Table of Contents
Chapter 26
Kazi Depot, Planet Kazi
Osara System, Ballas Branch
After the ship had been seen off, the station had about 24 hours to prepare for the arrival of the blue goo and the beasts it brought with it. Johns walked the halls of Kazi Depot, doing his best to be present and reassure people that everything was under control. Of course, he knew that it wasn’t.
The bustle of the previous week had been replaced with a cold unsureness that Johns had felt many times leading up to battle. But that was with soldiers. It was much more palpable now.
Families were spending their final hours of normalcy together in their quarters or whatever corner of some cold metal room they were sleeping in. Johns had instructed the bars to shut down; otherwise, he suspected many of the single men, of which there were many on Kazi, would be spending their final hours taking the edge off.
They were close to the end of this. You could feel it in the air, in the way that each and every person inside Kazi Depot held themselves. How people acted in times like these tells you a lot about how they feel about life.
They had run over the plan at least a dozen times in the last three days. Everyone had a role to play. Able-bodied men and women all had a station that they would man. Women and children would stay back at the railway courtyard, which was close to the bunkers. All remaining food and water had been placed in the bunkers.
Those that were going to take part in the fight all had a role to play. They were able to scrape together more than 50 flamethrowers, which were set up at strategic positions along the main corridor.
The plan was relatively simple. All entrances were completely locked down and welded shut, many of them several layers thick with reinforced steel. The helldogs were going to get through no matter what. But at least they were going to be able to slow them down and buy themselves as much time as possible.
When they got through didn’t matter so much. No matter where they breached, all roads led to the main corridor. That was where their final stand was going to take place.
The main corridor was part maze, part obstacle course. To make their way down the corridor, the helldogs were going to have to climb over steel welded to the floor and walls—vehicles, spikes, furniture, industrial equipment, and anything else that they could find in the station. The result was a twisted mess of objects that looked like a junkyard to the untrained eye. Johns was hoping it would be enough to slow the helldogs down enough to let their burners do most of the work.
As for the C4, Johns and Sara had discussed at length what to do with it. Of course, their only real chance of surviving long-term was to blow up the queen. But the chances of a drone successfully making it into the impact site, making its way through the sphincter, being expelled out of the other side, then retaining its ability to fly through the thick goop that would without a doubt cling to it, long enough to fly over to the queen and explode at exactly the right time was slim. Not to mention the fact that the detonation signal would have a hard time reaching the drone down in the queen’s cavern. So they had scrapped the idea of sending drones into the third cavern.
That left them with two options.
First, they could save all of the C4 on the helldogs that descended upon Kazi Depot. Sara had advocated for this route for most of their conversation. They did the math and a perfectly placed brick of C4 could kill up to one hundred helldogs. Based on their estimates, there were roughly 1,500 of them out there roaming around the countryside. With ten bricks they could kill up to 1,000. Of course, however, the chances that they would get a perfect hit was Johns’ biggest concern. Chances were that each C4 blast would only kill twenty or thirty of those things. If that happened, they wouldn’t be doing enough damage to make it worth it.
The last option was the one that Johns had pushed — to send another team in there with the C4 and try to kill the goddamn queen. Sara couldn’t deny that it was their only real chance at a positive outcome.
The problem was that the damn things had learned their game. Ever since the second queen went down, a flock of helldogs had been stationed outside of the third impact site. At least a hundred of them. No team had a chance to make it past them.
But — and this is a big ‘but’ — if they waited until the helldogs began sieging Kazi Depot’s outer walls, they might vacate the impact site and give them a window. Sara agreed although she was skeptical because they didn’t have any data to suggest that that’s what the helldogs would do. Putting all of their eggs in that basket didn’t seem smart. But there weren’t a lot of good options.
Even then, they’d have to find people willing to go do it. They were pretty short on young able-bodied men with some background in something resembling the military or combat. Johns tasked several security team members with scouring Kazi Depot to find volunteers that might prefer to die attempting to kill the queen, rather than in Kazi Depot.
So that was it, they were going to have to stand and fight.
***
In the hours leading up to their arrival, Sara kept the entire station apprised of their positioning and expected arrival time. The goo growth was still accelerating, ever so slightly. When she came over the intercom and announced that the helldogs would be reaching the outside of the station within the hour, Johns directed everyone to go to their positions.
Everyone had a set position. Either you were manning a mounted flamethrower station, gunning from one of the locations they had carved out along the nooks and crannies that surrounded the corridor of scrap metal the helldogs would ultimately trudge through, or you were throwing homemade bombs and explosives that they had been able to scrape together.
Everyone unable to fight had been evacuated back to the bunkers, holding out until this thing came to an end. They hadn’t shut the doors, at least not yet. Once those giant doors were slammed shut and the locking mechanisms were engaged, they weren’t going to be opened again until the coast was clear, which of course it would likely never be again.
***
They arrived just after sundown when the first helldogs arrived and began clawing at the reinforced steel at the northernmost end of Kazi Depot. Johns and Sara stood at the wall, listening as the first helldogs slammed themselves against the structure.
The scratching was deep and relentless. Even through the many layers of steel they had welded onto the outside and inside of the station, the ferociousness was palpable. They scratched and dug and tore at the outermost layer of metal, screaming their awful high-pitched screech.
All along the outermost wall, you could hear the helldogs come running and slam themselves into the side of the building at top speed. It made a loud thwump that rang against the metal inner walls, then the scratching sounds would begin right behind it.
Johns and Sara held eye contact as hundreds of thwumps echoed throughout the station. They had no idea how long it would take for them to get in, but they knew that they would eventually.
Within a few short hours, weeks’ worth of welding work had been undone as the scratching and screeching grew louder through the thinning outer walls of Kazi Depot. Knowing that it wouldn’t be long before they pulled apart the last layers keeping them from the inside of the station, Johns and Sara began the trek back to the main corridor.
