Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (12 page)

The Eel wrapped itself around the bottom of the crane and worked its
way up the tunnel like an anaconda strangling its prey. It picked off the last
soldier in line nearly swallowing him whole. The soldier couldn’t have been
more then twenty years old; too young for this kind of fight and too young to
die like that. The Eel carried what was left of him to the ground and
disappeared below the soil surface.

I had been in many battles. FIghting secret wars between colonies
against terrorists, pirates, and corporate greed. I had been a soldier (I
Cross
had been a soldier)
for a long time. This wasn’t the first time I watched a man
die and it wouldn’t be the last but no matter what, every single time I had the
same sick feeling inside my stomach. It was a man’s life, a human’s life that
had been lost and that was something too horrible to never forget. The Eel
finished its meal and began its mad dash back towards us from below the
surface before slithering up the side of the crane. We were close enough to
the top now to set up an attack. I loaded a grenade into my M17 and fired.
Hell, I didn’t even take the time to aim. The grenade hit its mark dead center.
The Eel’s head burst apart and its face looked like a crushed cantaloupe. The
Eel fell backwards. The other male soldier that was now last in our line had
the same problem. Falling. Instinctively he lifted his right hand and tried to
cover his head to absorb the blow of the ground. He would have been fine. A
fall like that wouldn’t kill someone wearing as much armor as we were but
only seconds before he would have hit the soil a second Eel snatched him.
The rest of us pressed our heads against the rusted metal and cringed in pain.
The ringing in our ears let us know we were going to be deaf for awhile but
we were comforted by the fact that we were still alive.

The
first Eel bled out in pain. It was no longer alive but its body
squirmed on the ground. We shot it again and again out of spite. The drill
support began to buckle until finally it a few seconds later it broke. Metal
scraped metal, parts of the crane simply fell to the ground rusted manacles
and other like parts broken and forgotten. I hung there for a moment. When
the dust from the collision settled I saw Chev and the girl were helpless
buried underneath a pile of twisted metal. I was the only one able to make a
stand. I dropped to the ground rolling and letting my suit absorb some of the
blow. I grabbed my gun and fired. The second Eel was now only a few feet
from us.

This time I didn’t run! I didn’t hide or climb or turn away. I
fired until I
was empty and then reloaded as fast as I could. The Eel stopped short only
about a meter away from where I stood but it might as well have been inches
from my body as far as I cared. I had killed it. My only regret was that I
hadn’t gone head to head with it sooner. I fell to my knees crying. Both Eels
were dead and it looked like they were the only two that were coming after
us. Chev crawled his way out of the wreckage and together we were able to
dig the girl out. She was in a lot of pain. Aside from a few fractured ribs, a
sprained wrist, and a dislocated shoulder her legs were broken and bleeding.
I took off my armor and ripped a piece of my pant leg free and using a few of
the metal lines from the collapsed drill created two stints for her. She gripped
my forearm like a woman in labor, the pain she was in must have been
terrible enough to make her want to tear out of her skin. Each time we moved
her she bucked from it screaming until Chev took out a vile of morphine from
his backpack and handed it to me. I looked at her and she nodded without
any hesitation. Quickly I bit off the top tab and plunged the needle into her
leg just above her knee and squeezed. She let out one more scream as the
tube compressed and expelled the liquid drop into her veins as I pressed my
thumb from top to center. Her eyes became glossy and immediately she began
to drift away to a pain-free paradise. As for her shoulder I didn’t think to try
and set it. You see in movies some soldier with no medical care can just
miraculously become an expert in bone setting, one twist here and a jerk
there and walla the dislocated bone falls back into place. Sorry but not here..
Dislocated shoulder and broken leg or not we had no choice but to carry her
the rest of the way.

The exo-suits we were wearing weighed over 75Ibs. Metal brackets and
springs reinforced our armor so that it would help us carry all that extra
weight but it was always difficult carrying someone else. Even without her
armor she weighed at least 140Ibs. After going deeper into the tunnel we had
to stop. Truth was we needed a break, our muscles were sore and we were
going to pass out from exhaustion at the rate we were moving. I used that
time to glue her torn flesh together and she stared silently at me giving me a
face I will never forget. “Chev take her right side and be easy, on my count
we lift… one, two, three!” I said as Chev and I lifted simultaneously moving
the woman into the upright position. She gave out a horrid grunt as her teeth
mashed together like a bear trap. Her eyes were shut tight as a sneer from the
pain. “I know it hurts. I know it hurts really bad but you’ll be ok,” I-Cross
Assured her,

“I have given birth to two children…” she blinked, “no medicine either.
All natural and that is nothing compared to this,” she said as Chev and I
continued to support her weight with our exo-suits.

