The Agathon: Book One (30 page)

“Are you armed?” she asked.

“I am,” he replied. A moment passed with the sound of occasional static on the comms.

“Chavel is on his way. Don’t do anything rash,” she said.

“Got it, Charly,” he said.

Engine Room

17:55 Martian Standard

Amanda Llewellyn entered the engine room and walked quietly over to one of the diagnostic consoles. She stood calmly with her hands neatly placed behind her back and began gazing at the readouts. Emerson’s eyes didn’t flinch from her. Still confused by what Boyett’s odd communication was all about, he struggled for a moment to figure out what to do next. Subterfuge was not his strong point, but he trusted Boyett implicitly. He looked around and saw Tosh floating in his chair next to The Betty. He thought for a moment and walked over to him, while keeping one eye locked on Llewellyn.

“Daniel, drain the coolant tanks,” said Emerson, kneeling beside Tosh’s chair. Tosh was deep into studying schematic readouts of the wall linings of The Betty FTL.

“Hmm?” he said, not paying much attention to Emerson.

“Drain the coolant tanks... now,” said Emerson. Tosh raised his eyes and met his, clearly frustrated at being interrupted and asked to do such a menial task.

“We just finished filling the damn things, Landon, what are you on about?” he said, placing the pad on his lap. Emerson didn’t answer. He pulled rank by showing Tosh how serious he was by his expression. He flicked his eyes over to Llewellyn. Tosh followed his gaze over to the young crewman, who was studying readouts on the diagnostic console. Her unusually rigid posture and smooth head movements began to unnerve Emerson. He looked back at Tosh, who got the message and moved his chair towards the coolant tanks of The Betty.

“Quietly,” said Emerson. Tosh nodded and began the procedure, drawing confused glances from the technicians working on the engine who then in turn turned to Emerson who was still looking oddly at Llewellyn. She turned her head suddenly and looked at him straight in the eyes. The look made Emerson’s heart jump in his chest. Not knowing what to do, he smiled at her.

“Hi, Amanda,” he said, waving. He surrendered to social norms and began to walk over to her. He thought it was to make her comfortable, but something in him needed to know what was going on. Quickly.

“How are you feeling?” he said, as he got within a few feet.

“I am fine,” she replied and turned her head back to the console. Emerson frowned.

“Heard you had some crazy shit happen out there?” he said. She didn’t answer.

“What are you looking at? Anything I can help you with?” he asked.

“I am fine,” she said. Emerson decided that enough was enough. If there was something wrong with Llewellyn, he needed to know it now.

“Amanda, I need to know what you’re doing. If you won’t tell me I’m going to
restrict
—” His sentence was cut off, not because he was interrupted but because the air to his lungs had been cut off. Llewellyn’s hand was gripped firmly around his throat and he suddenly found himself being lifted several feet off the ground. He grabbed her wrists but the sheer strength of the young woman’s grasp was impossible to fight against. Llewellyn’s eyes remained perfectly calm as she held him firmly off the ground.

An eternity passed as Emerson flailed his legs to try and break free. He thought he heard screaming but couldn’t be sure. The force of the grasp changed as he felt himself being moved from side to side. The oxygen to his brain began to dwindle, as the choking reflexes rippled throughout his body. There was a huge pull of force from his attacker and he felt a slicing pain in his abdomen. The walls, consoles and faces of the engine room personnel sailed by Emerson’s field of vision as his airborne body was flung across empty space.

As the world around him darkened and faded away, he thought he heard someone’s voice shout, “Get down!”

25

T
he Forest

19:02 Martian Standard

“T
here,” said Tyrell, pointing to the centre of the lake. Carrie looked out onto the surface of the lake. They hadn’t spoken until now. She had asked him several questions about the nature of the forest and of the creatures that kept attacking, but he had remained silent.

“What am I looking at?” she asked. Tyrell turned to her.

“There is where we must go,” he said. Carrie looked out at the calm surface of the dark lake.

“You want me to swim out into the middle of a lake?” she said.

“We must go under it,” Tyrell replied. A small ripple formed at the far end of the water and something emerged from it. They both watched as the long snaking figure slid smoothly out of the water and into the trees.

“We must go now!” Tyrell said. “Follow me,” he said. He activated a breather unit, which they had both taken from the ship when they had left. It covered his face in a clear sheath as he began to walk quickly and confidently into the water. Carrie thought about running for a moment, but didn’t think she would get that far. She activated her breather and followed Tyrell into the water. The clear faceplate cocooned her head and she began to hear the slow and steady flow of oxygen surrounding her face. The water felt cold. Tyrell was already submerged and the wake from his movements was beginning to dissipate. She gave one final thought to turning back, but a rustle in the trees behind her pushed her on. She raised both arms and dived straight into the dark water. She pulled at the water as she tried to take herself deeper into the darkness.

“Activate your grid, Carrie,” came Tyrell’s voice inside her mask. She had forgotten about that function of her breather. Tapping the side of the faceplate activated the rudimentary grid of what lay ahead, up to about
twenty
-five meters. The effects coated anything solid with a green
laser
-like outline. Up ahead she saw the moving outlines of Tyrell swimming strongly. Going deeper. She followed his lead. Something long and smooth momentarily entered the scanning rage of the laser grid and then disappeared.