When they arrived, a few men helped Johns pull the final pieces into place. They were large wall-like structures with sharpened metal sticks, points, and blades positioned all over them. They were gigantic, at least twelve feet tall and supported by large metal containers. Several men in large tractors helped to push them into place.
Johns and Sara fell back to the overlook, a walking path that went up and over the main path toward the end of the main corridor. From there, they’d be able to see how things were playing out toward the front of the corridor.
Johns had an immense amount of respect for the men who had volunteered for positions at the front of the corridor. They were positions that were almost sure to be overrun quickly. If the helldogs could get through the outer walls of the station itself, they were sure to rip through the makeshift barriers they had placed in front of people in doorways and nooks throughout the corridor.
Within an hour, they began to hear the screeching of the helldogs as they made their way down to the final layer of metal on the outside of the station. They listened as they began to rip through, with a faint screeching echoing through the hallways from the other side of the station.
“Here we go,” Sara said, with a tear in her eye, clutching a gauss rifle that was serving as her last line of defense.
“Here we go,” Johns responded with a nod. He picked up his com unit and spoke into it, his voice booming from every speaker in the station.
“The helldogs have breached the walls. Hold your positions! Fire on sight!” Johns screamed. The people of Kazi Depot returned his call with a deep bellow.
The screeching began to echo louder and louder off the walls, bouncing their way down the mile-long main corridor. Johns watched as the men assumed their positions, holding their guns or flamethrowers out from their fortified locations. Several men vomited in anticipation.
SLAM. The first helldog ran headfirst into the giant spiked wall at the front of the corridor. Johns was too far away on his walkway perch to truly see what was happening at the front, but he could hear it. Then another. Then another. Then dozens of helldogs were running headlong into the spiked wall at the top of the corridor, impaling themselves along the way.
Within a few minutes, the thuds dissipated. Perhaps enough helldogs had run headfirst into the spikes and blades and torn themselves up so much that they were connected to the structure. In the distance, Johns could see as the first helldogs began to climb over the obstacles welded to the corridor’s fooor. The great corridor filled with the sounds of the first gunshots, as bullets sunk into helldogs that crested the wall. They shrieked and fell from the structure, no bigger than ants from Johns’ vantage point.
“Dear god,” Sara muttered under her breath.
Soon, the small crest of helldogs that had made their way over the wall turned into an amorphous flood of bodies that more resembled water flowing to Johns. The sound of a hundred simultaneous helldog shrieks sounded as they came over the wall in a wave. More gauss rifles pumped out rounds, followed by several audible human screams that blended with the helldogs’ shrieks.
Johns could see that some groups of helldogs were peeling off from the main wave, attacking men that had been stationed at various areas along the corridor. Most of them were closed in with steel, except for a gap that they needed to shoot. Based on how quickly they had gotten through the outer walls, which were many, many layers thick — Johns didn’t have much faith that the makeshift shark cages would last very long.
As the helldogs descended down the corridor, climbing over the obstacles that had been placed in their way, Johns could see the distant lights of flamethrowers lighting up. More helldog screeches filled the air. At the far end of the corridor, they ripped a man from his cage and tore into him, sending a large mist of blood squirting into the air.
The helldogs reached the first giant wall, which had men stationed at various points along the side of the corridor, and Johns could see hordes of them roasting under the flames of a dozen flamethrowers just behind the wall. The men were screaming too, yelling at the top of their lungs as they roasted dozens of helldogs. More began to scale the walls.
The first makeshift bombs were thrown from the upper vents in the corridor, raining down on the helldogs and blowing up large chunks of their wave at a time. The loud boom hurt Johns’ ears which were still not fully recovered from when the giant squidlike creatures had first crash-landed on Kazi. The helldog wave clawed its way over the top of the wall and scurried down the backside. The flamethrower men positioned there were also covered in makeshift metal cages.
They began to tear at them, quickly ripping apart several with weak welds and swiftly disposing of the men inside into a cloud of red mist. To Johns’ surprise, several of the barriers for the men held up, allowing them to run their flamethrowers through dozens of helldogs. They caught fire and galloped into a metal barrier, falling into a burning pile. Eventually, those barriers broke and the people behind them were no more.
It was amazing how quickly the smells could travel down the corridor. Johns could already smell the burning flesh of the helldogs. It smelled like someone had cooked a feral hog for days at a time until it was a burnt husk with no moisture to speak of.
“Look,” Sara said, pointing toward the far end of the station. There, at the opening of the corridor, was a faint blue hue emanating from the opening. “The goo is inside the station.”
Over the next several minutes, Johns and Sara watched as the helldogs made their way down the mile-long corridor.
The closer the helldogs got, the more clearly Johns could see the fight. They were a horde, but the metal obstacles that had been welded to the floors had been surprisingly effective in slowing them down. Bullets were landing. Fire was washing over large clumps of helldogs as they traversed cars and equipment, running and spinning wildly in circles until they fell into burning heaps.
One by one, the helldog horde would identify the men they had stationed along the corridor. They’d rip the enclosure they had fashioned around them away in a matter of seconds and devour them screaming.
There were several hundred men throughout the station in coffins — enclosures just big enough for them and their guns. Johns never had any doubt that they wouldn’t hold up under the helldog onslaught. The idea was more to give them time to do some damage. He hadn’t told the volunteers that though. Instead, he had just told everyone that it was unlikely that anyone would survive and didn’t spend time analyzing the specific situations of the individual men that were fighting the helldogs. They were all lambs to the slaughter.
