Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (26 page)

There was no stopping the barrage of antliods. When they saw a
massive hive queen crawl up out of the darkness and towards them Echo
Squad made the only choice they could. Trapping hundreds of lives inside
stasis condemning them to death Echo abandoned the passageway setting
charges and blowing the structures around them.

Talon didn’t want to run with the rest of the group, he was ready
become a ghost. Hera wouldn’t let him.
I watched her grab him and push him out of the way as the force of the
blast sent both to their knees. Her push had saved both of their lives.

A few antliods escaped and quickly began spilling out the corridors of the
Erebus slashing and dismembering crew and soldiers with their teeth, tails,
and claws. Mutilated antliods crawled over the corpses of dead soldiers while
others fired shot after shot swinging blades violently in the air. This was an
open war human>skrav>antliods>nature everything and everyone fighting for
their right to live, for dominance.

“Echo this is Crossbones can you read?”
It was an unfamiliar voice.
“This is Talon of Echo?” Talon said with a question.
“The Red Queen is secure; two minutes until impact,” the voice cut out.
“What does that mean? Two minutes until impact?” Hera asked.
“We’re crashing the ship,” said Talon, “the Skrav and the Aelita are

“What the hell do we do?” Hera said almost crying. Her voice was soft
and her words seemed choked as if they had been spoken by a scared child.
“There is a panic room big enough for several hundred built for the elders,
its close to the core and we have just enough time to make it if we hurry,”
Talon answered already on the move in front of Hera.
None of the other echo members said a word. They knew this would mean
leaving loved ones and family behind. From what I could remember and what
I had been told in the past was that the bunker had been built for the elders
and key personal and not one more person. It was a lifeboat, a last resort. The
Erebus was made of several different layers - each reinforced the other. The
bunker was a place of solitude for the elders buried deep in the core of the
ship but easily accessed through elevators and tunnels. The bunker had
seldom been seen by outside eyes. Balkava had turned it into a sanctuary as
of late, a place that she went alone to meditate. Now more then ever it was
serving its one true purpose - protect a select few so that the human race
could start all over. It would be a new world built on the blood of the old one.
“We can’t leave all these people behind!” cried Hera. Talon was pulling
her with him now; grasping her hand tight. He pulled her up on the picker
with a few others and they began driving through the chaos as the antliods
continued to tear there way through the only world so many of them had ever
known. I could see the look on his face reflected on one of the walls. It looked
like the last several hours had aged him rapidly. The look in his eyes said it
all. He agreed with Hera but there was nothing that could be done. His eyes
were full of sadness and regret.

Before they arrived at the entrance to the bunker a Drok
flew out of the
air and onto the picker. With it’s long two-handed blade cut from the bones of
a hellbeast he decapitated the driver. Word had quickly spread. Everyone had
been listening to Crossbones message through their comms. Everyone knew
the bunker was open and only a few knew the pass codes (Talon and the rest
of Echo being a part of the lucky few). Talon immediately started firing on
the Drok who seemed to stand there and take every shot pointblank in the
chest. He was still screaming when the picker ran into a wall and flipped
over. The Drok was dead, buried beneath the ruins of the wrecked picker.
Talon, Hera and what was left of Echo began to lift themselves up and press
forward as a mob of people began moving towards them. The Erebus had
become anarchy. There was no order anymore just the chaos as humanity sat
on the brink of destruction. None of Echo wanted to fire into the crowd but it
was an oncoming storm. If they didn’t fire they would die, if they did they
would be murderers - no better then the Skrav or antliods. I couldn’t tell who
took the first shot but it was obvious now. Civil war had begun.

Hera was the
first to throw down her rifle and run. Her M7 had been
fitted with a PDA. It was her PDA that began displaying various door codes
that threw the crowd into a frenzy. They swarmed after it thinking it was the
key to safety. Echo Squad only needed one code to open the door and Talon
and several others knew it by heart. Hera had by mistake bought everyone
enough time to slip away.

