The Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boat cut through the water at a stately twenty knots. She was capable of double that speed but Leading Seaman Catherine Halsey was trying to keep the Juliet 3 from bouncing too much on the water. With each jolt the small boat took the injured able seaman sprawled on the deck in front of her moaned in pain.
Catherine tried not to look at Seaman Hurst. There were pieces of the dash embedded in his forearm and going right up to his shoulder and chest. He was trying to pull the pieces out and bandage his arm at the same time but it proving too much for him. Catherine had offered to bandage the wound for him but slowing the boat was something that neither of them wanted to do.
She replayed the mission in her mind again trying, desperate to piece together what had happened and when it had all turned wrong. Her ship, the HMAS Albany, had been conducting routine Civil Surveillance Program work when they had picked up, on radar, a vessel adrift just over the horizon. They had steamed towards it and then launched one of the two Juliet 3 RHIB’s with herself in charge of the five other sailors who would make up her boarding team. As they had travelled at forty knots to the distant vessel Albany had tried to contact it with no success.
As Catherine had drawn closer to the mystery ship they could see that she was an old eighty foot yacht, rusted and weather beaten, with no identification marks on her and flying no flag. From the rear of the boat they could see that her engines were still running - a slow, steady chug that kept her moving in a steady south-easterly direction. The thoughts that raced through Catherine’s head ranged from drug runner to people smuggler.
She circled two hundred metres away from the vessel, as one of her men hailed the boat over the loud speaker. Seaman Kane was looking through a pair of binoculars at the vessel. The other’s kept their F88’s trained on the silent boat.
“No signs of any life on board.” Kane said. “Looks like some damage to the hull and superstructure. Looks like someone went to it with a sledgehammer. She’s sitting a little low in the water too.”
“Must have taken some water on board.” Catherine said.
Catherine called back to the Albany to get further instructions and was rewarded with orders to board the vessel. She didn’t like it. She could feel in the pit of her stomach that something was wrong.
“Eyes on, guys. We’re going in.” She called to the others.
She pulled RHIB up to the stern matching her speed. While the others covered him one of the sailors used a boat hook to grab onto a railing and then tied a line onto a cleat, securing the RHIB to the old boat.
Nothing moved on board as the first sailor stepped across.
“Jesus Christ.” He muttered as he moved forward.
“Kill the engines.” Catherine ordered as the others moved aboard.
The sailor climbed a ladder to the pilot house and shut down the engines. Catherine stayed with the RHIB until the engines shut down and then moved across. Her F88 was tucked tightly into her shoulder as she stepped aboard. She looked down to the deck.
“Oh my God.” She said softly. The deck was covered in blood. Black pools of half dried blood that stuck to the soles of their shoes and squelched with every step.
Able Seaman Curtis Little had been the second sailor on board. He had raced inside with Seaman Parks behind him. “It’s the same in here, Halsey. Blood everywhere, no bodies, lots of damage. Holes everywhere; like Kane said.”
“Tossed overboard?” Seaman Hurst ventured. He looked nervous and Catherine didn’t blame him.
“Pirates maybe?” Little added.
“We’re in Australian waters.” Catherine said. “Damned cocky pirates if they pushed this far into our territory.”
“Who the hell knows how long the old girl has been adrift.” Little said.
Catherine lifted her boot. “The blood is still wet, Little. No, this happened not long ago. Maybe even this morning.”
“HALSEY.” The call came from below decks. Seaman Parks had gone down with Little when they had first boarded. He appeared behind Little, white-faced and shaking. “Cathy, you gotta see this.” He raced back down the stairs and then stopped and turned around. “I warn you though, it ain’t pretty.”
Catherine felt her stomach turn and pointed to the two men forward. “You two get up to the pilot house and keep an eye out, try and get the radio up and running and call Albany and tell her what we have so far. Little, you and Kane stay on the after deck and watch the stairs here. Parks let’s go.”
Parks led her forward. The yacht had once been quite luxurious. There was wood panelling along the walls and bamboo flooring, all that was pitted and scarred now. An L shaped leather lounge was in the centre of the room cracked with stuffing spilling out of the seams. Weak sunlight leaked through salt stained windows and illuminated the splashes of blood that covered everything. Catherine could see the holes punched through the walls. She went over to one and looked through it to the ocean outside. It was possible that the hole was caused by some sort of light calibre cannon. The walls were only fibreglass, anything over and including 5.56mm would punch straight through them with no worries and continue out the other side. None of the holes seemed to match up though. She saw Parks waiting at the top of some stairs and went to join him.
