I know that 'Faulk' is over-used, and I know it's all crap, but it Nano. I'm telling you to not tear it apart with your destructive criticism (I cringe at my pathetic irony) or shove it back at me and tell me it's no good, but go easy on the filler, it has to stay there...just until the end of November.
Terik woke to the sound of squealing alarms. Brock, in the bunk across from him, slapped his alarm clock roughly, but it wasn’t the source of the alarm.
“Get up!” Terik shouted, pulling on his uniform with one hand and shaking Norman with the other. “Something’s happened!”
Norman rolled out of his bed and hit the floor with a grunt. In a few minutes he got up, shook his head and put on his uniform clumsily. Brock took some shaking before he was awake, but he was more energetic than even Terik once the urgency hit home.
“Let’s get to the–”
Whatever Terik had tried to say, it was lost in the explosion that took out half their dorm wall. Something hot and bright flashed past the gaping hole and was gone before Terik even realized it.
The shock threw all three spacers into the halls, arms flailing, bodies bruised. Terik’s helmet suddenly closed with a lightening fast snik and he knew that the Maroon’s hull had been breached once more: the Maroon officer uniform sealed up automatically once it detected extremely high or low pressures, excessive heat or dangerous radiation.
“Get up!” Terik ordered through his microphone. “Let’s go find Jix!”
Brock and Terik sprinted down the hall while Norman stumbled after them slowly. The elevators were no longer functioning (of course, Terik thought) and it would days to walk to the piloting chamber from the squad dorm.
“Let’s get to the launching bay,” Brock suggested. “Maybe we can fly through space to get up top.”
“Good idea,” Terik agreed. “Come on!”
Within five minutes they were in the launching bay. The huge airlock doors were torn open as if by a gigantic hand and subsequently micro gravity was weakened slightly. The three spacers floated easily through a cloud of debris and tools to get to their ships.
“Norman, see if you can reach Rollock and Sandy!” Terik ordered, unstrapping his Sky scraper from where it was anchored to the floor. “Brock, you and Norman’ll ride in the command vehicle.”
Terik climbed into his craft and switched on the engine, waiting as the thermal thrusters revved up to full power. No damage had been done to the ship while it was anchored, but the fuel was low: Rollock had forgotten to fill it up after the last mission.
“We’re in position, sir,” it was Brock’s voice over the intercom, but Terik had never heard him use the word ‘sir’. “Let’s go!”
“Affirmative, troops,” Terik replied, speaking over the squad intercom. “Follow my lead.”
Terik maneuvered his ship through the gap in the airlock, checking his rearview camera to see if Brock’s vehicle would fit. It wouldn’t, but a minute and a small explosion later saw it floating a few feet from the outer hull of the Maroon.
“Norman, did you contact Sandy and Rollock?”
“No, sir, they wouldn’t answer, I don’t know why.”
“Faulk,” Terik cursed. “They might be dead.”
The rest of the trip was silent and uneventful –barring the scene they approached once they gained the top of the ship. There couldn’t have been more damage if a colossal asteroid had come along at a million light years an hour and swiped the entire command center into the void. In places Terik saw streak marks and burn marks, as if something terrible powerful had scraped along through the ship like giant teeth.
More lives than could be counted, Terik thought silently. Jix and Sandy and Rollock too, maybe.
The sound of a choking, sobbing breath broke through the intercom; Norman was crying.
“Sir, they’re all gone: everyone is dead.”
“Whoever did this will pay,” Terik thought, closing his eyes and letting his anger seep into vengeance. “A thousand miserable deaths for every drop of blood shed.”
“Sir!” Brock’s voice shattered Terik’s thoughts. “Watch out, sir!”
Terik opened his eyes just in time to see a hurtling mass of light and fire rushing towards the Maroon. On the path the object was taking, it’d hit the colony ship smack dab center and then carry on towards the squad.
Swiftly Terik set his ship into action. He gunned the engines and swept off on a curving, evasive arc…just as the fireball hit the Maroon.
The hull fractured like aluminum and there was a visible cloud of gases that spewed from the high pressure innards of the ship. Airlock doors would be shutting closed by now, Terik knew, trapping people not yet killed. Fire leaped up like a roaring beast, only to die down almost immediately in the vacuum of space. The asteroid –it couldn’t have been anything else– didn’t slow down from the explosion, but carried right on and burst out like a rocket through the other side of the Maroon.
Terik watched open mouthed as the fireball then carried on through space as though nothing had happened. In its wake, the thing left a wispy trail of gas and fragmented, melted metal.
“Sir?” the voice was staticy and faint, but Terik recognized Sandy’ voice, scared and faltering though she was. “Where are you?”
“Sandy!” Terik quickly tried to pinpoint her signal. “Thank Faulk you’re still alive. We’re outside the Maroon now, in our cruisers.”
“So that’s where they went,” Sandy’s voice was getting clearer; Terik could now trace her on his ship’s radar. “We thought those aliens took them.”
“Aliens?” Brock and Norman repeated simultaneously: Terik had almost forgotten they’d been listening in.