About halfway down the corridor was the second wall they had constructed. It stood maybe 50 feet tall and spanned the entirety of the corridor. What was special about this wall was that it came just after a dip in the floor of the corridor, maybe five feet deep. That space had been filled in with all of the explosives they still had available, as well as a variety of nails and other metal bits and shards, designed to explode and rip apart the helldogs like a giant pipe bomb as the wave gathered at the base and began climbing the wall.
The strategy was simple — blow it up whenever they were in position to do the most damage. Sara had run some numbers and calculated that the maximum potential for the strike was somewhere near 500 helldogs, but that required that all things go right. Either way, this bomb trap was their best chance at putting a dent in their numbers and surviving this thing.
The helldogs flew along the corridor, ripping men to pieces as they went. They were pulled from their death traps and quickly disappeared into a cloud of ravenous alien creatures. At most, they might see a mist of red rise above the helldogs, who quickly took off down the corridor as soon as they had disposed of the threat. The blue glow coming from the far end of the corridor was growing in brightness and probably not far from making its way in to the corridor itself.
“Our burn team is landing at the impact site,” Sara yelled at Johns over the increasingly loud screeching noises.
Johns nodded. When the wave reached the wall at the middle of the corridor, they’d see what their situation here at Kazi Depot was going to be. Meanwhile, a team of twenty were landing at the third impact site with guns, flamethrowers, and a few C4 bricks. The next ten minutes would decide the fates of everybody on Kazi Depot. It was go time.
Chapter 27
Kazi Depot, Planet Kazi
Osara System, Ballas Branch
Johns and Sara pushed themselves off to the side of the overhead walkway they had been standing on. Johns picked his spot so that he could keep a close eye on both the bomb wall and keep a close eye on the video of their approach.
Johns could see the puddlejumper lowering the men on the ground about a quarter-mile away from the third impact site. There, a group of about 20 helldogs were loitering around the entrance. It was still going to be a challenge, but it was a far cry from the hundreds that had been there before the goo had crept far enough for them to reach Kazi Depot.
As soon as the men touched down on the goo, the helldogs began to run straight in their direction, almost as if they had felt their landing themselves. Johns turned on the coms communications so he could listen in.
“Assume the position!” the team lead, Mai Fief, a young woman who had recently joined the Kazi Security Services, screamed at the top of their lungs.
The helldogs crossed the quarter-mile in mindbending time, bullets being flung as them as they raced, killing several before they could reach the group. As they got closer, the flamethrowers lit up. With about half the group of helldogs still standing as they arrived, they crashed into the group, who had arranged themselves in a phalanx-style line, sending them flying all over the goo-covered ground.
Several screamed at the top of their lungs and from the drone’s vantage point, Johns could see that one of them had their legs turned completely backward, with the bone poking out through the skin. Luckily for him, he was quickly devoured by a nearby helldog that had gotten to its feet after the collision.
The drone watched as the men and women at the site continued to pour rounds into the group of helldogs that had attacked them, taking care of each one by one. When there was only one left, still savagely pulling itself across the ground without working hind legs after having taken multiple bullets, one of the men walked over and calmly put three bullets into its head.
Johns watched as the men took stock of what had just happened. About half of them were dead. One man ran over to check on one that had had his stomach torn open by a helldog, but was still holding on, his intestines strewn on the Kazian jungle floor beside him. A few more men stood over him, they looked at one another likely discussing what to do, then chose the merciful option and put a bullet into his head, his body falling limply into the goo that surrounded him. There was nothing to do for that man in their current predicament.
Johns could hear the helldogs screeching as they pushed their way into the giant wall at the halfway point of the corridor.
The men gathered their belongings and began the run across the goo toward the third impact site. The mammoth mound that had been created when the queens had burrowed themselves into the Kazian crust was larger than the other two had been, with a larger opening into the initial impact cavern as well.
With each step the men took, Johns could see long disgusting strings of goo stretching between their feet in the ground and he wondered how hard it might be to walk in that thick of goo. It was probably similar to what they had encountered in the Queen’s cavern.
The men cautiously made their way across the open field and into the mouth of the giant impact cavern. There, the goo was so thick that you could see the vibrant glow illuminating the area in a brighter bluish hue, reflecting off of the mouth of the cavern’s walls, which were also covered in it.
They approached the cavern carefully, feet flopping through the goo as they treaded. The drone repositioned itself above the cavern. Johns looked up from the screen to see the helldogs beginning to arrive at the c4 wall at the midpoint of the hall. It wouldn’t be long before it was time to let it go.
The team at the impact site entered the front of the cavern.
”Be alert,” one of the men said through the coms channel. Johns could barely hear above the loud firing and screaming going on less than a half mile down the corridor.
“What is that?” he heard one of the men say in a panicked voice.
Then the shooting started. From the drones vantage point it was difficult to make out what was going on. Bullets were being dumped without a second thought. Johns could hear screaming coming in over the open channel.
Johns watched as one body was flung from the cavern then quickly devoured in seconds by several helldogs until he wasn’t much more than a bloody heap.
“They’re comin’ out of the lair entrance!” The man screamed before his yells devolved into blood-soaked gurgles over the coms channel.
One by one, the men were eaten alive. They didn’t even have the opportunity to blow the C4 that they did have. The drone watched on as a layer of red blood began to pool around the bodies on top of the Goo, before settling down into it and being devoured like all other organic material that the goo came into contact with. Johns turned off the screen, cutting off the screams and commotion from the handheld.
With that, their chances of survival went up in a red mist. If this C4 trap doesn’t work, Many would die here in the corridor. The rest would either starve or hold out in the bunkers until the helldogs found their way in.
Johns and Sara made eye contact. She welled up with tears and held her lips pursed. They both knew what that meant. Johns heart felt as if it had sunken into his feet.