As she walked off she stepped on something lying on the ground, covered in blood and hidden amongst the gore. She stooped and picked it up in a gloved hand. It was a starfish. No species that she recognised, but she was hardly an expert in marine life. It was five pointed with long narrow fingers. The tips of which were as sharp as spear points. Looking now she could see that there were several of them lying around. Parks noted her interest.
“There’s a couple of them down here too.” He pointed with his rifle down the stairs. “Must have been some sort of reef survey boat.”
Catherine nodded and dropped the starfish. Parks led her down another flight of stairs to a kitchen. There were pots and cutlery strewn all over the floor, as if the ship had weathered a storm with nothing tied down. In here there was no blood and a weak 60watt bulb struggled to keep the shadows at bay.
“The light was on when I came down.” Parks explained. “I don’t want to sound like a wimp or anything Cathy, but I was starting to freak out by now. Little had gone back upstairs. He wouldn’t admit but I think he was more scared then me. Anyway I pushed on and found this.”
At the rear of the kitchen hidden in the shadows was a cool room. It was like a thousand others that Catherine had seen on any number of vessels and kitchens the world over. Parks pulled open the door and flicked a switch on the wall to activate the cool room’s light.
“Oh Jesus,” Catherine lurched backward and covered her mouth with a hand. She turned away and Parks killed the lights and shut the door.
“Three of them in there. Blood was still a little tacky too. It can’t be the whole crew. I reckon that after these ones were killed, the survivors put them in there to stop them decomposing while they made for land.”
“The heads?”
Parks shrugged. “Didn’t see them but didn’t really look either. My reaction was much like yours. I only stayed around long enough to make a count.”
“It must have been pirates. Attacked once and killed those three poor souls and then later came for the rest.” Catherine keyed her radio. “Hurst,” she called one of the two men in the pilot house. “How far away from land are we?”
“Two hundred clicks,” was the scratchy reply, “give or take.”
“Start the engines and turn us towards the Albany. Take us to her at best speed.”
“Roger that.”
Catherine composed herself and then left the kitchen, Parks followed.
“Halsey, it’s Kane. Little and I have found something that you may wanna see.”
Catherine grimaced with the thought of more dead bodies and she felt bile rise in her throat. This was clearly a boat of horrors and something terrible had happened here. She thought that maybe she should clear her guys out and stay off the ship until authorities arrived in case they were disturbing evidence. She dismissed that thought, her crew were well trained in these situations and this wasn’t the first time they had entered a ship with a murdered crew. This time things were just more gruesome and Catherine knew the nightmares from here would last a little longer than most.
“We’re on our way up.” She answered as the engines caught and the boat started moving again. As she ascended the stairs she felt Hurst start turning the boat and the chug of the engines evened out.
“Four knots.” Hurst called over the radio. “That’s our best speed.”
“I could get out and swim faster.” Parks mumbled behind her.
Catherine exited out into the sunshine and fresh air and let both warm her. She took several deep breathes and then turned to where Kane was waiting. He and Little had moved forward towards the prow, where the once pristine foredeck had no doubt entertained bikini clad beauties as they lounged on beach towels and tanned their bodies, while sipping chilled drinks.
Now there was nothing but a long rust coloured stain of blood. It looked like someone had been murdered here and then dragged back through a door in the hull. Of the door itself, there was nothing left. It had been ripped out of the frame, jagged scraps of wood on rusting hinges was all that remained of it. Catherine walked closer to the open doorway and peered around the edge, trying not to block the sunlight that was the only source of light.
She pulled her head back and looked to the Kane and Little. “You’re kidding me.”
“Looks legit to me.” Little muttered.
“And you’re an expert are you?” Kane retorted.
Little said nothing and Catherine looked in again and shook her head. “So we have some crazy cult thing here. Black candles and pentagrams.”
“Maybe they tried to sacrifice someone and they didn’t agree and went Charles Manson on them.” Kane offered.
“Hannibal Lecter more like it.” Parks said. He had moved into the room, stepping carefully past the candles arrayed on the floor and the blood that covered the inscribed pentagram. In the centre of the pentagram were the remains of a heart. Parks pulled a torch off his vest and shined it on the organ.
