At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (35 page)

Eventually we all found our way down,
huddling together in the confined space, elbows bumping
occasionally. The stale air was tainted with rot, but holding the
guns, there was nothing any of us could do about the horrible
reek.

Burnhammer crept forward down the narrow
corridor. “Radio command and ask for instructions.”

Maggy nodded. “Private Albores, this is
Maggy Li, one of the civilians with Corporal Burnhammer. She is
preoccupied leading us and requests that you communicate
instructions to me.”

“Copy that, Ms. Li. Are you secured to the
ISS?”

“We are secured and have boarded. Now we
need to know where to go.”

“I’m being told you need to take the first
left, following a skinny red pipe, taking the next right. You’ll
come to a door.”

The radio was loud enough that we all could
hear, and Burnhammer began tiptoeing down the corridor, turning
left, then right.

We stopped at a door with foreign words
displayed across a high-tech screen.

“Language set to English,” Burnhammer said.
Instantly the words translated into English, reading: Welcome.
Laboratory 1 ahead.

“Albores, we’re at the door. It says
Laboratory 1 ahead.”

“All right, I’m transmitting the code to
open it.”

The PocketPad lit up, flashing: Download
Complete. I lined up the device with the scanner next to the door
and transmitted the code. The door slid open. A room filled with
dead consoles greeted us. “Okay, where to now?”

“Go through the laboratory, continuing
straight for the next three doors, I’ll give you the codes for
each.”

We continued on. With every advancing step,
my nerves grew more frightened, and my entire body tensed. I could
feel knots of dread building up in my shoulders. I scanned behind
me every other second, sweating.

The third door was marked: Control Room.
Maggy lifted the PocketPad to the scanner and the door slid up,
just like all the rest, but the room on the other side was larger
and much darker than the previous ones. A fetid odor accompanied
the black; the smell was so bad my stomach threatened to climb up
my throat.

I spooked myself gazing into the shadows of
the room. My throat closed. I tried to relax, breathing slowly.

Penelope wandered into the darkness. “The
smell gets worse over here,” she said. A heartbeat later, the sound
of bones snapping echoed in the compartment. “It’s a human!” She
sprinted back into the light of the walkway that connected the
rooms.

“In military gear?” Burnhammer asked.

Penelope nodded, bending over and resting
her hands on her knees, ready to puke.

“I wonder where the rest are—” Burnhammer
started.

“Did you hear that?” Félix shrieked.

“Yes,” I replied. “I think it came from over
there.” I pointed to my left, behind several consoles engulfed in
darkness.

Burnhammer shifted in the direction of the
consoles. “Down,” she yelled.

I ducked.

Using a small assault rifle, she fired one
bullet. One bullet was all it took. “Target eliminated.” She crept
forward towards a furry body and kicked. “Yeah, it’s dead.”
Earlier, she had advised not to shoot unless we had a clear shot,
since a bullet could damage vital equipment, or possibly even
pierce through the hull, venting our oxygen and exposing us to the
deadly vacuum that surrounded the station.

Burnhammer inspected the room, while Maggy
asked for further instructions.

“Okay, here you’ll need to power up the
solar panels,” Albores said. “Go to the console labeled 4.”

We fanned out in search of the console.

“Here,” Penelope shouted. She stood to the
right of the door, next to a lifeless control panel. On a shelf
beside the panel, a vibrant-colored display propped against the
wall, resembling a tablet computer except inexplicably more
sophisticated. Images rapidly flashed on its screen. “Those are
pictures of humans.”

“They’re studying us,” Burnhammer
speculated.

“Looks like it,” Maggy supported the
notion.

Penelope gasped. “That’s probably why they
didn’t destroy the ISS. They’re researching us using the world
archives, the one place where information from across the globe is
continuously backed up.”

“But why study us?” I asked. “They took what
they wanted.”

“To better learn how to hunt us down in
their training,” Burnhammer guessed. “But who knows? We don’t, and
we sure as hell don’t have time to find out. Get on that
radio.”

Maggy nodded. “Found it,” she informed
Albores.

