From the Jaws of Death, Part III

This story is a continuation of Bradley Ramsey‘s The Unfathomable Beast of Xanadu IV.

If you’ve already read this story, you can keep reading my version of the events that followed his story. But if you’re unfamiliar with the original tale, you should read it first. After all, his story is good.

Go to » Part I « » Part II «

The shuttle Alacritous finishes docking to the frigate Benevolent with a small THUD. Two members of the security corps and three members of the medical regiment await their Darlucian guests. The airlocks equalize the air pressure with a HISS of rushing air. The thumps and clacks of the locking mechanisms do their thing, and then the airlock opens.

A tall, green, four-armed milvan (as any other milvan) wearing a long, white coat steps in.

“Name’s Elyria,” she says, keeping her facial claws motionless. “Permission to come aboard?”

“You must be the delegation leader.” I offer her a handshake. “Doctor Heart, at your service.”

“Delegation?” Her eyebrow jumps. “Sure, why not. But we don’t have much time for pleasantries.”

She turns around and motions with her clawed hand. A long, metal, coffin-like box floats through the airlock, obeying its mistress.

I frown, looking at it. “Well, that’s one way of preventing the spread.”

Elyria nods. “We have three more. Please work with the others and patch up the sick. Let me tell you, making them lie down in the windowless boxes was a doozy!”

Dr. Heart’s eyes widen. “Work with the rest? And where will you be?”

A small smile curves Elyria’s lips. “I suspect Captain Steeljaw will want to discuss his payment.”

~*~

One of the guards leads me down the corridors towards the bridge. From what I know about the Captain, he could’ve easily invited me straight to his quarters, which would’ve made my job a bit easier. Yet, I can invite him myself.

A quick trip up the elevator shaft, and we’re on the bridge. It’s more than ten meters wide and maybe a few hundred meters long, with a ceiling of at least five meters high. Almost everything is made of dark, a bit shiny steel. The center is a long corridor, leading to the Captain’s chair, and the sides are given over to the techs with their bulky computers, big screens, and (yuck!) ergonomic chairs.

The panoramic screens serving as fake windows are everywhere, including on the ceiling, providing a breathtaking view of the endless expanse of space, on the ugly Darluca space station, and a long queue of space vessels aiming to dock with it. Just what I wanted to see! Soon, the crews and passengers of all these vessels will become meat-suits for my soldiers.

“Doctor Elyria is here, Captain Steeljaw.” The guard reports to the captain’s black swiveling chair. The high backrest obscures the man himself.

“Thank you,” says a mighty, bassy voice. “That will be all.”

The guard salutes and leaves.

The chair swivels.

Shit! I’ll need a new plan!

~*~

Doctor Heart accompanies four metal boxes and three “doctors” to her medical bay. The fact that neither Elyria nor any of her “colleagues” called themselves that didn’t escape her ears. Yet, one doesn’t need to have a degree to be a competent specialist, even though such cases are extremely rare.

Luckily, the medical bay is empty, so she and her colleagues sealed it shut. After brief handshakes and pleasantries, everybody put on breathing helmets and thick gloves and tower above the first box.

“There’s no need to open them one by one,” says an alien called Zyphor, walking to the second sealed box. “I’m sure they’re dying to see light again.”

“Well, I don’t see why not,” I nod, and we all disperse to open all boxes simultaneously.

The polished silver surface hosts a few buttons and a screen that displays a cardiogram and a few more life sign readings. My finger freezes a millimeter above the Open button. Is something off? No, everything seems to be in order. Then what’s this strange feeling?

I stare at the button for a second more, but nothing jumps out at me. There were no mistakes. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

My finger dives down.

Clack!

All goes black. The pain in the head and back… The screams... The pressure on my body… The noises… Something’s crawling all over me. I hyperventilate, trying to move a muscle. My heart is about to jump out of my chest. Through the red veil of pain, I see the clear plastic of the helmet’s visor crack, and the stream of small creatures pour in...