Catherine didn’t want to look but knelt down and looked closer at the heart in the beam of Parks’ light. Catherine sighed and nearly laughed.
“It’s a cow’s heart,” She said. “Some Satanists these guys are. They probably just came out here to get some practice away from prying eyes. ”
“So did some crazy Christian right wing group follow them out and kill them? Seems a little thin.” Kane said dryly.
With a screech of stressed fibreglass the boat pitched forward, spilling Catherine onto the floor and throwing Parks against the wall. Kane and Little were pitched onto the deck. Water splashed around them as the boat floundered. Everyone was talking at once.
“Shut up.” Catherine ordered. “Hurst, what the hell just happened?”
“Did you just hit a sand bar?” Little added.
“No.” Hurst replied. “We’re in over two-hundred feet of water. The engines are red lining but all our forward momentum has just stopped. I’m gunna shut them down before the engines seize.”
“Do it.” Catherine said.
The engines died, their steady beat was replaced by the sound of water lapping against the hull. A gentle wind blew in from the west, it carried the smell of rain, yet the sky was still clear. Catherine swiped at the blood that had stained her sleeve when she fallen over. She could feel its stickiness through to her skin and hated the feel.
“Alright listen up. We may have hit something submerged below the surface. Kane, take Little and Parks and go back to the Albany and return with some scuba gear and a cutting torch just in case we’ve snagged some sort of cable. Hurst, call the Albany and tell what’s happened and what we’re doing. Oh and ask her to hurry up.”
Catherine walked back with Kane and the others to the RHIB.
“Don’t take all day, boys.” She chided as Kane stepped across to the smaller boat. He almost had his foot down on the decking when something shot from the water between the two vessels and embedded deep into the back of his thigh. He barely had enough time to register the pain before the object swelled and then exploded taking a huge chunk of his leg away in the blast.
Kane roared in pain and Parks and Catherine grabbed his vest and hauled him back onto the yacht. A huge chunk of his thigh was gone and blood spurted from the wound.
“What the hell!” Little shouted.
“Grab his leg.” Catherine yelled. “That’s his femoral artery going. Grab it Parks, keep pressure on it.” New blood stained the deck as Kane continued to cry out.
Hurst and the other sailor leaned down from the pilot house to see what had happened. Something struck the man next to Hurst. He made a quiet gagging sound before his head exploded from his shoulders. Hurst was sprayed with blood and brain. The body-less head sailed out over the side of the boat and splashed into the ocean as the body fell from the pilot house and thumped onto the deck below right next to Catherine. She screamed and fell sideways.
Parks cursed.
Little was clutching something at his chest. Catherine saw it just as it exploded. The blast tore open his chest, bending back his ribs and reducing his sternum to fragments. He fell slowly backwards over the rail and into the water below. Catherine raced to the rail and looked overboard. The water had turned red and she could see Little’s body sinking through the crimson stain.
Parks had his rifle raised to his shoulder jerking left and right pointing the weapon towards the ocean. There was a flash of sunlight and water and a barbed projectile embedded itself into the structure just to the right of Parks head. Catherine saw it clearly, it looked like a barbed shard of bone, brilliant white and curled, like the sort of thing you would see coming from the forehead of a unicorn. Then it uncurled itself and in the blink of an eye it popped open flat, resembling the starfish she had picked up earlier. It sent a flurry of splinters zinging through the air. Parks caught most of them along his neck and shoulder. He cried out even as he fired his rifle out towards the open water.
Hurst pulled Catherine to her feet.
“Come on. We have to get to the Juliet.” He nearly tossed her into the RHIB. “Parks, move.” Hurst jumped over the gunwale and landed in the navy vessel. Parks was a second behind him. Catherine was at the throttles, she started and boat.
“Kane!” She cried out.
“Dead.”
“Blast us free.” She pointed at the rope securing the two boats together.
Parks screamed in fury as he blasted at the cleat that Little had tied them to. The wood splintered and was chewed away. As soon as the cleat popped free Catherine pushed the throttle forward and the Juliet 3 craft surged forward throwing Parks and Hurst back against seats.
“What the hell is that?” Hurst said pointing aft.
Catherine dared to turn her head and saw the ocean behind their wake was being churned as if something large was charging just under the surface of the water.