“They’re piling up!” Sara said, pointing toward the barrier at the middle of the corridor. And they were. The pile had grown to about fifteen feet high and kept growing as more helldogs slammed themselves into the pile and made their way toward the top to scale the wall.
“Not yet,” Johns said. “We need to get as many as we possibly can.”
It occurred to Johns that when he did set off the homemade bomb, which contained hundreds of pounds of explosives, layered with hundreds of pounds of metal on top of it — that there was a good chance that they were going to permanently ruin the structure of Kazi Depot and kill many with the shrapnel. He expected it to hold, but there was a nonzero chance that this whole corridor might rain down on top of them.
The men behind the barrier were unloading their gauss rifles into the pile of helldogs on the other side. The wall that they had constructed was an amalgamation of steel beams, doors, chairs, and trusses — anything they thought would be strong and could reliably be welded together to create the giant structure. With each bullet that ripped into a helldog, blue blood went spraying into the mush of helldogs that surrounded them.
Johns and Sarah watched as dozens more helldogs crashed into the wall, pushing those toward the top further up. They were just beyond halfway up when Johns opened a channel on his coms unit and began telling everyone to stop shooting and back away from the structure. The men did, quickly grabbing their gauss rifles and running away from the wall that towered above them.
Without the continuous rounds being pumped into their front lines, the helldogs began to grab a foothold at the base of the wall and started climbing upwards, looking to scale and get over the monstrosity as quickly as their long, spindly legs would take them. The entire structure was beginning to become coated in the blue goo blood from the injured helldogs. It clung to the structure and dripped and gooped its way between the haphazardly welded together sections.
“They’re going to get over!” Sara yelled.
“Just wait! Let them get fully out of the way.”
The last of the stragglers was still running across the open area they had left behind the wall so that the firing team could get out of the way as quickly as possible.
Johns could feel his blood pressure rising. This was the moment. Either they were going to finish off enough of these fuckers to get to go home and see their families or they were as good as dead. Johns felt a thud in his chest as the realization that his hopes of ever seeing Anna again may vanish in smoke in the next few seconds.
Even if they were able to put an end to today’s onslaught here, they were still going to have to deal with the continued threat of the remaining queen and constant growth. With the goo now surely pushing its way inside of Kazi Depot, they were going to have a hard time putting together the resources to push it back—even if they killed every helldog with the blast—let alone fight and kill another queen.
Johns watched as a final wave of helldogs crashed into the pile at the bottom of the wall. He looked toward Sara, who gave him a nod of approval. They ducked behind a wall at the end of the walkway
“Take cover,” Johns said into the com channel. “Firing in three, two, one…”
Johns hit the button and felt the pure power of a blast that he hadn’t felt since the organism had first landed on the planet and shook Kazi Depot. It felt as if the ground beneath him had completely disappeared and then suddenly reappeared beneath him. As if every bone in his body had turned to jelly. His knees buckled from their crouched position and Sara fell beside him, hitting her head on the wall next to them as they tried to take further cover. The blast was much larger and stronger than Johns had expected.
Johns gathered himself and pushed himself to his feet with a heave of effort that he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to muster. He staggered, but was able to catch himself on the wall.
He looked down the corridor. It was hazy with smoke and dust that the explosion had kicked up. He could hear a mix of helldogs and humans screaming in pain. There were fires burning all around the main explosion site. The corridor was still filled with smoke, so it was hard to get a read on what the actual damage was or how many helldogs were left. Johns squinted as several metal chunks fell from the top of the structure, but it seemed to be holding up. He could make out a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field around the explosion site was strewen with chunks of helldog and blue goo, splattered all over the walls, floor, and welded obstacles.
The corridor was quieter for a moment. Everyone that was left were silent while they waited to see. Finally, a man cheered. Then another. Then ten. Soon, the entire corridor was cheering at the sight of a corridor filled with shining blue meat lumps.
But as the smoke cleared, a spindly figure appeared at the top of the wall, his strangely bumpy back clear through the silhouette. Then a screech. Then ten helldogs were scaling the wall, followed by more. There had been more. They had been blown back and stunned, but not critically injured.
The cheers turned to screams and then to a hail of bullets. The remaining helldogs tore over the wall, now unimpeded by the pile that had been effectively turned to scrap meat in the explosion. They tore over the wall dozens at a time and quickly overran the firing team on the other side, their screams echoing in the noticeably quieter corridor.
Sara looked at Johns worriedly. “Time to go,” Johns said, grabbing Sara by the shoulder and pulling her hurriedly toward the cart that Johns had left near the overhead walkway for just such an occasion.
“If you’re still here, it’s officially bug-the-fuck-out-time,” Johns said into the open coms channel. “Get the hell to the bunkers. We’ll keep the doors open as long as we possibly can.”
Several men were already running past them underneath the overhead walkway. Johns wished that he could stop them all and tell them to hop on, but the truth was that he wanted to make sure that he and Sara survived. If he was ever going to have a chance to make things right with Anna, even if it was from the depths of a dying bunker, he was going to need more time.
He threw Sara into the car and she hastily strapped herself in. Johns dove into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition on, and put the pedal to the metal as they sped down a wide onramp. They sped past several men who screamed for them to stop as the stragglers in the corridor made their way to the bunkers. Behind them, Johns could hear gunshots and the screams of men who weren’t going to make it to the bunkers.
They sped through the backside of the corridor and toward the back of the facility where the bunkers were located. Behind them, they could hear the helldogs gaining ground. They were so fast, Johns thought. Maybe they were getting stronger. It didn’t really matter anymore.
The buggy came to a sliding stop just outside of the great mechanized bunkers doors that had been opened in preparation. Once they were shut, they could only be opened from the inside. They ran inside and saw that quite a few people were already in the bunker waiting, and several dozen more came running in behind them. Johns could hear the screams from men and women and the screeches from the helldogs grow closer to the bunker with each passing second.