“Tyrell, we have company,” she said.

“I know. We are almost there. You may need to neutralise if they attack,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she said, looking around in the darkness.

“You know,” he said, holding his swimming rhythm and moving forward. Carrie could hear what sounded like clicks off in the distance. They were irregular but constant. Like the sounds of dolphins that she had studied but never actually seen.

“Up ahead,” said Tyrell. At first Carrie didn’t see anything. The laser grid remained clear, apart from Tyrell swimming. Small flickers of light caught her eyes just below Tyrell’s body. Long angular formations began to appear in the grid of her faceplate. Solid right angles formed along smooth, softer walled surfaces. Like a sketch forming from light, the structure beneath them began to take shape. It looked like a cube. She turned her head at the sound of soft clicking, off somewhere in the darkness to her right.

“Down,” said Tyrell, as he changed his angle and headed straight down, perpendicular to the top of the structure. Carrie began to follow when a loud click startled her from the rear. She turned and was suddenly faced with a large orifice attached to a huge,
worm
-like creature staring straight at her. It zipped forward and wrapped its
jaw
-like opening around her foot. She didn’t feel any teeth on the creature. It felt like a soft gum, firmly wrapped around her ankle. It manoeuvred itself around her and made for the darkness.

“Disable it,” said Tyrell’s voice in her ears. The shock of how fast the creature had encroached on her position began to wear off and a genuine fear of being eaten began to take hold. She felt the tingle in her spine and let the energy release through her body towards her hands.

She opened her palms, spread her fingers and focused on the
worm
-like creature. A bolt of blue light erupted from her hands, hitting the worm dead centre. It released her immediately and sank. As it fell out of range of the sensor grid, its green outline disappeared into the depths. The water around Carrie felt warm. Small bubbles hugged her suit as she turned and looked upwards to try and find her bearings.

“Carrie?” came Tyrell’s voice from the dark.

“Yes, Doctor,” she replied. She suddenly began to notice a change in her voice. A subtle confidence was emerging. She felt powerful. The green outline of Tyrell’s body appeared from above as he came into range. The distant sound of underwater clicks was heard all around them. Tyrell descended and swam up next to her. He came up so close to her that she was seeing a perfect
three
-dimensional rendering of his face coating in green. He floated next to her. For a moment she thought she saw a sinister upturned smile.

“How did you know I could do that?” she asked.

“No time,” he replied, moving his hands swiftly through the water, repositioning his body to face the cube. He pointed to the base of it, as Carrie stared at the wall in front of her. There was a
tube
-like opening where Tyrell was pointing.

“Follow me,” he said.

“What about those things?” Carrie said, turning her head towards the clicking noises in the dark.

“They won’t attack again,” he said. “Not yet anyway.” He pulled his hands steadily through the water and started his descent towards the opening of the construction. Carrie followed suit. A low light illuminated the circular orifice of the hole in the side of the cube. Tyrell’s hand grabbed a metal rod that surrounded the hole, as he stabilised himself and let his legs float down to a protruding ledge. He turned to face Carrie, stretching a hand out to help her find her footing. His grasp was firm as she entered the
water
-filled tube.

“Stay against the walls. We may have company,” he said. Carrie heeded his advice and slide her hands against the curved inner wall, moving sideways though the tunnel. They walked slowly against the pressure of the water, down the tube which seemed to be dimly lit from a light source up ahead. A loud click reverberated suddenly through Carrie’s faceplate.

“Stand back,” said Tyrell. The light source up ahead was suddenly blacked out and the water pressure began to increase. Something was coming their way. Carrie hugged the wall, arching her back. A few seconds later one of the large black mechanical worm creatures flew past them both and out into the darkness.

“It ignored us,” Carrie said, looking at Tyrell.

“Yes it did,” he replied. “Move on,” he said. She took one last look at the entrance to make sure it hadn’t changed its mind, and followed Tyrell’s lead.

After several minutes they reached the source of the light. A strip of tubing illuminated what looked like an empty room behind a transparent wall.

“Airlock?” said Carrie. Tyrell nodded, his face now visible as the light reflected off it. He reached to the side of the wall and touched something. It began to ripple.

“Go,” he said to Carrie, motioning her inside. She took a step and walked into the room. Tyrell followed. The transparent wall hardened and became solid again.

“You can remove your breather,” he said. Carrie followed Tyrell as he deactivated his breather. She pulled her wet hair behind her ear. She watched Tyrell as he regarded the passageway ahead of them.

“Okay, are you going to tell me what this is all about? How the hell do you know about this place?” she said, wiping her face.

“We know,” he replied looking blankly at her. “The Targlagdu is already aware of our presence, we must move quickly,” he said, walking through an angular archway. Carrie followed cautiously behind him. She opened her mind to try and find her father. Instead she felt nothing. Something was blocking her. Something very powerful.