“Faster, Halsey.” Hurst cried out.
Parks was on his feet again and fired the remainder of his clip into the surging water.
Something shot past Catherine’s head and shattered the windscreen. The glass blew back into her face and cut her cheek. She cursed.
Parks grunted. He turned to Catherine. She looked at the bloody stain on his chest “I’m okay. It just winged me.” He smiled and then the projectile burst open. He fell from the RHIB and disappeared in the boats wake.
Hurst took up his F88 and blasted at the water. Catherine pushed the little boat up to its max speed of forty knots. Whatever was behind them started to fall back. A projectile struck the dash, swelled and then exploded. Halsey was able to duck the worst of it. Hurst caught pieces of shrapnel across his chest and shoulder. He screamed and went down on the deck.
Catherine shook herself out of her reverie. Almost all her men were dead and Hurst was badly wounded. She had to get back to the Albany. She had tried to raise them earlier but the blast that wounded Hurst had destroyed the radio. At least whatever it was that had attacked them was gone.
Halsey could not even begin to wonder what had attacked them. She felt weak and light headed; the adrenalin was all that had kept her going through the last five minutes. Now it was starting to wear off and noticed her right arm felt heavy. She looked down and saw a credit card sized piece of the dash was sticking out of her forearm.
She slowed the boat and bought it to a stop. The waves splashed against the hull. Hurst had fallen silent; he was still awake and looked up at Halsey.
“What’s wrong?” He croaked out.
“Feel weak. I’ve been hit.” Catherine moved forward and took the seat next to Hurst. She took up a first aid kit and started to treat Hurst’s wound. He stopped her when she tried to remove his shirt.
“It hurts too much.” He explained. “What was that thing?”
She shook her head. She had no answer and couldn’t find the energy to speak. Hurst didn’t press.
“Albany is on her way.” Catherine said when she was finished treating her wound. She didn’t mean too but soon she was asleep.
***
Kane floated in the water, just under the surface. The blood from his wound trailed like mist around his body. He had been plucked from the deck by the very creature that had killed him. It was suspended in the water in front of him and it studied the dead man curiously. A slender, snake-like tentacle reached out. It stopped in front of his chest and then split into several fine cilia that dexterously undid the buckles to his combat vest and, with the aid of another tentacle, removed the garment and the shirt underneath undoing each button carefully. Stripped to the waist now, the creature studied the contours of the human’s body. Kane had been the ship’s athlete, a regular ironman competitor, and it showed in his physique.
A dark shape flicked at the corner of the creatures vision. It turned from Kane and studied the area where it had seen the shadow. It appeared again, narrow, cylindrical and fast and then darted away. If it had had them the creature would’ve cocked an eyebrow at the shark as it circled around both itself and Kane’s corpse. Though everything on this world was strange and surreal it had encountered the sharks before this moment and feared nothing from the slender animal. It turned its attention back to Kane.
Another tentacle moved towards the lifeless seaman. This tentacle split apart to reveal a thin razor sharp scalpel of bone that deftly cut the human from groin to throat. Blood flowed into the water, swirling with the current. The wound turned white as the ocean swept the blood away. With the aid of the waters buoyancy him his entrails did not fall out until the creature slashed a lateral line across his stomach and then peeled the loose skin open.
The shark, a large twelve foot tiger, swam closer. It was nervous of the strange beast in the water but the smell of the blood was driving it into a frenzy.
With a surgeon’s touch the creatures removed the organs that seemed to litter the human’s insides. Again, had it been capable, the creature would’ve frowned. Its gaze swept the water around it. The shark was closer now easily within reach of its tentacles but it did not strike. It pushed the human towards it, knowing that that was what the slender ocean dweller wanted. The shark struck with gusto and was soon joined by others that the creature had not seen. They seemed to ignore it and that was fine with the creature. Hovering in the water it watched for several seconds as the sharks made short work of the dead human, a ripple passing through its mottled skin. And then the creature moved quickly away, feeling not for the first time, a dread of the strange surroundings it had found itself in.
***
The sun was arching towards the horizon when Catherine awoke. She cursed herself for sleeping but admitted that she had badly needed it. Hurst was asleep. She checked his pulse it was steady and strong. She sighed and went back to the controls. She started the boat and took off heading southeast to the shore. She checked her watch. The Albany was late but Catherine had fallen asleep and not secured the boat in any way. She checked the GPS and knew that they had drifted several miles off the course that they had told the Albany that they were headed. But still the Armidale class vessel had great radar and they should have spotted them. Catherine added power to the boat and took off at her maximum speed towards the coast.