~*~

“Sweet gunpowder!” declares Steeljaw’s resounding voice. His legs are hanging in the air as he sits. “You’re as green as the grass on my porch. I hope this is true only about your skin and not your skills.”

He jumps off the Captain’s chair and approaches me. Clad in black-and-red uniform, shiny boots, and an enormous cap, he is maybe a bit less than a meter-and-a-half in height, with a bony face, straight nose, and no chin at all — there’s no way I can use this petite body as my new meat-suit.

“My name is Elyria.” I give him a bow. “I’m here to negotiate the price on behalf of Mr. Montauk.”

Captain’s booming voice slashes my eardrums. “So, the fat chickenshit was too afraid to show up in person? Figures. But he may have his wish yet. Once my medics declare Darluca free of the plague, I’ll pay him a visit.”

He may be small, but the volume of that voice… Maybe he’s wearing an implant? Or maybe there’s a speaker in his comically huge cap?

I nod. “Mr. Montauk may accept your visit if he has free time. But right now, we need to talk business. If you prefer to avoid the prying ears, we may continue this conversation in your quarters.”

Pfft! He all but spits towards me. “Talk to the Commander!”

With this, he plucks himself back into the Captain’s chair and swivels away from me.

It wasn’t supposed to go this way…

“Ma’am?” A bright voice startles me.

I turn around to behold a tall (for a human), dark-haired, dark-eyed, and dark-skinned officer in an immaculate uniform.

“Commander Vex, at your service. Please come with me.”

What’s now? Capturing the Captain would be very beneficial, so maybe one of my new children is small enough to wear his skin? If not, then the Captain has to die. Cutting off the heads of future resistance is paramount.

Thinking about all of that, I follow Vex past the techs and guards pretending not to stare at me, and step into the elevator.

“Say, Commander Vex.” I eye her as we descend. “I’ve heard the Captain never missed an opportunity to solve matters in his quarters. Did he change his ways?”

A headshake is Commander’s first answer, and then comes, “He doesn’t ‘do green.’ It won’t matter to him how many appendages you have, if you’re covered in fur and scales, or have eleven eyes, but he doesn’t do green.”

Hm… Well, any person has their preferences…

“Do you do green, Commander?”

I watch as she almost swivels her head towards me, but decides not to. Her body tenses for a blink of an eye, and then relaxes. There are no words.

The elevator pooms.

“This way.”

I follow her down the labyrinth of corridors full of equipment, weapon racks, and entrances to different rooms. One of them has “Commander Vex” written on it in golden letters, and we walk right past it.

I grin a tiny bit. Looks like the Commander does do green after all, and her quarters are ill-suited for such activities…

~*~

All lights die at once.

I hit my head on something, then bump into someone.

“Who—, wha—”

“Where are the emergency lights?”

“Sergeant, you there?

The confusion persists for a few more seconds before everyone gets their bearings. A thin beam of white light cuts the velvet darkness, and then another one.

It can’t be a coincidence that both main and backup power are down at the same time. Sabotage, yes, but by whom? When?

“Okay, everybody, the mess hall is the closest congregation area, let’s—”

“Aaaaaghhhh!” A deathly scream from someone’s radio pierces my eardrums. “No, no, someone, plea—”

It ends as abruptly as it began. My heart already races, despite my efforts to calm it down.

“It didn’t sound like a fire or some accident.” Somebody says. A click of a gun slide says the rest. We all get our handguns ready.

“Weapon lockers often have attachable torches. Let’s get them.”

Somebody contacts the officers, who agree with our plan to meet at the mess hall after securing more flashlights.

We slowly move, as two beams of light show us the way, yanking one surface after the other from the cold darkness, only to leave them alone a second later. The footsteps and the crackling of the cooling pipes are all I can hear. The air becomes heavy. With no power, the ventilation system can only function in passive mode, which works a lot worse. And there’s no way to contact anyone even a kilometer away from the frigate, so even Darcula has no idea we have a situation. Fuck, and I’m only two weeks from my retirement…

Blam!