“Tell me more about your family,” I said hoping that I could make her
mind think about something other than the pain she was in.
“Luke and Mark.”
“Brothers? How far apart?”
“Twins actually,” she smiled.
“How old?”
“Four years last month.”
“Aren’t you lucky,” I said.
“I have a three year old named John,” I-Cross said.
“I want to see them again. I…” her words broke off and tears began to
brim in her eyes.
“None of that now, we are not going to die here. We will see our families
soon!”
We reached the end of the tunnel not a moment too soon. A working
skiff waited for us at the exit. Command had heard everything that had
happened monitoring our COM while we were inside the mines. They had
sent a team of five including two medics to escort and help us make a safe
return. They had even dropped EXO-mech suits on the ground for us. The
EXO-mech suits were drone mechs we could control from either far away or
manually if a pilot was inside (also helped if the signal became compromised).
They were the perfect weapon for dealing with crowds or massacring alien
pests in high numbers. Someone higher up had known me, Devon Cross too
well, and knew that I liked my toys. They knew I had no intention of going
back and neither did Chev. We put the girl on the skiff and ordered her back
to the New Hope. Her only mission now was to reunite with her twins. The
camera she had on her suit and the encounter with the Eel made her a huge
priority as far as intelligence was concerned so I knew she would be in safe
hands. Immediately the medics set her leg. It was amazing how fast they did
it, they did after all have the proper training. The med-evac skiff was kicking
up grains of dust as the engines made a flopping sound above our heads.
“Feel better now?” I said smiling at the woman.
“Clara. My name is Clara,” she said. I placed my hand on Clara’s arm to
soothe her and she smiled and gave two slow blinks in assurance that
everything was alright.
“Ok, Clara, you are going home to Luke and Mark. That’s worth the
fight, you did great out there,” I said as she took my hand and clenched it
then patted her chest just above her heart. “It is always worth the fight, just
for the sake of being alive,” she smiled brighter then before. I wondered if the
morphine was making her feel a little too relaxed. A minute later the skiff was
ready for take off and the two of us parted ways. I realized then that after all
that happened between us I had never given her my name. Not that it
mattered. We were brother and sister out here and the any one of us would
have done the same. I’m nothing but an old man with a gun.

Evac

Chev and I had become key players in the battle for Deimos. We could
have easily been released from active duty and shipped away on that skiff but
command already knew that the two of us would choose to fight. As a gift
they sent down two military grade mech suits. The medics patched up our
ears and we were ready to move forward with our new mission - eradicate a
Skrav codenamed ‘Scar’.

We gathered ourselves together and began to look at our intel. ‘Scar’ was
located four miles away outside the ruins of an old Deimos city that had been
abandoned. With the EXO-meches with us this would be a walk in the park.
At least it should have been…

Murphy’s law. Nothing is ever just a walk in the park. Over the
first hill
we hit more trouble then we bargained for. Scar, as it turns out was the leader
behind a the Skrav remnant. He was the one that self-destructed the ship and
planned the traps that had cost the lives of most of our soldiers on the front.
Scar was tactical. Scientists believed he was somehow sending signals to all
the surviving Skrav, either via their suits or some kind of telepathy. Either
way he was the leader and he had to be cut down. Our EXOs were rigged to
kill. Two ten foot tall suits of iron with two rocket launchers each on each
shoulder and two mini guns that made up the arms. All we had to do was
stand inside, in our safety harness and be ready to steer should the automated
commands we had programed become lost. Three miles in that was exactly
what happened. Murphy’s law, what can happen will happen or rather when
something can go wrong it will.

Call it what you want this was a bad day to be on Deimos. Chev and I
manually took control of our EXOs and continued tearing a path ahead of us
for a secondary squad to follow. The Skrav forces were trying to set up
turrets inside the ruined buildings but they meant nothing after we took out
the structure’s support beams. It took us three hours to make our way to Scar.
He saw us coming from a mile away. He didn’t run. He didn’t fight either.
When we were close enough to see him he pointed his arm out towards us
holding a long sharp sword like weapon. Thirty, maybe forty Skrav ran at us.
We let it rip! Bullets tore through them like confetti. Shell casings littered the
ground beneath our feet. We formed our line and gunned them down. When
we were done we looked back and saw Scar standing before us dead on his
knees, impaled by his own blade. He had killed himself. It was the kind of
sacrifice you use to see in feudal Japan. Seppuku. Every moment they
seemed more like us then we gave them credit.

