her cheek to his in a gentle nuzzle. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.
“Same to you.” He kissed her neck then pulled back, his grey eyes concerned. “Where’s Gin?”
“Jeeze!” Maren had completely forgotten about the friend she’d left in the vent. She turned towards the hole in the wall and saw Gin’s blue eyes, round as saucers, peeking out of a white face. “Gin! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, course,” Gin said, the rest of her face coming into view. “There was just a lot of gunfire and yelling, so I thought it might be smart to stay hidden. I was going to come out when it went quiet, but, well, you two seemed to be having a moment, so…”
Maren, feeling heat grow over her face and ears, jogged to the vent to help Gin down. “Come on, we don’t have time to waste. Saul, we were able to get in touch with the ship. They’ll be touching down in a few minutes, and we’ve got to get to them before the flare.”
Saul glanced at the screen in the corner—eight minutes left—and his frown deepened.
Maren knew what he was thinking. “Yeah, it’ll be close. We won’t have time to go back through the vents.”
“Take the path through the North Quarter.” Maren raised her eyebrows at him, and Saul nodded towards the screens. “That’s the way Suriya took, and nothing stopped her.”
“Okay then. You up for some running, Saul?”
“Hmm.”
Maren thought that meant yes, so she tucked the gun back into her belt and hooked Saul’s hand over her shoulders while Gin came up on his other side. They lifted him to his feet then started towards the doors.
“You’d be faster without me,” Saul started, but Maren gave him a quick jab in his ribs.
“Don’t even think about playing the hero. If you stay, I’m staying with you.”
He sighed but was wise enough to not protest any further.
They were only a few paces from the door when it slid open. Maren snatched for her gun and, holding Saul up with her left hand, aimed with her right—but the hallway was empty. She glanced behind herself and saw the rest of the room’s doors had opened, too.
“Suriya,” Maren muttered, scowling. “But the monsters destroyed the panel. How’d she—”
“She set it on a timer, I’ll bet,” Gin said. “Scheduled to cancel the lockdown when it was too late for us to do anything about it.”
“You can do that?”
“If you’re a little clever with it, yeah.”
“Okay.” Maren pulled the three of them through the door and set off down the hallway. “We need to go fast, then. No time to suit up. We’ll have to take temporary oxygen units.”
She turned right, as Saul had advised, taking the slightly longer path through the northern section of their station. Her heart, strained by all of the activity that day, fluttered hard against her ribs as she carried the bulk of Saul’s weight. She kept her breathing light so she could listen, but she couldn’t hear or see anything unnatural. They were near the end of the hallway that led to the airlock when Saul pulled her up with a hard tug. She looked at him, but he shook his head to indicate she should be quiet.
“What’s—” Gin started, but Saul clamped a hand over her mouth.
That was when Maren became aware of the faint shifting noise coming from just around the corner ahead of them. Saul carefully pulled the gun from Maren’s hand. Then, leaning on her to keep himself steady, he tugged a knife from his back pocket. He threw it towards the end of the hallway so that it skittered to a halt just before the corner.
Mark’s monstrous form took up most of the hallway while his limp human skin swayed from where it was suspended. He lunged towards the sound, and two of his tendrils slammed into the floor and walls, leaving large dents in their wake.
Saul’s gun cracked three times, blasting holes in the rippling black creature as its human opened its mouth to release a deep bellow.
“Go,” Saul said, urging them forward, as Mark collapsed to the ground in a mess of smoking, writhing flesh. “Quick, before the other one comes.”
They ran for the safety of the airlock ahead, clambering over the twitching tendrils that littered the floor. Maren sensed more than saw Mark beginning to rebuild his form behind them, but they barrelled through the open airlock door and slammed it closed before the creature could collect itself.
“Here,” Maren said, letting Gin take Saul’s weight as she eased out from under his arm and began searching for the temporary breathing units.
Temps, as the crew called them, were small round devices that fit into the mouth. They held enough oxygen to last for ten minutes and could be quickly handed out and activated in case of an emergency evacuation.
Maren rattled through the collection of equipment boxes and spare parts until she found the crate holding the small forest-green pucks. She took three and passed them out.