“Sure, just like you said, sir,” Norman’s Sky scraper suddenly bobbed before Terik’s windshield, Sandy in the driver’s seat. “White ones and green balls: freakiest thing I ever laid eyes on.”
“What about Jix and Rollock, did you see them?”
“Rollock is still onboard the Maroon, sir. He went to look for Captain Jix.”
“Alright then, what are we waiting for? Let’s start up evac and rescue as many as we can.”
Terik typed in his officer clearance code and his screen flashed red once.
Are you sure you wish to proceed with this action? (Evacuation Contingency) Y/N
Terik selected ‘Y’ and millions of alarms inside the Maroon instantly went off. The three ships approached an undamaged landing bay and quickly returned to the ship. Inside there were throngs of passengers rushing towards the escape pods and ejector vehicles. Passenger staff were trying as hard as they could to manage the scene, but the alarms –coupled with the reverberations that every colonist had undoubtedly felt– had raised the panic level too far. Terik and his squad had to walk against the crowd to reach the elevators, an action that slowed them down greatly.
“These people will never make it.” Brock grumbled as several passengers tripped over his toes and tumbled into the fray.
Terik had wondered the same, how could two billion people exit a ship the size of the Maroon within five minutes? And then there was the possibility of damaged airways and halls: anything could congest the flow of escapees. His thoughts flowed along at a rapid pace –not unlike the worried, pushing crowd– about Jix, Rollock, the mystery of the fireballs, the aliens, everything: his mind was a veritable tornado of doubtful ideas. Suddenly Norman waved back at Terik (he’d fallen behind with his heavy thinking) and Terik noticed Brock and Rollock trying to lift a large piece of jagged metal off an elderly passenger.
“What happened here?” Terik asked, trying to get his hands around some non sharp part of the metal. “Sandy radio for help.”
Between the three men (Norman just got in the way) the metal piece was soon lifted off. Sandy helped the bleeding man out and wiped his cuts with a strip from her uniform. Usually, damaging one’s uniform was considered an offense, but Terik couldn’t care less right now.
“Janie…please, my granddaughter,” the wounded man mumbled. “You have to help her, she’s back in my cabin, I–”
He suddenly toppled over in a faint that Norman and Sandy quickly stopped.
“What’ll we do?” Rollock asked. “We have to help him!”
“Of course,” Terik replied, but then the thought hit him: Rollock was here.
“Where’d you go, Rollock?”
“Went looking for Jix.”
“And?”
“She’s up in the piloting chamber, don’t worry. Now let’s help this guy…Terik…?”
Sounds were suddenly muted to Terik. He slumped against the metal wall, ears ringing and pulse throbbing. For a few minutes he was lost in his daze of confusion and disbelief. Jix had been with him for ages beyond count: her life being snuffed out in one moment was too much for him.
Suddenly, he was back in Seljik, wading through the knee deep filth that made Seljik itself. Jix walked beside him, clothed in her black and grey cloaking robe that she’d stolen from a Centre merchant. The robe had bought them many a meal on the streets before cheap food came out in the form of the August, but every once in a while the pair would do something just for fun.
For now, the robe was deactivated and flapped listlessly against Jix ankles.
“We can’t turn back now, Terik,” she was saying, flipping her eyes between the road ahead and the ground below her carefully stepping feet. “Mac said he’d be there too.”
Mac was one of the few law enforcement officers on Seljik that wasn’t corrupted with bribes. In the weeks prior to the scene described, Mac had hunted down on a drug running gang, tracing them at last to the corner of a dark, dank neighborhood.
Terik, always the careful, cautious one, objected to Jix’s notions.
“We’re unarmed, Jix, and these men will probably have a thousand combots at their fingertips: we’d better get out of this while we can!”
Mentioning combots, the battle bots of crime lords and Jix’s one phobia, brought the risky adventurer to a halt in her tracks.
“So you want us to run away?”
“Maybe we can take it slow: you’ve got the robe.”
Jix drew the cloaking robe tightly about her shoulders and tapped the hem against the glowing semi precious stone in her earring. Suddenly Jix was no more, nothing but a dirty wisp of air remained. Fog seemed to suddenly creep out of the polluted air, making it harder even to see things uncloaked.
‘Alright then, let’s go.” Jix’s voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere: Terik had never gotten used to it.
Terik led the way (or maybe Jix did, but he couldn’t tell) until a huge warehouse front loomed up at him out of the gathering fog. The young boy lifted up a tentative fist and knocked thrice. Nothing happened for a few minutes, but then a sound that was a cross between squealing and moaning broke through the fog and pierced Terik’s ears. When the door was at last thrown back, Terik could see naught but dark and gloomy shadows.
“I’ve come for…a…package…sir?”
Two red eyes suddenly blinked out of the darkness, making Terik take a hasty step backwards. There was a humming sound, and then a levitating robot came out into the semi dim light.
“Follow me,” the gravelly voiced robot ordered.
“Of…course.” Terik replied, noticing the heavy arms of the robot.
Jix seemed to notice too –there were brown stains like old blood in the cracks of the metal– and a stifled gasp came out of thin air.
“What was that?” the robot demanded, whirling around with a powerful swing of his arms.