The sky was still just as black as it ever was.

A mushroom cloud formed above us; the ground was littered and stained with
the blood and bodies of our enemies. This was our first contact with alien life
and we murdered them all. Humanity had declared its place in the universe.
We hunted any surviving Skrav down, any left anywhere in the system were
tracked and killed on site. Deimos had become a graveyard and in years to
come it would become a memorial dedicated to our fallen brothers and sisters.

We quickly learned that even though we had indirectly murdered Scar
that we were really just cutting off the head of a hydra. Scar was no leader;
there was no Skrav leader. The few that had escaped their ships fled and went
into hiding, feral monsters caught in the sewers. Others attacked in smaller
and smaller waves. After ten years they were written off as nothing more than
childhood nightmares. We had become legends, historical figures from a great
crusade. The largest and most important war humanity had ever fought and it
only lasted a little more than a day.

“Did you know that Deimos is the Greek word for terror?”

I could not make out who was speaking. Someone in the shadows sat
monitoring my vitals. He was telling me more of our history and I was too
eager to listen. “The Battle of Memoria that was what they called it.” I had
known this part of our history. Terror had scarred humanity and changed our
species forever. The Deimos would become a word synonymous with
mankind. No longer alone in the universe. We had enemies, and the Skrav we
fought that day were only a small fraction of their force. The blood that was
spilled was insignificant compared to the day we let them destroy the sun, the
day the Erebus and two other ships left billions to die.

Hand that Feeds
- Sev -
“Sev? Sev?” At first I thought it was Aira. It wasn't.

I was in a daze. A soft gentle hand removed the visor that was covering my
eyes. Her arms were scared and she was thin. Then I saw her. A scar ran
from the top of her forehead down across the entire left side of her face.
Balkava was a woman. She was a few years older than me. The person I had
seen before was a doctor and nothing more. She leaned over and was sitting
right in front of me. For a moment she looked so beautiful but if only for a
moment…

“Sev... what do you know about the Skrav?” It was a simple question. I
should have given it a simple answer. I should have said they are the enemy.
Instead I leapt from my chair and attacked her. My arm was around her neck.
The doctor grabbed me and as quickly as I had jumped up I was forced down
on the ground with a needle plunged into the left side of my arm. I felt tears
roll down my eyes as images of what I had just seen flashed before my eyes.

“For hundreds of years the human race has been waging war across the
galaxy across hundreds of worlds.” I balked. I was rabid. “It was the Skrav
that destroyed the Earth’s sun and ended the billions of lives within the Sol
System. The Skrav destroy and enslave! That is their way! They have no
leaders aside from their own tormented pride. If we kill the ones in charge a
second immediately reacts and comes to take its place. There are no elections,
no kings and no queens! The Skrav are not a monarchy or a republic! Instead
they act fueled by a hive mind! They have bred the fear of death out of
themselves. Savages. Monsters. Four armed beasts. They are a collective
consciousness that communicate to each other through various means such as
body language, smell, and hate!”

“Some even say they are telepathic.” I hear someone say. I feel the
tranquilizer take hold.
“Get off me! Get...”

“Ok...he’s sedated, at least enough to cooperate. Let’s get him back and the
examination bench.” I felt my body rise. I could talk and my sensor nerves
were prime, but I could do nothing more.

“Now, Mr. Colona...let us begins again. Tell us more about the skarv.”
“Their ships are very human by design. They need oxygen to survive, just like
we do. They use a cross between metal alloys and organics for their hulls and
electronics. When they go to war they wear battle armor that covers their
entire body, including two smaller arms that they have on their stomachs or
what we think could be their stomachs. Their faces are split at the front and
instead of teeth they use acid to dissolve their food into nutrients. The Skrav
do, however have teeth. Behind the skin covers what would be their lips.
They run up the bottom of their face from their chin to where their nasal
passageway is. There is a set of sharp shark like teeth that they can use to
break through rock. They have two eyes that are usually either solid black or
solid white. Those that study the Skrav believe that this is a difference in
gender though no one is really sure if they have a gender at all...

....No one knows why the Skrav are at war with the humans. It is possible
that the Skrav were once a Tier III civilization that eventually collapsed,
turning savage and brutal. It is believed that they were fighting wars amongst
themselves until they found mankind to fight against. It could be the Skrav
see other races as inferior or they don’t even acknowledge them at all.” I
paused, then continued.

