The following is the first in a series of what I hope becomes a full length story. Enjoy it if possible.
Bullard knew that the ship was lost; they had overwhelmed his pathetically small security team before most of them knew what had hit them. The lucky ones never saw what killed them, the ones who saw... Well that didn't bear thinking on. The human mind can only take so much horror. The crew had abandoned ship over 12 hours ago, leaving only the scientists who - foolishly or bravely, take your pick - had refused to leave, and Bullard's thirty-six man security team. And them.
The ship's power distribution network was failing, causing the already dim emergency lights to flicker and the artificial gravity to surge with each new short-out in the system. Sooner or later the entire power grid would fail and then the lights, gravity, and life support would go with it. The flickering lights lent a macabre carnival air to the long walk down the upper maintenance tube, causing enough stress that his bio-monitor cuff began to chirp anxiously. Bullard did his best to throttle back the anxiety he felt, to little effect. His team, while not perhaps much better than the average pack of rent-a-mercs that they were, had done better than he'd thought they would, but it hadn't been enough - not even close. Bullard was a graduate of one of the hardest schools of warfare, he had learned his trade with the Alliance Marine Corps at Scatha on Sigma-Draconis, but Czakó had impressed him more than he would have thought any Terran merc could; she had wanted to emigrate to the Hungarian settlement of Új-Hazájában on the world of Nestor Ráj, and she was willing to put her ass on the line for the money to get there. Dorina Czakó had been the last one to go, and she'd gone down fighting, buying time for him to get the crew and most of the scientists and lab personnel off of the ship. At the end she'd held them back with just her pistol. At least they hadn't taken her alive; she always saved one bullet just to be sure.
'Broadway' was the nickname on most ships for the spinal maintenance and transfer tube. At approximately 600 metres in length, Broadway gave access to all of the major sections of the ship; the problem Bullard was facing was how to get through each of the sixteen bulkhead doors before someone - or something - decided to come and check Broadway out. Not for the first time he bemoaned the fact that he had been cut off from both the shuttle bay - and the armory - when everything on this Saints-forsaken ship had gone to Hell. The armory at least would have given him access to his personal military-grade vacsuit, and SmartLinked heavy weapons, then from there it was a short jog to the shuttle bay where at least one emergency evacuation vehicle was left in addition to the small pinnace. All of which was as inaccessible as if it was back on Minotaur. He considered himself quite fortunate to have the weapons he did, their weight was reassuringly familiar; and the habits of years, surviving in some of the Alliance's most brutal war zones, came back to him without effort.
He swept his shouldered rifle across his field of view as he headed forward, instantly at the ready should anything come his way. So far, nothing had, but he didn't expect that to last much longer. If they got to the bridge of the ship before him, he might as well eat a bullet himself; because they would be truly free, and Bullard knew that would be worse than a disaster.
Bullard couldn't have said in that moment how he knew, but he became clearly and acutely aware that he was not alone on Broadway. His Colt-Armacon M-125A1 was tucked in close, finger resting lightly on the trigger, as he spun around like a striking snake and saw two shadowy figures less than fifteen meters away. He settled the aiming reticle of his rifle's smartscope on the larger of the two shapes, and subconsciously activated the recording function setting it to download into his own cranial link's on-board memory. Pulling the trigger sent a stream of over a dozen hypervelocity flechettes at his first target, each travelling just over 1490 metres per second, and their effect was gruesome; while each individual flechette was not extremely dangerous, a dozen hitting within a few centimetres of each other certainly was, and the first target jerked a little death dance before dropping to the deck. In a vacuum the rifle's shots would have been silenced by the lack of any conductive medium, but the deafening blast of noise would be as good as a personal invitation to his pursuers to come and butcher him like the rest of the personnel who had foolishly remained on board. He swung his weapon to bear on the second figure coming at him with the smooth precise control of someone whose considerable skills were backed by the best reflexes that modern cybernetics could provide and that money could buy, and it was very nearly not enough. The second attacker got to within less than two metres of him when the first round hit its mark and he simply held the trigger down. He reflexively checked the rifle's ammunition level through the smart scope before checking the bodies, deciding he should get a better look at what he was facing.