E
ngine Room

19:04 Martian Standard

Chavel had stopped by the weapons locker on the way to the engine room to pick up a shock grenade. It had only delayed him by five minutes, but it may have well been a month. By the time the doors to the engine room opened all hell had broken loose. It took him several seconds to get a handle on the scene before he had to take cover himself behind a bulkhead.

A large chunk of panelling careered past his head, narrowly missing his right ear before lodging itself in the wall behind him. Weapons fired and screaming filled the air. He unhooked his pulse gun and readied it. Peeking his head around the corner, he saw the source of the chaos. What looked like Amanda Llewellyn was standing in the centre of the engine room with
tendril
-like protrusions wiggling from her shoulders. They looked like long tentacles, each nearly a meter in length. Her torso was long and fluid and she swivelled on it like it was a ball joint. Her lower jaw no longer looked human. It had been replaced with was looked like metallic
insect
-like mandibles. They clicked and slithered around an orifice where her mouth should have been. Her eyes were still human, which made the nightmarish scene even more chilling.

He looked over at what was drawing her attention. Plasma shots were being fired at her by Jerome Young, who was on his knees behind one of the cone shaped plasma injectors beside The Betty. Beside him was an upper torso and head of one of the engineering crew. He couldn’t make out the face but it looked like Landon Emerson. He could not see where the other half of his body had been thrown. Young was covered in blood. Chavel quickly assessed the tactical situation and marked out the levels of cover closest to him. Llewellyn’s tentacles lashed out in the direction of Jerome Young. Chavel took a chance and manoeuvred out from behind cover. He raised his rifle and began firing at the creature.

“Move!” he shouted at Young, as he parried across the engine room floor to the other side where an outcropping of bulkhead might protect him from attack. The first shot hit Llewellyn squarely in the
mid
-section. It knocked her off balance for a moment, as she whipped her head and torso in the direction of Chavel to see what had hit her. She shot a tentacle in his direction, which made contact with his foot. The impact knocked him off his centre and sent him crashing into the computer panel behind the bulkhead.

He was surprised at how quickly she had responded to his assault. A pain in his lower back shot up his spine. He heard another shot from his left and presumed Young had reciprocated his attempt at drawing Llewellyn’s attention. He looked around his cover and saw Llewellyn looking up at a walkway. There above The Betty was Daniel Tosh, firing a
hand
-held pulse gun in her direction. His face was covered in blood, but he didn’t look injured. It was hard to tell as he was shooting side on from his chair. He looked angry. Very angry. Chavel knew that he and Emerson had been close and knew the face of maddening loss only too well. His shots were wild, with few hitting their target.

“Fuck you!” he heard him scream, as a bright blue shot from the weapon hit her in the side of the face. The smooth complexion of her cheeks was momentarily torn away to reveal cold jagged metal. Her head took the impact easily and the monster it revealed gazed straight back in the direction of Tosh. It took less than a second for her to respond. Raising her right tentacle, she extended it in the direction of Tosh.

It began to thin and take the shape of a spear. Tosh tried to move his chair forward but he was too late. The spear, still attached to the monster Llewellyn, impaled him through his left shoulder. The force of the impact sent the projectile through the back of his chair. He howled in pain. Chavel took the cue and quickly changed the power levels on his rifle. He opened fired without hesitation and parried once again across the engine room to an outcropping of structural support beams. The increased power levels of his rifle seemed to be more effective this time as Llewellyn instantly withdrew her tentacle from Tosh’s shoulder.

She began moving in Chavel’s direction and began emitting some sort of
high
-pitched sound. Like a series of high frequency pulses, but highly organised. Like she was calling out to something. Her face began to change as any hint of humanity was slowly replaced with moving parts. The metallic mandibles were fiercely moving across her lower jaw, hungry to feed.

“Boyett to Chavel,” chirped his communicator suddenly.

“Not now, bridge. Kinda busy down here,” he said.

“Understood,” she said. “Get it to the plasma redistribution node, David!” she pressed. He could hear the strain in her voice and suddenly remembered she could see everything. Including Emerson’s severed body on the deck. He was just about to try and catch a glimpse of the plasma nodes, when a crashing sound close to the side of his head shocked him onto his backside. One of the tentacles had just landed a strike on the bulkhead next to his face, barely missing him.

“Fuck,” he said in shock, scrambling to his feet. He felt a crack in his chest and recognised the familiar feeling of a broken rib.

“Get outta there, Chavel!” shouted Young, who seemed to have regrouped on the other side of The Betty. He heard a loud metallic screech as a shot from Young’s pulse rifle hit Llewellyn in the back.

The creature seemed uninjured by the weapon’s fire, but the force of each shot knocked it off balance enough for Chavel to relocate himself again. He held the side of his chest, as he tried to shuffle his rifle to his left side before getting an eyeball on the plasma node. The twisting pipe that ran from the main drive conductors overhead and into The Betty that fuelled the FTL systems was full.

“Good girl,” whispered Chavel, as another crash from Llewellyn’s long and powerful
snake
-like arms landed onto the structure Young was hiding behind. This one landed its target, as Young seemed to crumple on the ground.

“Shit,” said Chavel. He knew he only had seconds before a second blow would certainly kill him. If he wasn’t already dead.