“Skrav technology is easy to reverse. Their starship uses an immersion core to
create a rift in the universe, allowing the ship to physically enter the immer.
This is where we got our technology. It also eliminates the need for time
dilation as time in the immer moves at a different pace than time outside the
immer. Imagine being able to walk through walls. I guess it’s safe to assume
you know this already. We are traveling in the immer now... Their weapons
are also very earthlike. They use rifles that resemble carbines and blades that
resemble Persian swords. Their rifles shoot an assortment of ammo types
such as projectile, laser, even sound. The Skrav seem to experiment with
different types of strategies. They never use the same tactics twice.” I felt like
I couldn't control my tongue. I spat out everything I knew about the Skrav
and our war without hesitation.

"I’ve seen this for myself," Balkava said. “This could be seen when the
first
invasion against humanity involved them sending a platoon of warships that
resembled daggers across our star system.”

“Yes.” I cut in. “But when that failed, they used stealth to turn our sun against
us. They have also been seen dropping asteroids, even crashing entire planets
together to create world-ending results. The Skrav are responsible for more
than half of the deaths in the Milky Way Galaxy. It is possible that their
empire has even set up colonies in the M33 Galaxy and the outer rim of the
Andromeda Galaxy but we have no way to prove this. The Skrav have a
reproductive system similar to humans. When cut open, the Skrav’s body is
filled with tiny bones that are stronger and denser than human bones. It is
believed that the Skrav home world would have gravitational pulls two or
three times stronger than Earth’s. Their skin is similar to human skin too
except that it is ten times as thick and almost constantly, wet creating a slimy
residue. This information leads us to believe," I paused, "we believe Skrav’s
came from a super Earth, or a planet similar to Earth but much larger.” Just
then I felt my body lift again from the table and shift. I was tied to a chair
now and bleeding from the nose. I was getting a lesson I had already had
back on Errikus. I had seen the destruction of their fleet and I had seen a
battle few users ever witness. They had been listening to me while I used the
nexus, watching me and taking notes as I performed for the first time.

“Why do they hate us.” The Doctor asked.

“We don’t know.” My wrist was aching and the rope felt like it was biting
deeper into my skin. Why do we hate anyone we don’t like. We’re all human;
we’re all made from the same small pieces of matter existing in one place and
then the next. We all live, sleep, die yet we always found a way to fight each
other.” I didn’t move or speak. I hated her for putting me through this. I was
fantasizing about the idea Skrav eating her heart. I even imagined Scar
bursting through the door and slamming his sword into her chest. We are
violent. We are both monsters. “We do know that they have the ability to use
the Nexus as well, “ I said.

“Ok. We’re going to untie your body now and you’re going to come with me.
There is something I want you to see,” Balkava said. She took out a knife and
cut the small ties that bonded me to the chair. Immediately I felt release.

When the sedative
finally wore off, we walked out of the white room and past
several human guards holding carbines. Balkava said something to them each
time she passed by.

“A few years ago we had a shifter on board. It looked human, talked human,
even smelled human but it was a Skrav inside. They started experimenting
with shape shifting techniques. They would graft limbs from dead humans to
their own torsos and cover their faces with human skin. They were made up
of cybernetic parts mostly so they could make the mouth move. They were
more machine then Skrav or human.” She leaned in close. ‘Now we have a
code that we say to each other and,” I listened while a part of me didn’t really
care. I was so angry. “There is more at stake then you will ever know Sev. We
are at war and that means we can’t always do what we want to do or be with
the ones we want to be with.” Her words cut me like a knife straight into to
the heart. I’m sure by now they had every piece of information about my life
they could scavenge from Errikus. I think the leviathan had left the library in
tact so there was, at the very least a public record full of any and all records
of everything in my life, celebrations and funerals. That list must have
included Dom’s passing. That meant she would know how close Aira,
Hayden, Dom, and I were. I began to wonder how everyone was doing. She
had said we were already in the immer before I could even ask…

“How long have I been out,” I asked.

“Three weeks,” she said. I couldn’t believe it. I was three weeks under. They
must have been keeping me alive with fluids, pumping them straight into my
body.

“And before you ask, all your friends are
fine.” Balkava exclaimed. How did
she know that’s what I was thinking? Her answer made me feel like she could
read my mind or was I just that transparent? We continued to walk down the
corridor and ended up in a part of the ship I didn't recognized - not that it
took much. We must have walked for nearly an hour. It was dark. The air
was even more stale then it had been before. This was my grand tour of the
ship. First the hangar, then the Nexus, and now the prison cells.