She figured that if she could get to land she would be able to treat Hurst’s wounds and then try to fix the radio without the worry of a further attack from whatever it was that had pursued them. The Juliet 3 had plenty of fuel for the trip and she opened the throttles to try and shorten the trip time. The bouncing of the boat woke Hurst but he didn’t cry out when they topped some high waves and crashed back down into the ocean.
It took thirty minutes to reach the coast. Catherine found a stretch of open beach and ran the RHIB right up the sand. The boat slammed to a halt and she jumped out with her F88 and quickly scanned the beach.
The area was deserted. Twenty feet up the beach the sand ended and a thick forest of ferns and towering eucalypts took over. She could barely see three feet into the forest but she was hardly concerned with whatever lay within there. She turned back to the ocean, apart from the gentle lap of the waves on the beach the water was still and quiet. Catherine lowered the rifle. Hurst had left the boat and stood on the sand next to her.
“I never even saw it.” He said, staring out over the water. “All I saw was the water churning.”
Catherine couldn’t find any answer for him. She turned to the boat. “I have to check the radio, try to raise the Albany. You should rest.”
Hurst shook his head. “No, I can’t. I can’t get that thing out of my head. I’m going to check around the point.” He pointed to a finger of headland that jutted out from the beach. It was rocky ground covered with a few bushes.
“Hey,” Catherine called out as he started to walk away. “Take your weapon and keep in touch.”
He nodded and took his F88 from the boat. The Juliet 3 had a small box with eight magazines for the rifles in it. He took a fresh one and loaded it into the rifle, placing his empty one on a seat.
She looked at the dash. It was in ruin and she had no idea how to repair the radio, she couldn’t even find the receiver. She checked the GPS, it was working so she knew where they were. It was just that they were in the middle of nowhere. She sighed and took a seat.
“Halsey.” The cry from Hurst had her on her feet in a second. She could see him standing on the rocks on the point. He was waving frantically and pointing at something beyond her line of vision. He seemed excited. She snatched up the rifle and hurried to the point.
“Halsey, look in the water. You’re not going to believe this.”
Catherine scrambled up the rocks and stood beside Hurst. She looked out where he was pointing. Half in the water, embedded into the sand was a vessel, a ship, a UFO, Catherine couldn’t name the object. It looked like a ship, like the Albany, but longer, wider with a blunted bow and a higher conning tower. That tower was damaged. It was heavily dented and there were torn sheets of metal hanging from the superstructure. There had been a fire. The steel was scorched and in places looked melted.
“That thing was an alien.” Hurst said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“What?” Catherine shot back.
“Alien, Cathy. Look at that ship. It’s a UFO. The thing that attacked us was a goddamned alien.”
“No.” She protested. “They don’t exist.” Her voice trailed off.
“Cathy, how else do you explain that thing this morning? It shot exploding starfish at us. Whatever it was it wasn’t from here.” He started to walk down the beach towards the vessel.
“Hurst!” Catherine called out. She looked around the beach and then hurried after him.
The vessel seemed larger up close. There were scorch marks along her hull and rents and dents in the armour plating. Impacting the water had caused her hull to buckle and around the water where the ship sat was a ring of black scum that looked like oil and smelt like sulphur.
“Christ Hurst, let’s get out here.” Catherine called out as the sailor climbed up what could have been a wing.
“There’s a door here. A hatch, it’s been opened.” He disappeared inside.
Catherine sighed and followed him up the wing. She stalled at the door and then went in after she heard Hurst banging around inside.
“What are you doing?” she called out.
“Check this out. That door leads right to the bridge.”
Catherine walked in and found Hurst standing over a set of blacked out controls. Everything here was shattered, glass lay all over the floor, at least Catherine thought it was glass. Looking around she could identify a few things on the bridge.
“Navigation.” She pointed to a flat table in the centre of the room. “Conn, over there. It looks a little like that Yank carrier I served on in ’05.”
“Maybe they copied the design.” Hurst said joking.
Catherine didn’t answer. In all truth she was scared out her mind. She was standing on the bridge of an alien ship. Something that was actually capable of space flight. She felt her stomach lurch and turned and went outside to get some fresh air.