I whirl, heart racing, aiming at blackness. The light beam finds an empty bucket. It shouldn’t be there…

Bdum!

I whirl again, yelling, “Show yourselves!”

Silence. Only the boots are scraping against the floor. Only the uniforms are rustling as my comrades try to find their targets. Only some insects run across the floor—

Aaaagh!

Someone hits me, and I meet the floor. Deaf by the gunshots and blinded by muzzle flashes, I get up, only to be pushed again.

“There! There!”

I shoot almost blindly, and the gun nearly flies out of my shaking hands. Somebody is getting eaten: their bones crunch, the splatters of hot blood hit my face, and their agony is already over.

“There!”

With a racing heart, I shoot again, trembling, taking a few steps back, racing away from—

“Eat that, you motherfuckers!”

The familiar booming voice slashed my eardrums. A wide, blood-red beam lights the corridor. Captain Steeljaw is wearing his exoskeleton with a big, red projector light bolted to it above his head. Yellow laser beams shoot from two huge rifles he’s holding, hitting the floor, the ceiling, and showering everything with hot sparks. I lay on the floor, so the laser beams fly above me. The screams of people get replaced with monstrous shrieks, and the horror in me gets replaced with hope.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the Captain yells. “No monster leaves my vessel alive!”

His metal legs propel him forward faster than most aliens can run. His rifles keep spewing scorching death, and I’m rising up to join the—

BAM!!!

Something dark, huge, and amorphous smashes into him and sends him flying.

My hands grab my pistol and start shooting. The bullets hit the target. The monster screeches and wails, but doesn’t stop. The Captain raises his rifle, but the amorphous monster engulfs it. The Captain pulls the trigger. The laser bolt erupts from the creature’s shimmering, ever-breathing body, but doesn’t kill it.

Crrack!

The first rifle is no longer bolted to the exoskeleton.

Plam!

The second rifle hits the ground, and the Captain launches himself away, running out of sight in the blink of an eye. The monster launches after him. I get to my feet to follow—

Something pins me to the ground, envelops me with impossible strength, and then they pour into my mouth…

~*~

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!” Commander Vex’s hands hit the door of the escape pod chamber. The square glass in the middle of it shows Steeljaw’s escape pod zooming away into the endless expanse of space.

I turn to my children and brethren, “Contact Darluca! Destroy that pod!”

They only shake their heads.

“We’ll start working on restoring power as soon as we secure the frigate.” Zorblathoriumphobos approaches and puts his hand on my shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do right now, Mother.”

“Shit!” I hit the door again, staring at the space. The escape pod is no longer visible. Even if they manage to launch a pursuit, how will they find the target?

“Any ideas? Anything?” I look at my people, who silently contemplate the situation. Most are wearing meat-suits, while some do not; yet, all are looking down at the floor.

When the Captain reaches the Admiralty—yes, he probably flies directly there—the fight will become so much more difficult. It’ll take them some time to figure out how we disguise ourselves, and even when they do, there won’t be too many good options for finding our agents. So, what, do we need to breed as much as we can and spread all across the galaxy, so we could start conquering it on every front at once? So many lives will be lost…

Is there another option? What are the variables? What exactly happened, event after event? What exactly is happening right now? What can I do, action after action?

I stare into the space in silence. Space. Silence.

“Can he contact anyone while FTL-flying in that little thing?” I ask.

Someone relays my question to the techs using a trophy radio.

“No, he can only do that while flying at normal speeds.”

“And his FTL drive is probably too small to really send him going?” I ask again.

“Yes, escape pods are pretty slow.”

The reflection of my new face in the window smiles at me.

I turn around to face my children. “Get the fastest vessel that’s either docked to Darluca or that’s hanging out close to the station. Get it quietly. We will consume the Admiralty and greet the dear Captain as he finally reaches it. Once we’re all wearing the admiral epaulets, nothing will even stand in our way.”

End of Part III

Anton Anderson, 2025

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