Balkava motioned for me to stand back while she spoke with a few
guards. They talked briefly. Finally they opened up a large bulkhead door
and Balkava and I walked inside. There on a chair sat the Trepp, one of the
few alien races the Skrav kept alive. They were slaves of course but to some
that was better than extinction. “His name is Malekai’Ryn. We have been
interrogating him since before we left Errikus. He is a part of a group of
Trepp that engaged in a skirmish with the Tritan. They were also the ones
responsible for getting the attention of the leviathan that destroyed Errikus. It
wasn’t an accident. We just have no idea how they did it.” I looked at the
Trepp and felt more pity then disgust. Wasn’t he only doing what his species
is forced to do, much like we are? It’s not like we stayed on Errikus to help
any of the Eek, Pok, Myra, or Arr7 survivors out.

“Just give me one more day.” A voice cried out from behind us. It was
a soldier named Bloch. He was the head of interrogation. It wasn’t very often
we captured a Trepp alive and it was even more rare that we would ever
caught a Skrav.

“We’ve given you all the time we can spare. All we have is nothing,”
Two men in admiral suits shouted. Balkava intervened. She eased the
enforcers down and began speaking some low, inaudible words. I didn’t
realize it before but the room we were in was actually an airlock. I began to
feel sick. The idea of being sucked out into space gave me nightmares. It was
one of my biggest fears. As a small child I would dream we were being
attacked. Hulls above and below me blowing apart until finally a Mi-Go
would appear. I sometimes wonder where I learned of such beasts. I was
never sure if it was a monster from an old folktale or something more but it
would wrap it’s arms around me and with its pink crab like claws, it would
rip open the wall sucking both of us into the blackness of space. I would wake
up screaming. Now I would never be certain if my dreams were real or
something I saw in the Nexus. I wasn’t even sure if that was my dream
anymore or something else. Reality seemed to make little sense anymore.

“It’s all yours Balkava,” The top interrogator said.

“We do it your way but don’t forget to clean up when you’re done.”
Bloch said. Balkava come back in the room and handed me her service
weapon. A small rifle with a fully loaded clip. She then turned and left the
two of us alone in the room.

“What do your eyes see when they see me,” I asked the Trepp. The
Trepp spoke the human language perfectly. Unlike the Skrav their species
had mouths and looked humanoid. Their bodies were bulky and their bones
protruded from various points of their bodies. It was sick to look at,
especially their skulls. The bones in their foreheads seem to twist in an
asymmetrical design. I looked on in horror at its black lips and sharpened
teeth. It began to speak.

“I see a creature unable to think for itself, a parasite, a parasite that will
be destroyed by gods.” I listened to his words and assumed that the gods were
the Skrav. The Trepp must all be brought up to hate humans. There was no
way there would be peace between our species. There was no way he was
going to get out of here alive. I shot the Trepp dead. We could have tortured
it. Believe me I wanted to, simply made its life a living hell until it broke and
told us everything. By that point it might not have any useful information left.
Malekai’Ryn, why had we even bothered to get your name? I wonder if he
had expected his gods, the Skrav to storm our ship while he watched, his
hands behind his back patiently waiting for them to save him. “Malekai’Ryn...
may you rest peacefully with your kind. Now you are free.”

Balkava entered the prison chamber. “Did I pass your test?” I asked.
“You didn’t have to kill him Sev, this wasn’t a test. We just wanted you to see
the enemy. Talk to the enemy,” she said. I struggled for a moment. My hand
was shaking as she took the gun away from my side. No, this was war; killing
Malekai’Ryn was just like killing those ticks – it was just like killing the
infected ones on Errikus. No matter what Balkava said this was a test to see if
I could kill the enemy and I passed. Had I not shown enough commitment
already? There would be no mercy. First they put me through hell giving me
a crash course on the Nexus and now this. I wasn't going to fall for their mind
games. I did exactly what they wanted.

The Trepp was beginning to smell. It had only been dead a few minutes
but it was already beginning to decay. “What’s next?” I asked. “Nothing. As
you said, you passed., or rather thought, you passed. You’re a full fledge
member of the Erebus now. Your orders are to spend a few hours in the
nexus every few days. When you are not in the nexus I will train you.
Everything will be ok now,” she said.

“Did Aira have to go through this same thing?” I asked.
“No. The Aelita have their own ways of doing things."
“Will I ever be able to speak to her?” She gave me a hard, long look.

“We only communicate with each other when absolutely necessary. I’m
sorry Sev. You won’t be able to talk to her or anyone onboard the Aelita.”