Hurst followed her. He seemed to come alive with the idea of the alien and Catherine could see the excitement in his eyes. She couldn’t share it with him. She stood on the wing of the spaceship and took in a lungful of fresh air. She stared out to the ocean trying to get some sort of calm and sense from the scene of water and sun before her but the waves splashing against the hull of this mysterious and alien ship interrupted her thoughts and bought her back to the harsh reality that she was standing on something that really shouldn’t exist. That her mind told her shouldn’t exist.
A splash and flicker of movement caught her eye. She looked to the ocean and could see dark shapes in the water. In an instant she dropped to her knee and bought her rifle to bear, Startled Hurst did the same though his barrel flicked around as he tried to see the target that Catherine had.
“Sharks” Catherine said with an explosive sigh. “Jesus, I thought it was that thing.”
Hurst could see it now. “Must be a whale out there. They’re in a full frenzy.” He stood up, relaxing. “We better get back to the RHIB.” He suggested.
Catherine nodded. She couldn’t have agreed more but kept her thoughts silent. The pair stepped off the alien craft and onto the beach. Catherine was a step behind Hurst but suddenly had a compulsion to turn around and walk to the other side of the ship.
“Hurst, I just wanna...” she didn’t finish the sentence as she turned around and walked around the buried nose of the vessel. Hurst followed.
“Son of a bitch...” Hurst swore as the rounded the heaped sand and came across the far side of the ship.
This time when Catherine’s stomach lurched she couldn’t stop it and vomited on the sand.
There were four creatures on the beach. They looked flat, deflated. Birds had pecked at them; the flesh was clearly poisonous as dead seagulls littered the sand, their feathers ruffling in the slight breeze.
Covering them with his rifle Hurst walked closer. He fired two shots into the closest one and got no reaction from it. They were clearly dead, perhaps killed in the crash. Catherine voiced the thought.
“And then laid out here.” Hurst said. “They look like some sort of mental squid. Just more eyes, less tentacles.”
Catherine wanted more than ever to be away from here. Clearly something had survived the crash. It had attacked them and had laid out its fallen comrades neatly on the sand. “There’s a camera in the Juliet 3. I’m going to get it.”
“Holy crap Halsey, we’re going to be famous.” Hurst could hardly contain himself now.
Catherine turned on him. “Will you shut up, Hurst. For god’s sake. That thing is still out there, the Juliet doesn’t have the fuel to get us anywhere useful and the radio’s dead so we can’t raise the Albany and tell her where we are. I’ll be happy and share the fame when I’m well away from here and somewhere safe. For now though, I’m frightened; for the situation and our lives.”
Hurst had the decency, in Catherine’s mind at any rate, to look abashed. “Sorry Halsey, I got a little carried away there. Maybe we should light a fire. If the Albany is paying attention she has to check out any smoke she sees.”
Catherine almost cried in relief. It was true and she hadn’t even thought about it. Whenever any navy vessel saw smoke they had to check it out.
“Good thinking, Hurst. Are you alright to gather some wood?” She pointed at his injured arm.
“Cathy, I’m so pumped up that I could do anything now.” He half saluted and walked towards the tree line.
Catherine waited until he entered the tree line and then turned back to where the Juliet 3 was beached. She climbed the rocks and instantly dropped to her stomach. Her breath, a second ago normal was now coming in short, fast gasps. She had heard stories of soldiers that when under fire had their faces planted so far into the dirt that they could dig a foxhole with their eyelids, Catherine felt like that now, like her eyebrows should be scraping at the barnacled rock to dig a hole to somewhere where this thing wasn’t.
It was at the RHIB, and Hurst was right, it did look like some mental squid. She nearly laughed at the absurdity of the creature. It looked gangly and boneless. With her fear fighting her she raised her head so her eyes were just peering over the edge of the rocks. The thing was straddling the Juliet 3, looking down on it. One tentacle arm was flicking though the items stored on board, shaking things and tossing aside or bringing them closer to its eyes for a better look. Catherine tried to count the eyes but stopped at five.
Up the beach Hurst dropped his first load of wood on the ground.