“GET READY. ON MY MARK!” Johns yelled to the man that was positioned over by the bunker door control unit.
Three men sprinted across the open courtyard just outside of the bunker entrance. Behind them, two helldogs slid through the turn and crashed into the metal wall. As if it didn’t phase them, they jumped to their feet and continued driving their piston-like legs forward, gaining ground on the men.
“COME ON!” Sara screamed from just inside the bunker. “LET’S GO!”
The first man went down hastily as the helldog quickly pinned him to the floor and tore his head clean off from his body. The helldog wasted no time on the first kill, and immediately took off toward the second man, catching him near the far side of the courtyard.
The third man was quicker than the first two and flashed across the open courtyard toward the bunker with two helldogs hot on his heels and rapidly gaining on him.
“WAIT FOR HIM,” Sara screamed.
“Close it.” Johns said.
“What? No!”
“HE WON’T MAKE IT! CLOSE IT NOW!”
“Don’t.”
The young man manning the door unit looked nervously back and forth between Johns and Sara.
“GOD DAMN—” Johns began as the man hit the button and the bunker door slammed shut, trapping the man outside just a few feet from the door, along with anyone who was still alive throughout the whole of Kazi Depot. Sara shook her head and fell to her knees.
Now they were in here until they ran out of oxygen or food.
Chapter 28
Kazi Depot Bunkers, Planet Kazi
Osara System, Ballas Branch
The onslaught had come and they had lost. It was hard to describe exactly what the first few hours inside the bunker were like. In total, nearly three-hundred people had made it inside before the bunker doors had closed. Everyone else — the other 10,000 people at Kazi Depot, aside from the 150 children that they had sent off on the OCN Capela — were dead. Johns had expected the group in the bunkers to be one way—the way men had been in the war, where men got quiet and tried to forget about their impending doom with useless small talk. They laughed at the little things.
That wasn’t how things went here.
At first, everyone seemed somewhat relieved that they had survived the helldog invasion, even if we hadn’t stopped them from entering the station. That feeling lasted for a while. Before too long, they could hear helldogs scratching at the bunker doors. Many worried they might get in, but Johns knew that the door was made of steel and lerasum composite. Lerasum was an extremely tough metal found on several federation planets, and was primarily used for military ship hulls. It was incredibly resilient, and Johns doubted that any organic creature could make a scratch in it. Even the helldogs.
Within hours, the reality of the situation started to set into people’s minds. It started with a few people crying. Then more cried and a few people got hysterical. One man started beating on the door, insisting that he be let out of the bunker.
“I’d rather die by them!” he screamed through his tears. “You had that opportunity,” Johns reminded him.
He even tried to take a chair and hit the electrical panel that controlled the door. What he didn’t know is that the only way the doors would open is with a password being entered on the door panel, combined with a button press and a key turn from the key that Johns had. But there was no point in opening the door. Eventually, the man had to be restrained.
The morale turned very quickly. Because the Communications Station was completely destroyed and the OCN Capela was gone, the bunker had no reliable light beam. Even if he had, it didn’t matter much. The whole system knew that if things went south, they would go down to the bunker. He had told him as much in the final message that he had sent.
Johns had planned ahead and had instructed a group to ration out the remaining food and water to last as long as possible and for everyone to survive. He knew that tempers were going to flare over the food situation eventually, but he didn’t expect it to happen on the first night. After their first meal, one man became irate and threw half of his meal against the wall, demanding larger portions.
Johns had explained it to the group. Most understood. They all were here because they wanted to survive. Even with as small of a chance that they would get out of there alive,
“How long will it last?” One woman asked when he was done.
“I’d rather not say. Everyone will know when it is running low. It’s right there for everyone to see,” he said pointing to the corner where the giant food pile had been stored. If everyone here survived, which they wouldn’t, they would be completely out of food in about a month weeks.
***
It was only two days until people started to have second thoughts about their decision to be in the bunker. Johns could see from a mile away that a small contingent was forming with the potential to mutiny. They wanted out, or at least they would decide that they did soon. Johns had been told in confidence about several harebrained schemes to escape and outrun the helldogs, off into the Kazian wilderness.
Of course, that would have been a bad idea. Even if they did manage to escape, they would likely succumb to some unknown bug out there roaming around freely the in the Kazian atmosphere. If someone did show up to rescue them, they would have no way to locate them. They’d be wandering around in circles off in the jungle somewhere.
Johns held firm that their best bet was to stay here in group discussions. He won some people over and managed to quell the mutiny for the time being. But by the way things were going early on, Johns knew that things were going to fall apart in this bunker. These weren’t trained soldiers, willing to accept a death that they had signed up for. These were just people. Mothers and fathers. Children. People. And none of them were going to survive.
***
On their third night in the bunker, Johns was shaken awake by a young woman who couldn’t have been more than 30. Johns instinctually reached for his weapon but came to his senses quickly. She was panicked.
“Listen, Come and listen!” she said as she pulled him to his feet. They ran across the bunker, passing people who were still asleep on the cold metal cloor. Across the bunker, Johns could see a small crowd gathering at the top of the stairwell.
They crossed the bunker and ran up the stairwell. Near the top, there was a crowd gathering. “See,” she said as they reached the top of the staircase.
They stood in front of the giant metal door. “What?” Johns asked. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Closer,” the woman said, putting her ear up against the door. Johns followed suit. There, ever so slightly, he could hear a faint scratching. But it was fast. It was consistent. Barely, he could make out that there were scratching sounds coming from several locations on the wall. The faces of the people around him sagged with worry.
The helldogs knew that they were in here. And they were still trying to claw their way through the four-meter-thick reinforced steel-lerasum door. Even days later.