“Achoo!” Terik faked a sneeze, rubbing his nose on the back of his sleeve. “I’ve got a cold: can I come in now?”
If the robot could’ve made facial expressions –judging from the silence that followed– it would’ve been a been a suspicious scowl, but eventually Terik was allowed to continue.
Neither robot, Terik nor Jix noticed the black shadow that flitted into the warehouse just before the heavy doors closed.
“Captain!” it was Sandy that shook him back. “We need to get out of here!”
Terik sprang out of his reverie so fast that Sandy stepped backwards and put a hand on her service rifle.
The first thing Terik noticed was that the hall was empty, not even the old man was still there. The next was that his entire squad was armed and standing in a semi circle around him, looking at him expectantly.
“Well?” he asked gruffly.
“We’re under attack,” Brock explained. “Just like you and Sandy said: white aliens and green balls.”
Terik looked around, but –aside from the alarms– there wasn’t a sound in the eerie halls. Doubt would have rested heavily on his heart had he not seen the creatures himself, but Terik might’ve even believed his troops without the heads up he’d gotten last night.
“Where’s Jason?” Terik asked.
There was an uncomfortable silence before Sandy stepped forward, holding a bloody officer’s ID card in her glove.
“Sir, he–”
“Faulk.” Terik understood. “Give me a gun.”
Terik took an energy rifle from Norman, who’d been holding it out ever since his squad captain had woken up. The teenager watched as Terik checked the energy levels and strapped the shock proof halter around his body.
“What’re you gonna do?”
“Get those aliens the Faulk off of my ship.”
“You can’t shoo them, we’ve tried to already.”
Terik stared at Norman, wondering if he was lying to prevent his captain from going off on a bravado attempt at regaining pride. But at just that moment, before Norman or any of the other squad could back him up, the aliens came.
It was exactly the way Terik remembered it: white, ghost like and furry. The alien seemed to melt out of the walls just behind Norman and moved slowly closer. A closer look showed Terik that the ‘fur’ was actually dangling, flailing tentacles, each smaller than a thread.
Without a word Terik raised the energy rifle and fired at the alien. The blue fireball passed right through the body of the alien, causing no more ill affects than if Terik had spoken to it.
“Faulk,” Terik said, dropping back a step. “Let’s get out of here.”
“How much more do you know about these guys?” Terik asked, ducking to avoid low swinging electrical wires.
“About where they come from and why, sir?” Sandy replied. “No, sir, but I’m sure they’re in league with the green aliens.”
“What green aliens?” Terik was clearly getting annoyed by the amount of information he was ignorant to.
“Those ones!” Norman screamed, stopping and firing back into a crowd of green, insectile aliens.
The new aliens were long and many legged, looking like some cross between a grasshopper and a centipede. Waving antennae and beady black eyes on green stalks poked out from a circular, flat face. All around the face and down the body, green scales protected the alien and giving a slightly dragon ish look.
Terik’s squad fired their energy rifles at the green monsters, but –even though they seemed to feel the burn and responded with eardrum shattering screaming– they wouldn’t die.
Fully intent on killing their prey now, the aliens half hopped, half walked across the hall at a surprisingly –and uncomfortably– rapid pace.
“Run!” Terik shouted, following suit and realizing that his order had been needless: his team was already way ahead of him.
Terik ran down unfamiliar halls and dodged junk that cluttered and obstructed his way. Dangerous wires hung from the ceiling where they seemed like spit cobras, throwing out sparks every now and then. Metal beams, crumpled under by some tremendous pressure, were thrown into the hall like spears through the body of the ship.
Norman suddenly tripped over something and went down on his face. Terik took one look at the fast approaching aliens behind him and made the decision. He swept under Norman’s arm with a fluid motion and pulled the boy back onto his feet. Norman ran on with his arm over Terik’s shoulder for a few minutes until he regained his breath and ran alone.
“Thank you, sir,” Norman gasped out between breathes. “I don’t know…what would have…hap–”
“Don’t think about it.” Terik interrupted sharply; he wasn’t in a bad mood, but running to save one’s life called for a lot of breath.
“Look out ahead!” Sandy screamed, pointing to the black hole that made up the end of the hallway.
At first Terik thought it was just a power out at that end of the hall, but it turned out to be far worse as he approached it. The hall had been sheared off by one of those fireballs, creating more rubble and opening the hall into the void. Terik could feel micro gravity lessening as he came closer to the hole, but he kept on. A hundred more yards and they’d reach the hole, fifty yards and the aliens would reach them.
Fifty yards until the hole, the aliens were closing down to twenty yards.
“Jump!” Terik ordered. “It’s the only way!”
“Are you crazy?” Brock challenged. “I’d rather face those bugs!”
“Jump, Faulk you!” Terik cursed, putting on an extra burst of speed and following his own orders.
Terik’s jump sent him hurtling out into space some distance before he could look back. A few of the bugs had tried to follow, but they were useless in zero gravity, kicking around like helpless swimmers.
Rollock fired once at the monster, and the recoil of his rifle sent him backwards a bit. The squad’s engineer looked up at Terik and both suddenly saw a plan out.