In the aftermath of what happened Hera and the rest of Echo watched
slipping through the cracks as several civilians fought over the PDA and rifle
gunning one another down again and again in the process. From one hand to
the next it went around each more bloodied then the last. Echo never fired
another shot. The people left behind were tearing themselves apart. A loose
bullet from the ripper teared through Talon’s arm. Hera now held his hand
leading him towards the bunker.

Talon held up his wrist. A ray of light shined out of s small sphere on the
wall and scanned an RFID chip he had implanted. One of the benefits of
having once been protectors of the elders. The codes were accepted and the
door opened. The moment the remaining members of Echo were inside Talon
blasted the door with his rifle. No one else was going to survive. Hera began
hitting him and cursing him. ‘Others could have made it - more people could
have moved inside, ‘ her words fell on deaf ears. They were already inside an
elevator shaft listening to the sound of gears grind as they moved lower and
lower.

Talon was still bleeding when he looked Hera in the eyes, “The Erebus can
still survive the fall, if the ship is able to jump into the immer and back out for
even a fraction of a second while falling through the atmosphere the ship
itself is strong enough to survive the impact of the crash. Being in the bunker
isn’t to protect us from the impact. He was right. The chaos wasn’t about
crashing into the planet. The hull of the Erebus has become too weak so that
once it hits the atmosphere the thin layers of biomass would strip like a snake
shedding its skin. Anyone not deep inside would be burned up by radiation
and the intense pressure change inside the hull.

“I’ll do it then,” Hera said.
“Do what?” asked Talon.
“I know my way to engineering even from here, we can get on a console