***
One week in the bunker, they had their first death. It was a man that had cut himself while running through the metal obstacles in the corridor just as the attack had gotten underway. The cut had become infected, which had spread to his blood. He went quickly, even though they had used precious medical supplies trying to save him.
His skin had gone completely pale and cold to the touch. He was clammy. The moisture that clung to his skin felt like it might freeze to his hair follicles. He shivered and shook, but complained that he was too hot. Eventually, they gave him a high dose of opiates and let him drift off into the everlasting comfort of death.
Johns had stayed by his side as the man had taken his last breaths. Deep heaves before he exhaled completely. His wife had stayed by his side the whole time, broke down in sobs when it was clear that he was gone.
That had been a shock to the remaining survivors — to watch someone waste away so quickly like that.
He was one of the lucky ones. To go out with such comfort. The opiates wouldn’t be able to save them once they all started starving.
***
Three weeks in and the food supplies were starting to visibly disappear. Day by day, the only thing that was keeping them alive dwindled in front of them all.
Outside of the bunker, they could hear the helldogs. They banged and rattled. They ran back and forth. Johns swore that he could hear the goo slowly encroaching over the top of the bunker. Im theory, he shouldn’t be able to hear much of anything between the dozen feet of reinforced steel-lerasum composite between him and the lower plaza above them. But Johns could hear a distinct humming coming from above them that sounded almost electronic in nature. It was ever-present, but no one else seemed to notice. He sometimes wondered if he was losing his mind.
To Johns’ surprise, things in the bunker became very laid back. People slept most of the day. They were eating very few calories and no one had the energy to be upset. Luckily, the power system was still up at the time so they were able to cook their food and keep the lights on. Johns wasn’t sure how long that would last.
A few of the older members of the team had taken ill or were at least having a hard time. Sara had spent most of her time those few weeks tending to them. Her and Johns had had several arguments about what situations constituted the use of their limited medical supplies, with Johns mostly giving in to her demands.
Sara walked over and collapsed against the metallic wall at the back of the bunker where Johns was sitting. She wiped sweat off of her brow and pushed her forehead into her hands.
“Rodriguez won’t make it until morning,” she said. “That makes four today.”
Johns nodded. It was going to be like this from now on. They would all just slip away, one by one, until they were all dead. Johns wondered who the last surviving person would be.
“You know what I keep thinking? Over and over again. I can’t get it out of my mind.”
“What’s that?”
“I shouldn’t have taken this job.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Johns let a small smile start creeping across his face and both he and Sara burst out laughing. They laughed deep laughs, the kind that make you grab your belly. Johns kept trying to stop, but one of them would giggle and they would start backup. Others from the group shot them dirty looks from across the large bunker, but Johns didn’t care. Maybe it was insensitive, but it felt great to laugh. Johns had needed it for a while now. He hadn’t felt even a moment of pleasure since he had seen the system’s reaction to his message throwing Raymond Duke under the bus. He still thought about that pretty frequently. It made him feel good.
“What would you change if you could?” she asked suddenly, changing the tone of their conversation.
“What would I change? Shit, a lot.” Johns said.
“No, seriously. You’ve had a lot of controversy in your life. Do you wish you could change anything? Or at least something you wish you had done differently?”
Johns pushed his back against the cold metal wall. “Yea,” he said, rubbing the knuckles on his left hand into the palm of his right. “I wouldn’t have left. When I came here, to Kazi Depot. I would have stuck it out and stayed with my daughter. Even if my marriage was ending. I should have stayed. Even if I was hated.”
Sara looked at him with an intensity that he had never seen from her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think….I just thought you’d probably say something about the war, given the trial…” she said, cutting herself short when she realized that she didn’t know where she was going. “Why’d you leave?”
“I was cowardly, more than anything. The damage had already been done. Osara Prime hated me. Journalists were calling ten, twenty times a day. My marriage had been dead for a while at that point. I’d tried my best to save it. Counseling, therapy, groups, all of it. Anna’s school asked that we homeschool her. They said she was a distraction even though she was the one that was being bullied. She had lost most of her friends and couldn’t leave the house without some asshole coming up to her and asking her questions she knew nothing about.
It was dangerous. There were these…extremists, fringe elements…whatever you want to call them. They thought that I was the devil. Everyone was happy to finally have the war over…but there were still those carrying on with The Resistance. They wanted me dead. And I was afraid they’d do something to my daughter. So I left, hoping it would all disappear for them.” Johns said as he felt the tears well up in his eyes and overflow down his cheek.
“I shouldn’t have left. I needed to stay. To protect her. Not to turn tail and run when it was hardest. I’m not even sure that leaving helped her. What kind of bullshit did she have to put up with after I was gone?
So…yeah. That’s my regret. I’d give anything for one more chance to make it right if I could. She’d be twenty-two now. I wonder what kind of life she lives.”
Sara had seen how emotional Johns had become and she too had tears streaming down her face.
“You?” Johns asked hoping to change the subject. “Any regrets?”
“Yeah…taking this fucking job,” Sara said, and they both burst into laughter once again.
***
The weeks dragged on. More people became sick and died. Some quickly. Others much more slowly. They died of various ailments. Infections. Fevers. Malnutrition. A lack of the willingness to live. They tried to medicate everyone they could at first, but decided that the antibiotics that they had on hand in the bunker just weren’t effective for fighting whatever people were coming down with. Still, it seemed inhumane not to try.
They had decided that there must have been some sort of contamination in the oxygen supply. The bunker had its own vents that extracted oxygen from the Kazian air, stripped out everything except the oxygen, and pumped it into the bunker. Maybe the oxygenation machines or vents had been damaged, exposing them to the Kazian virus’ and bacteria. Or maybe the goo had covered the devices The ferociousness of some of the illnesses led Sara to believe that their immune system was not dealing with the illness well, which made sense. But it could have been exacerbated by the malnutrition and tight quarters in the bunker. There was no way to know.