The alien’s head shot up and it seemed to lurch/walk along the sand, up the beachhead to where Hurst was stacking his logs. Catherine watched it, frozen in place, unable to move or scream a warning. She didn’t need to. Hurst had seen her lying on the rocks and shifted his rifle from his back to tuck it into his shoulder.
Catherine plucked the courage to point where the creature was and Hurst turned towards the dune that hid it from his view. Seeing her teammate in imminent danger spurned her into action, keeping low she moved off the rocks and with her F88 in one hand she monkey walked along the beachhead, steadying herself with her free hand.
Hurst was crouched, one foot tucked underneath him, the other knee up with his rifle resting on it. He scanned the dune. Catherine took up a position twenty metres away from him to his right. She was behind some grassy dunes lying prone with her rifle wedged into her shoulder, her left hand gripping the butt to hold the rifle steady.
They waited.
They didn’t wait long.
The alien emerged from the dune in a rush. It moved so awkwardly. In a heartbeat Catherine realised that this creature did not belong in open air. Waves crashed behind her. It belonged in the water.
Hurst and the alien fired together. Hurst’s rifle barked; the alien’s tentacle arm gave a soft whoosh that was all but drowned out by the louder staccato of the human weapon. Catherine fired a second after Hurst.
Through the sight she saw the creature buck and jerk and clear, thick liquid jetted from its body. It made no sound. The air fell silent, the echo of the shots faded and with a sound like tearing canvas; Hurst exploded. Catherine watched as pieces of him rained onto the sand. The alien fell and then rose again and loped for the ship. It ran past Catherine, passing within a few feet of her, but if it saw her it didn’t react. It raced for the ship, scrambled up the wing and vanished into the darkness beyond the hatch.
Within her mind Catherine was screaming at herself to run for the Juliet 3, to turn, flee and disappear into the jungle.
It made sense.
But Catherine couldn’t take her eyes off Hurst. His mangled remains lay in a pool of blood stained sand and already birds were descending for a feast. Catherine looked at the spaceship, at the darkened hatch.
She stood up and followed the creature in.
The corridor seemed darker this time. She stayed by the door to let her eyes adjust to the dim conditions and then slowly entered. She walked towards the bridge, but the alien was not there. On the floor was a trail of thick liquid. It looked like clear jelly. She toed it and saw that it was one of several pools that led out of the bridge through another door that they hadn’t seen when she and Hurst had first came in.
This corridor was dark and narrow and she had to stoop to follow it. The walls were wet but not with the creature’s clear blood, though that was dripped along the floor. Catherine stopped. The bridge was open to the air, the hatch and the broken screens. It had dried out. This corridor had been sealed. When in space, this ship was filled with water, like a human ship would be filled with oxygen. It needed to get to the ocean to survive. A place where the chances of ever finding it were virtually non-existent. Catherine started moving again, hurrying along the narrow crawlspace. It emerged into a large room, an empty space. A cargo hold? No, there were items along the walls, dispensaries. It was the mess hall.
The alien lay on the floor, towards the rear wall. It had tried to open another hatchway but had lacked the strength and collapsed, a pool of clear fluid expanding around it. It raised a tentacle to Catherine and weakly waved it from side to side when she raised her rifle. Catherine watched it as it shifted a second appendage from under its body; she tucked the rifle harder into her shoulder. With effort the alien bought the other tentacle up. Within the grip of several fine cilia was a device that resembled and iPad. It dropped it on the floor and then flicked it towards her.
Catherine shot it. She emptied her magazine into the creature. Clear blood splashed the walls and deepened the pool on the floor. The sounds of the rifle echoed in the chamber.
Catherine stood, surrounded by the reek of burnt carbon. Slowly she lowered the rifle. She looked to the pad on the floor by her feet; she stooped and picked it up.
Strange glyphs and rune-like figures scrolled across the screen. It was the same phrase repeated over and over again. The device clicked and Catherine dropped it in fright. It clattered on the floor, landing face up. Catherine knelt down beside it. The phrase now appeared in English. Catherine picked up the pad again. It was hard to read, the language confused. She read it twice to be certain and then lowered the pad and dropped it to the deck. She turned and left the hall, exited the ship and went and sat by the Juliet 3 and wept. Around the point the Albany appeared.
In the mess hall the pad blinked three times. It flashed the message.
I AM APOLOGY RESCUE ME DO NOT WANT DEATH
TELL MY POD MESSAGE LOVE THEM
And then turned itself off.