and tell the ship to make the jump, even override existing auto-pilot
commands if we have to,” she said.
“Do you even know how this ship works?” said Talon angrily.
“I know it just as well as anyone else,” she said.
Just then Talon shot her in the leg.
She screamed cursing him.
“Just as well as anyone else, including me,” Talon said before looking up
at the other members of Echo who stared in surprise.
“Its a flesh wound but make sure a medic sees her after you are safe inside
the bunker,” Talon said stopping the elevator, “take her to safety,” he ordered.
In almost a whisper I could hear Talon speak, “tell her to find the man she
loves, Sev, tell her this new world needs people like her.”
My vision blurs back and forth between the hellbeast of my own reality
and the past. The next few images look like still photos set before my eyes.
My immune system must be attacking the shard treating it like some kind of
infection or disease. I fall in and out of the blur, in and out of darkness.
I slowly begin to feel like I’m drowning.
Talon is running injured through the Erebus and through several large
rooms I have never seen before. The black and grey walls are lined with
massive tubes and wires run through various parts of the wall and the
ground. Statues of elders stand before him almost like he has walked into
some kind of cathedral wrapped in gothic garb. It is an old church - a meeting
ground for the Order of the Sons of Sol during the days of the Erebus’s
maiden voyage. I have never actually seen the Erebus control room - few
have - there are several located near the core used to send messages to the
ships computer and steer it through space. The control room is also where
engineers can jump us in and out of the immer. Talon was trying to figure out
the right path when an antliod got the jump on him.
“Almost there,” he cries a small map appearing from his wrist PDA right
before his eyes. The antliod pierces his arm tearing at his wound forcing him
to the ground. He stabs it several times in the gut with a small retractable
blade built into his suit and forces it off of him. The weight of the creature
broke several of his ribs. I feel like I can feel all of his pain as if my own ribs
are being torn apart. For all I know the hellbeast is on top of me. I fear the
moment I ‘wake up’ knowing that it could be my last.
I remember seeing the Erebus fall.
I search my own mind trying to figure out what happened whether or not
I had watched it jump in or out of the immer while I was being chased. It
seemed almost funny - imagining that massive ship pulling the same
technique used by Hayden and myself as we crashed on the surface of this
world.
Talon ignores the pain. As do I.
Talon moves to open a round door. Two flat shields move away in a
circular motion. Another antliod attacks him from behind. A pincher tears
through the back of his armor and comes out through the front of his torso.
He stabs the antliod with the same hidden blade he used before killing it. He
removes the pincher. Talon continues to move across through the door into a
large hallway lit by small white and blue lights. His eyes slowly begin to
adjust but everything is still blurring in and out for me.
I wake up and see the hellbeast standing over me.
The vision has one to a stop.
I have no idea if the crew of the Erebus is alive or dead and in a few
moments it won’t matter because I will be nothing more then another
casualty.
The hellbeast’s jaw open wide enough to swallow me whole. The
bottom part of it’s jaw unhinges like a great white shark. All I see are rows of
teeth and blood. It’s skull is so massive I feel like an average human could
stand inside. I can smell its breath - the kills it has small, the smell of Terra
Vesp flesh rotting in the air. Its silhouette blocks out the sun around me and
all I can see is my death. Without hesitation I take the knife I took from the
scourge, the cursed blade and push it up through the devil’s tongue. It wails
itself up in the air letting out a cry that deafens my ears.
Everything goes silent.
Everything but a gunshot that echoes through the white landscape. I
watch a bullet break the bone of the monster’s skull and fall in a straight line
out the other side. Its blood splatters the ground like ink spilling from a pen.
The penetration of the bullet forces the body of the beast to fall over to my
left side only a few feet away from crushing me. There is nothing but silence.
I sit staring up into the sky. I can still see the plum from the Erebus stretch
across the horizon. Did they survive or burn I wondered. Talon was more of a
hero then Devon Cross, Narville, or any of the other historical figures we
grew up glorifying could ever be. I was numb for a few seconds but then the
cold of the snow I sat half buried beneath began to sit in.
How long had I been laying by the hellbeast’s corpse?
I began to sit up. I could see in the distance a woman walking towards me.
She had long black dreadlocked hair that went almost all the way down to
her waist. I could see she was pale. Her skin seemed to blend with the snow
as if she had adapted like a chameleon to blend with the landscape. Her
armor gave her away; black and purple. A modded battle suit parts of it had
been entwined with blades that could extend out over the top of ones hand.
The back of the suit had a pack similar to mine plugged into an M44. She was
human at the very least that meant there were survivors somewhere. Her
hands a dark metal grey. Her hand and a part of her arm was cybernetic, her
fingers seemed pointed like sharp little daggers. The closer she came the more
I could make out. Below her eyes whew as wearing red war paint that
covered small scars and wrinkles in her skin. Beside her walked a yellow
giant. It was an armor I had never seen before round and tall. The yellow
figure held what I could only assume to be something R&D had developed in
secret as a heavy weapons rifle made from rare alien out-tech. It was nearly
six feet long and wired directly into the giants suit. The rifle was black with
the exception of several yellow and white stripes along the barrel. My mind
wandered wondering if the yellow giant was some kind of new auto, cyborg,
or if there was a human inside. It walked with the girl as if it was her
protector. Perhaps she was someone of significant value, someone important
enough to have a bodyguard. The yellow giant must have been the one that
shot the hellbeast - no regular gun could have ripped through its skull like
that. The giant had several spires that stretched out from its face and back
into the air. Its hands looked like they could crush a skull without any real
force. The closer they came the more afraid I became. Perhaps they weren’t
human and they had claimed me as their kill.
“Sev,” the woman’s voice was soft and well pronounced as she spoke my
name. It was feminine and familiar. The moment I locked eyes with her I
knew who had saved my life. I shrieked her name overjoyed with excitement.
I was thrilled. MY LONG LOST FRIEND WHOM I THOUGHT I would
never see again - the other survivor of Errikus, the daughter of an elder and
the young woman I had once called my best friend. AIRA.

“Long time no see,” she said.
“Well with the war and everything,” I said smiling trying to sound like my
childlike self but the words were broken and my voice was cold raspy and
old. She didn’t laugh or even smile back. She kept the same obdurate look on
her face. I wasn’t sure what to think. It had been over ten years since we had
last seen each other.
“I saved your life, but before you thank me or speak to me there is
something you should know,” she paused in a moment of silence that seemed
to last forever, “I’m not her”.