The food stock became a common source of anxiety for the fifty or so people that remained in the bunker. The longer they were down there, the more apparent the dwindling food supply had become. It was a death clock, constantly marching them in one direction. They weren’t dying of hunger yet, but the sight of the remaining freeze-dried food and oatmeal was a constant reminder that they soon would be.
That anxiety had manifested in a second round of calls to leave the bunker. Johns had squashed several conversations about what chance they stood if they left. By now the Goo had to cover several square miles around the bunker. Even if they could get the door open—and there was no guarantee that the goo wouldn’t have completely covered the enterance by now— they would have to run for miles in helldog infested lands before they even broke into the jungle. They wouldn’t make it that far, but if they did, in the condition that they were in, either an animal or exposure would have them dead shortly therafter.
Johns had tried to appeal to their belief in humanity. He reminded them that they were stuck down here with no way to communicate with the outside world and that last they saw, there was a big uproar about what was happening on Kazi. Maybe Raymond Duke was sending people right now. If they had left right when they had entered the bunker, they’d be arriving in a few days.
Of course, Johns knew that there was no chance that they were coming. Raymond Duke wouldn’t ever let him win if he could help it. For better or for worse, and it had been almost exclusively for the worst for Johns so far, he and Raymond Duke were enemies. He wasn’t even sure if they fully hated each other. But public perception dictated that they were now, unquestionably, enemies. Johns wondered if his ego might have caused him to torpedo any real hope of mercy and rescue. Maybe he should have handled it differently.
***
At one month and a half in the bunker, their numbers had dwindled to 37. With anxiety over food levels at an all-time high, everyone was at each other’s throats. One man had stabbed and killed another when he had accused him of taking a fingerfull of his food while he had his back turned, an accusation that Johns felt was true, based on the man’s reaction.
The new, smaller rations that they had installed to calm everyone and stretch their time a bit more had everyone losing weight. Johns could feel his ribs poking through the skin on his torso. His wrists were starting to look like they might snap if he lifted anything heavier than twenty or thirty pounds.
People lay strewn around the bunker. Many of them, their immune systems in shambles, coughing up fluids or throwing up stomach acid onto the bunker floor.
They were in bad shape. They were down to maybe 250 calories per day, if they were lucky. It was just enough to keep them alive and miserable. But they were alive.
The reality of starving to death had forced Johns to consider something that he never thought he would consider — opening the bunker doors and letting people make a run for it. Yes, they would all get torn to bits by packs of roving helldogs. But it would be over quickly. It would be a lot better of a death than sitting in here and waiting to starve. He made a promise to himself that he would open the doors in a few more days.
***
Johns never got the chance to make good on that promise. Like the others before him, he fell ill and quickly became too sick to do much of anything.
The next two weeks faded and blurred in and out of reality. Johns remembered coming down with a fever. He had dealt with them on and off throughout their time in the bunker, so it didn’t concern him at first. But it was the pain in his torso that concerned him, as if there was a small rodent burrowing around his intestines. He felt supremely awful. He vaguely remembered being absolutely drenched in sweat, and Sara leaning over him, saying something directly into his face. She had poured something down his throat. Medicine, mostly likely.
Past that, there isn’t much. Flashes. Images. Like paintings in his mind. A man leaning over him, shaking his head. A child looking at him, hiding behind his mother.
He had the most intense dreams of his life during this period. That added to the confusion. It was hard to discern what was real. He dreamt of Anna. He imagined what she might look like now. He had dreams of what her high school life had been like. She had gone on to study biology at University. He had also dreamt awful things about her. He dreamt that men had done things to her. That she had been beaten and robbed. They all had felt so real. He’d wake up gasping for breath trying to save her, before realizing he was still in the bunker and falling back into his half-alive unconscious state.
Johns didn’t know how long he faded in and out. Several times, he heard Sara remark that he wasn’t going to make it or break down crying. He remembered hearing that others had died. He didn’t know how many. He wasn’t the only one that was sick. The unidentified flu had run its way through the bunker, feeding on the already weak.
***
Days, maybe weeks later — Johns wasn’t sure how long it had been, he hadn’t be conscious for most of it — he had a sudden flash of consciousness. He could feel that he was on the brink of death, his body shutting down. He could smell the rotting flesh of the other dead all around him. But something was happening. He couldn’t rouse himself out of his diminished state to open his eyes, but he was aware. Something new had happened.
“Someone’s here!” Sara said, pulling at his shoulder. “Hold on.”
Johns could hear a commotion. At first, he couldn’t make out what it was about. But then he could hear it too—the faint gunshots. Who was shooting? Why were they shooting in the bunker? They were going to make everyone deaf.
No. It wasn’t that. They weren’t in the bunker. The shots were too quiet for them to be coming from inside. They were outside.
Johns didn’t have the strength to show it, but a sudden rush of hope filled his chest cavity.
Then there was screaming. It was muffled. Hard to make out.
There were dark figures moving around the bunker. Helldogs maybe. Had they made it through the door? Was the end finally here?
With what little awareness he had left, Johns prepared to finally be killed and have his suffering ended. He welcomed it, and his thoughts drifted to Anna and the life they could have had together. Or should have, had he not been so cowardly.
“Let them in!” he could hear someone saying, then he felt Sara lift herself up and sprint toward the door. There were more gunshots and more muffled screaming from outside.
Johns could feel someone come over to him and start rummaging through his pockets. The key. They were going to open the door.
Johns forced himself to gather the strength to open his eyelids if even the slightest amount. His vision was diminished due to malnutrition and everything looked blurry. But he could see the people inside of the bunker fiddling with the door. What were they doing? He wanted to scream at them and tell them not to let the helldogs in.
