The rancid smell of necrotic flesh caught in Tor’s nostrils, weakening his resolve. He smashed Mihailov’s skull into the deck, once, then a second time. On the third attempt his hand slipped. In an instant Tor felt jagged teeth close across his gauntleted fingers with a crushing force. Tor yowled as Mihailov grunted, pressure threatening to snap bone or incise the material of the gauntlet.
“I’m sorry, Sec,” Tala’s voice was flat, she was stood beside Tor. Her magboot came down on Mihailov’s head, the first blow stove in the back of his skull with a dull crunch, the second popped it. Brain matter blew out across the deck, sickly grey and putrid. Dead eyes boggled, pushed from their sockets. Mihailov had stopped moving, his teeth parted freeing Tor’s fingers.
Tor rolled off Mihailov and threw away his gauntlets. The digits beneath were bruised, feint teeth marks indented his ring finger, he pulled at the flesh.
“Is the skin broken?” Tala knelt beside him, her gaze fixed on his hand.
“I don’t think so,” Tor replied, his heart was thumping and the coldness of Tala’s question chilled his already panicked mindset.
“You don’t think so?” Tala mimicked, incredulous. “It doesn’t take much, just a nick. Do you remember Oleg?”
Tor wracked his mind, the name was not familiar. Perhaps one of the people from the cells. That time was fuzzy. “No,” he finally admitted, feeling the tethers of reality tauten.
“Are you bleeding?” Tor could sense the agitation building inside Tala.
“No, I’m fine,” Tor rolled from her sight, he couldn’t see blood, just purplish brownish bruising.
Tala grabbed his arm and pulled his hand to her face, Tor barely bothered to protest. After a moment she let go, Tor let the limb fall limply to the deck. “Good. I don’t think I want to kill anymore of my crewmembers today.”
The void beckoned once more, that senseless place. It would be so easy to let go. Tor pressed himself to the cold deck, wishing tears would come, wishing some identifiable emotion would surface. But that well was spent, how many more times could he hit the reset before there was nothing left? So many layers had already been peeled away…
“Captain, get up.”
Who was she to order him around? Only someone who had saved his sorry ass four times.
“Captain, we have to steady the ship.”
Tor could feel the ship, the delicate report of her thruster rockets on standby shivering through the aluminium of the frame, transmitted into his flesh. Tremulous vibrations, cold through the skin of the deck. “I don’t want to,” the words came out a slur, his face pressed into the vinyl chequer plate.
Small powerful hands grabbed him, pulling him upright. Tor felt his back being thrust into the bulkhead, felt the stinging sensation of a slap as a hand flashed across his face, as his own hands flailed uselessly in defence. “Captain, please. Pull yourself together. I can’t do this alone.”
Tala, she was scared. Not of death, but being alone. That was the scary thing about the mindless void. The loneliness. Something about her imploring words partially focused his mind. His gaze cleared, met Tala’s – her eyes were moist and red. Tor had never seen Tala so vulnerable, and she was still under his command.
Tor let himself be lifted up, back on his feet. The dissipated nervous energy left his legs weak, wobbly. For a moment he thought he would topple forward and placed a steadying hand on Tala’s shoulder. She gave him a feeble, gap-toothed smile – crooked, her lips bloodied and swollen.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Tala winced as she stepped from the airlock, the Captain just behind. His mind was reeling, every so often his vision would fog. She was going to lose him, just like they’d lost everyone else.
On the deck were bloody footprints, redbone in colour, tracing the final movements of Mihailov as he charged into the airlock. Nervously, Tala looked back, assuring herself he hadn’t moved. The body of the Second Mate was still, his head crushed.
The Evac suite was quiet, save for the hum of the thrusters. Most of the hermetic wardrobes had popped open, probably when the Riyadh was jettisoned violently from the station. What few still contained EVA suits or life support packs had disgorged parts of their contents on to the deck. Assorted pieces of precision equipment rolled around the suite in disrepair, chinking softly together.
“We left the cadet in here,” Tor said, his words hollow and haunted. “I wonder what…”
The sentence drifted away, cognizance was abandoning the Captain once more. He seemed unable to fully corral a thought and express it. She watched his gaze flatten. Surely, somebody was left.
“Hello?” Tala hated how tiny and scared she sounded, her voice echoing along the Riyadh’s arterial passageway. The corridor was cold and dim, recently bled blood streaked the deck, as if someone had pulled a sled filled with fresh meat from or too the bridge. Behind her, Tor stared at the blood in wonderment his eyes sunk deep in his head. He almost looked infected, the strain withering his face, rendering him corpselike.
They followed the blood caked stairwell with an automated dispassion, the trunk was dark and the little pools of ichor darker still. Tala pushed open the door, her starved stomach churning.
Only the faint, shimmering opalescence of the systems sole planet illuminated the wheelhouse beyond. The sickly mother of pearl light cast crepuscular green greys over the equipment, creating an oddly alien topography. The Riyadh had spun from the wreckage of Murmansk-13 and come to rest orientated away from most of the recognizable light sources within the Reticuulum region. Within the gloom, Tala sensed movement. She felt her body tense.
“Please, don’t kill me,” said the man from across the bridge, his tenuous voice shook. His accent was Russian and unfamiliar. His manner of speech suggested he wasn’t a confident English speaker. Tala watched him backing away – little more than an argent outline, bumshuffling into the squat shadows of the control consoles. Nearby she saw feet pointed upward, sprawled and unmoving. Tor pushed past her, seemingly unconcerned for his own safety. A few feet away from the body he stopped.
“Oh no,” Tor knelt beside the motionless cadet. “No.”
“I didn’t do it. Igor did. I didn’t want to hurt anybody. I just wanted to escape,” the man was babbling, frantic. Tala eyed the space he slunk into, wary of attack, wary that there may be others in the shadows that consumed the outskirts of the wheelhouse.
“Igor,” Tala repeated coldly. “You’re District Seven?”
“What does that mean?” Tor asked, standing up. His voice oozed melancholy. The Captain turned to regard the man in the shadows, his body moving with a threatening tightness.
“Dangerous, Captain. These men are bad, real bad,” Tala moved into the centre of the wheelhouse, close enough to render assistance if the Captain needed, or to fall back if more emerged from the darkness.
“Show me your hands,” Tor stepped forward, looming over the figure in the shadows who nervously straightened his arms in front of himself. Tala could see the man’s limbs shake. “How did you get on my ship? How many of you are there?” Hatred streaked through his questions. “Understand this. I have lost a lot of crewmen, seen things that will stay with me the rest of my life. If you lie to me I will fucking kill you if it is the last thing I do.”