'Broadway' was the nickname on most ships for the spinal maintenance and transfer tube. At approximately 600 metres in length, Broadway gave access to all of the major sections of the ship; the problem Bullard was facing was how to get through each of the sixteen bulkhead doors before someone - or something - decided to come and check Broadway out. Not for the first time he bemoaned the fact that he had been cut off from both the shuttle bay - and the armory - when everything on this Saints-forsaken ship had gone to Hell. The armory at least would have given him access to his personal military-grade vacsuit, and SmartLinked heavy weapons, then from there it was a short jog to the shuttle bay where at least one emergency evacuation vehicle was left in addition to the small pinnace. All of which was as inaccessible as if it was back on Minotaur. He considered himself quite fortunate to have the weapons he did, their weight was reassuringly familiar; and the habits of years, surviving in some of the Alliance's most brutal war zones, came back to him without effort.
He swept his shouldered rifle across his field of view as he headed forward, instantly at the ready should anything come his way. So far, nothing had, but he didn't expect that to last much longer. If they got to the bridge of the ship before him, he might as well eat a bullet himself; because they would be truly free, and Bullard knew that would be worse than a disaster.
Bullard couldn't have said in that moment how he knew, but he became clearly and acutely aware that he was not alone on Broadway. His Colt-Armacon M-125A1 was tucked in close, finger resting lightly on the trigger, as he spun around like a striking snake and saw two shadowy figures less than fifteen meters away. He settled the aiming reticle of his rifle's smartscope on the larger of the two shapes, and subconsciously activated the recording function setting it to download into his own cranial link's on-board memory. Pulling the trigger sent a stream of over a dozen hypervelocity flechettes at his first target, each travelling just over 1490 metres per second, and their effect was gruesome; while each individual flechette was not extremely dangerous, a dozen hitting within a few centimetres of each other certainly was, and the first target jerked a little death dance before dropping to the deck. In a vacuum the rifle's shots would have been silenced by the lack of any conductive medium, but the deafening blast of noise would be as good as a personal invitation to his pursuers to come and butcher him like the rest of the personnel who had foolishly remained on board. He swung his weapon to bear on the second figure coming at him with the smooth precise control of someone whose considerable skills were backed by the best reflexes that modern cybernetics could provide and that money could buy, and it was very nearly not enough. The second attacker got to within less than two metres of him when the first round hit its mark and he simply held the trigger down. He reflexively checked the rifle's ammunition level through the smart scope before checking the bodies, deciding he should get a better look at what he was facing.
He rather wished he hadn't.
The thing lying on the deck was a kaleidoscopic patchwork of tissue grafts and physical enhancements, each more horrifying than the last. Bullard had never heard of Mary Shelley or read her centuries-old tale, but the old soldier recognized the work of a Dr. Frankenstein in this creature none the less. He realized his weapon's innate armor piercing abilities had been the only thing to save him from certain death; the thing had dermally implanted impact armor covering the more vulnerable areas of the torso and head. Most of the face had been surgically excised to make room for considerable cybernetic enhancement which appeared to have been grafted directly to the skull, leaving only the lower mandible intact, but with bulges that hinted at subdermal armor and muscular enhancement. He was just starting to think of how terminally insane a person would have to be to subject themselves to the kinds of suffering involved in what had been done here, when he turned the body enough for the head to roll away from him. It could be said that it was a testament to his humanity that he nearly vomited in disgust at the sight of the double-helix-and-barcode that had been laser branded on the back of the neck, denoting that this had once been a vat-grown GMH. Anger and shock drove him to his feet and set them running now that he understood what he was facing; Genetically Modified Humanoids, enhanced with high end cybernetics and bioware. He was certain he had no time left to get off the ship, but he might be able to get to the bridge and put a message on one of the ship's emergency beacons, in the hope that anyone coming to the rescue would be able to bring some justice to the ship's crew; who had died for the sake of some mad scientists' pet bioweapons experiment, now gone horribly wrong.
He realised that there was only one more bulkhead to clear before he made to the bridge A flash of motion caught out of the corner of his left eye caused him to spin around, reflexively bringing his weapon to bear on the source of movement. The shock of impact was severe enough that he nearly bit through his tongue when the GMH sprang at him delivering a perfectly timed strike, throwing his aim wide to the right and high. He could see that the blow had also broken his left forearm in two places. Turning back to where his opponent was coming for him again he decided to get in close, but realised with a mounting panic that he couldn't breathe. Looking down told him why: The long bladed combat knife had perforated his right rib cage, transecting his lung from right to left.
The thing squatted there looking at him with its head cocked to one side like a dog who has just been shown a magic trick making a cooing sound like a dove.
It knew. He was finished.
That he had failed was the last thought Bullard had before the black took him down into eternity.