There was arguing. Confusion. Johns couldn’t make out what was happening over by the door but he could tell that people were angry.
Eventually, they figured out how the door worked, and the heavy metal bunker doors parted, with a deep vibration sound, and light crept through the door. The light grew. It grew until it overtook his entire vision. It was the brightest light that any of them had seen in over a month, in the dark reaches of the Kazi Depot bunker. Everything was white, and Johns felt an ease come over him. Maybe death had come after all.
Then, slowly, his eyes adjusted to the new light source and he could make out an armored suit silhouette standing in the bunker doorway. It was the last thing Johns saw before he passed out.
Chapter 29
A hospital bed, somewhere
Fading in was a lot like fading out. There were bits and pieces. Questions that he had asked. Answers that he thought he had received. Dreams that made it hard to tell what had been real and what had happened in his mind.
He had been drugged pretty heavily, that much was apparent, as even the flashes he could remember were tainted and cloudy with the haze of narcotics he had been pumped with. He had known that he had woken up many times and had conversations with people, but how many, he had no idea.
Over time, the fade-ins became more frequent. He started to remember more of his interactions. Nurses. They were definitely nurses. And doctors. And…Sara! He vaguely remembered talking to Sara. And Anna, but he couldn’t be certain if he had dreamt it. When he dreamt of Rick he became more certain that he had, in fact, not seen Anna. In his few moments of clarity he wondered if he might still be dying, his brain firing on all cylinders and showing him anyone that meant anything to him before he left this plane.
Then there was an older bearded man. Johns couldn’t recall his conversations with him, but he knew that there had been several.
One time, Johns woke with more energy and wiped his eyes and sat up.
“Mr. Johns,” a nurse that had walked in holding a tablet said. The room that he was in was unmistakable as a hospital room. His bed was big and comfy. The walls were completely white and windowless. It was sterile as sterile could be. “It’s good to see you sitting up. Welcome back.”
“Sara,” Johns was able to croak. “Sara.”
The nurse came over and placed a new pillow behind Johns’ head. “Yes. Well, Like I’ve told you many times before, Mr. Johns, Sara has also gone through the decontamination process and is doing fine and has been discharged,” she said. “I’ll send for Mr. Covingo to get you up to speed again.”
Johns could feel the light enter his heart again. Sara had survived. Against all odds, she had made it. Even after giving up her seat on the OCN Capela to return home. That’s right. The Capela. The children.
“And the kids? The ones on the Capela?” Johns asked, his voice scratchy. It hurt to even attempt to talk.
“You’ll be happy to know that they are alive and well, Mr. Johns. They were intercepted by a navy ship and went through the decontamination process and have been shuttled down to Osara Prime.”
Johns nodded. At least they had managed to save some of them.
Johns chugged several glasses of water from the pitcher sitting on his bedside table in an attempt to relive his dry throat. A few minutes later, the bearded man from Johns’ dreams appeared in his hospital room doorward. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had had a drink, but it felt like weeks.
“Mr. Nicholas Johns,” the said with a big smile on his face. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Again, I assume that means that we have met before.”
“Oh, yes. A few times. I didn’t expect you to remember, you were still pretty groggy from the treatments.”
“Treatments? Johns asked. “What are you, a doctor?”
“No, I am not the doctor. I can go get one if you would like. I’m told that you are fine though. In another few weeks, you’ll be back to full strength. You had a hell of a case of pneumonia and serious malnutrition. You were also severely dehydrated, but that goes without saying. You have some kidney damage, but other than that it seems that you will be fine. Do you need me to get the doctor to have him explain things?”
“No that’s fine. But I do want to know who you are,” Johns said, sitting up in bed. “And where am I? And when I can leave?”
“The doctor will have to make that call. But you are on a ship, so you’ll have to wait until we are at a port to go much of anywhere.”
“So where are we? Are we headed back to Osara Prime?”
“No, I am afraid that we are not headed back to Osara Prime. In fact, we are no longer in the Osara System, as we transported through the ring gate to the Vanna System several weeks ago.”
“Vanna? What? Why are we headed up the branch? Who are you?” Johns asked.
“This might come as a shock, but I am Squad Leader Richard Covinga of Ellex Security in the Osara System, and we are headed for the Sol System.
“Ellex Security?…Wait…SOL SYSTEM?”
“Yes, Ellex Corporation’s security group. You’ve heard of us, right?.” the bearded man said. It went without saying. Everyone knew about Ellex Corp and their security team. They ran the entire ring gate network.
“You were the ones that rescued us from the bunker?” Johns asked, confused.
“We were, yes.”
“But why?”
“Well…your messages managed to make their way out of the Osara System, despite Raymond Duke pausing all communications transport ships through the ring gate. The messages made it all the way back to the High Council in the Sol System, in fact. And we received orders from them to save anyone down in that bunker that had survived the alien attack. But they were most interested in you specifically, and once we found you alive, we were asked to bring you back to The Core to meet with them.”
“The High Council? Of the whole damn federation? You mean that High Council?” Johns asked, exasperated.
“Yep, the very same,” the man said with a big smile. “This is the third time I’ve told you this and every time you have that same shocked look on your face.”
“But why?” Johns asked, confused. Maybe he wasn’t fully out of his narcotic haze yet. What would the High Council want with him?
“Well…I don’t want to speak out of turn. They didn’t tell us their reasoning. But The Vore landing on Kazi has been big news across the federation. Absolutely huge. Everyone is talking about it. And about your transmissions from the planet, and how Raymond Duke had left everyone there to die. I assume they’d like to talk to you about that.”
Johns wasn’t going to be speaking with Anna anytime soon.