“Good. Under the console there is a group of
wires,” he explained. He detailed what to do, and Maggy followed
his directions, as we stood guard.

After several failed attempts to power up
the station, she finally got it right. A moment of excitement
washed over all of us, especially Maggy. The lights flickered on.
Consoles lit up with colorful buttons. Machines started beeping and
thrumming with life. I hadn’t even noticed how silent the halls of
the ISS had been until irritating noises attacked my ears from all
directions.

The ISS demanded an experienced crew to
silence the equipment. Sadly, it wasn’t us, and the sounds drowned
out our communications. Until one by one, most of the noises quit,
falling into a standby status.

By the time the racket from the machinery
died down, another note took its place, one that rattled my chest.
I had heard the sound all too often.

A roar resonated through the halls.

My heart shifted into overdrive.

“Which way are they coming from?” Félix
asked.

“Cover both entrances,” Burnhammer
ordered.

“Maggy, are you there?” Albores’s voice came
over the radio.

“Hold on!” Maggy replied. She lifted her gun
and aimed at the door we had entered from, the same one I pointed
my weapon at.

Burnhammer altered between doors, glancing
back and forth, checking to make sure nothing invisible snuck up on
us.

Suddenly a giant mass filled the hallway in
front of me. “This door!” I screamed. I fired the alion gun,
spitting black rounds at the beasts.

“This door!” Félix shouted, shooting at the
opposite door.

As soon as the skirmish had started, it had
ended, with two dead alions by each door. The canisters of my alion
gun still spun around, my fingers clenching down the triggers, but
they fired nothing.

“It’s okay, Jelly.” Maggy patted my
shoulder. “They’re dead, bromigo.”

I gaped at the alions. “Right,” I said,
releasing the triggers.

Penelope bent down and tossed me a new alion
gun to replace the empty one I held.

“Thanks,” I told her, shooting her a
smile.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “We’re
gonna get through this.”

“Get Albores on the radio!” Burnhammer
commanded.

Maggy knelt, resting her gun on the floor
and snatching up the radio. “Albores, come in. We need to know what
to do now.”

“From the control room, take the next two
rights. That should be the Planetary Defense room.”

“You heard the woman, move!” Burnhammer
yelled.

Two rights later we entered a skinnier room
filled with consoles. Buttons blinked all around. It didn’t look
like anything special, but apparently most of the world’s defense
network was run from these few essential consoles.

“Here,” Maggy said. “Now what?”

“Hold on,” Albores replied. After a long
pause, she came back on the radio. “Go to a console labeled 2.”

“Found it,” Maggy informed her.

“There should be a green—”

Albores’s words were lost in a powerful roar
that quaked the room. Terror ran throughout my body. Again there
were two doors to defend.

“Maggy, keep going,” Burnhammer ordered.
“Darrel and Penelope, watch that door.” She pointed behind us.
“Félix get that door. I’ll make sure nothing invisible gets the
upper hand.”

I positioned myself off to the side of the
door, so that the alions would have to turn before they attacked,
instead of head-on, where I had mistakenly placed myself the
previous time.

Penelope knelt on the opposite side of me,
alion gun targeted in the middle of the entrance for prime
destruction.

Insanity struck a second later. Roars
threatened my grip on the weapon, as the awkward hold loosened in
sweat, my nerves shaking nearly out of control. I held down the
triggers. Blood splashed my eye.

Alion claws reached out for my face, lashing
and swiping in fury. The beasts were just too quick. The second one
that entered slapped the gun from my clutch, sending it to the
wall. I dove to the side.

Penelope launched a stream at the alion’s
back.

I rolled over before the alion crashed on
top of me. Its body fell, smashing into a console.

“Help! Help!” I heard Félix cry out. Then I
heard a soaring scream.

I spotted my gun and rushed to pick it up.
Gun in hand, I shifted back to the door, blasting teeth out of a
furry head.

“I got it! I got it!” Maggy’s voice rang in
my ears. “What next?”

A gut-wrenching roar deadened any reply from
Albores. I clenched the trigger until nothing fired. “Out of
bullets,” I yelped. I could see the instruments that would carry
out my death sentence: five scything claws so long and sharp they
put my mom’s cutlery to shame. The paw darted for my chest, aimed
at my wildly pumping heart, less than a meter away. A strong arm
controlled it, corded muscles flexing, throwing enough force my way
to knock me back ten meters.

I couldn’t breathe.

Suddenly blood showered me once more. Before
I could close my eyes, I saw the paw explode, as several bullets
tore it to pieces. A bullet penetrated the alion’s head, and its
body wrenched to the side before its bulk collided into me.

Penelope stared at me. The cylinders of her
gun rotating endlessly but ejecting nothing.

I heard Maggy yelling, “Online! The network
is online!”

The deafening noises of the alions ceased.
No more advanced, and I hoped it was because they were all
dead.

We all turned to Maggy. “It’s done?”
Burnhammer asked, covered in blood.

“Albores said ground control will take
over,” Maggy reported. “They have control of the system now.”

“We can go home?” Penelope asked.

“Maggy, help Félix.” Burnhammer pointed to
Félix, who was lying on the floor with a gash down his shin,
bleeding. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Maggy eyed Félix with horror. “Are you okay?
I didn’t know . . . I should have . . .”

“You did what needed to be done,” Félix
responded, coughing.

Maggy took off her vest and ripped her
sleeve from the shirt she wore. She wrapped Félix’s leg. Helping
him to his feet, she carried most of his weight.

He screamed in agony when they took a
step.

I rushed over to his other side, positioning
my body so that he didn’t put pressure on his leg at all. “You’re
gonna be all right, dude.”

He nodded at me, blood smeared across his
face.

Burnhammer grabbed the PocketPad off the
floor and handed it to Penelope. “Get us back.”

Penelope nodded. She navigated the route
back to the docking pad.

A skinny tunnel never looked appealing to
me, but all I wanted to do was climb through this one. I saw safety
on the other side. I ascended the ladder faster than I had ever
moved in my life.

With everyone aboard, I closed the hatch,
and Burnhammer was running for the flight deck. Quickly, Penelope
and I tailed her.

A scream echoed throughout the ship as an
invisible claw sliced at Burnhammer’s elbow. With her short assault
rifle, she shot the air, until a body bumped me, sending me to the
ground.

I groaned under the weight.

Burnhammer howled, blood pouring out her
severed limb.

Penelope glanced between us and decided to
help me first. She took up Burnhammer’s fallen helmet and found the
alion corpse that was crushing me. She kicked the body off me as I
pushed.

Freed, I turned to Burnhammer, who had
blacked out. Her detached forearm and hand rested nearby. “We have
to stop the bleeding,” I yelled.

“There are rags in the same cubby as the
spacesuit,” Penelope said, running off. She returned, jumping down
to her knees and blocking the bleeding stump.

I squeezed around the end, attempting to
stop the outpour, but it was little use. Blood soaked through all
the rags. “What do we do?” I asked.

Maggy entered the cockpit. Her eyes grew at
the messy scene. “What the hell—”

“An alion hid up here, invisible,” Penelope
replied. “We have to get her to a hospital . . . to the facility
you came from.” She directed her speech at Maggy.

“To Mount Baldy?” Maggy shook her head. “I
have no idea where it is.”

“Well someone has to fly us there,” she
replied. “Darrel, you could do it while I keep the pressure around
her wound.”

I stared at her. “Maggy would—”

“Maggy has to take care of Félix. You have
to fly us there. Use the radio to ask for coordinates to the base.
Hurry!”

I leapt up. “Okay.” The controls on the
console confused me at first, until I read the labels on each
button. A couple detached the ship from the ISS and we floated
away. I was searching for the engine start up when I noticed
movement out the window. Satellites around earth started to
reposition themselves towards the mother ship.

Nothing visible shot out of the satellites,
but a second later, sections of the mother ship exploded. Fires
blew out into space, lasting a mere second before evaporating.
Missiles launched from other satellites, zipping through the black,
detonating upon impact. Giant chunks of the ship broke off. More
missiles rocketed towards the disconnected pieces.

It was the best firework show that anyone
could ever watch.