Hidden Death (part 2)

“You must die.” It said in a high matter-of-fact voice, a soft voice that belonged to a child rather than to a monster. “I wish you a better death than your friend. He deserved as much pain as I could give him; you deserve little. However, this universe is unfair, so you both will receive the same punishment.”

Hoshea was too stunned to speak. The only thing he could think of was how strange it was that an alien spoke his language; he just stood and waited for it to take him.

Shane leapt out of the darkness beyond, smacking into Hoshea and continuing on through a door on the opposite side of the hallway. The green light struck forward, missing them by a meter or less. The stream followed them, and so did the creature, clicking along, emitting a soft hiss. Shane hurled Hoshea to his feet and shoved him forward, “Run, don’t gawk! One hit from that blast, no matter where, and you’re dead. I’ve seen it four times now. On all your crew members.”

“You mean…” Hoshea could bring himself to say the rest. Shane hurried him along into another doorway, “Yes, captain, they are all dead.”

Hoshea tripped and fell to his knees. All, his entire crew. The clicking clacked out behind them. Shane hit Hoshea over the head lightly. “Get up, captain! Don’t let it catch up to us!”

Hoshea shook his head, the pain of the blow bringing him back to his senses. “What is going on? What is this thing?”

“It calls itself a stelloid,” Shane said grimly. “Its ship came out of space two days ago and radioed the ASA saying it wished to open negotiations with our people. Naturally, the ASA was excited at the prospect of a new alien species. They agreed and decided to wait to tell anyone about this new creature until this ‘negotiation’ closed. This diplomatic ship came out and allowed this Stelloid to come aboard. They said it had come aboard and said they would radio us again after hearing what it had to say. It spoke excellent English.”

Another light stream, striking greenish scorch marks from the far wall. They kept running; they were nearly at where the Void Crosser had docked. Shane finished his tale as they ran, “The last communication we received was a few hours later, they said they’d opened negotiations and that there was a whole bunch of these aliens, and it was their spokesperson. It wanted something in return for a lot it could give us, all sorts of advanced tech. It hadn’t actually said outright what it wanted, though. My guess is it was kind of ‘leading up to that’. That is the last we heard. The ASA sent here to find out what went wrong and recover the alien species before anything could harm it. If it was the alien responsible, I was to find a copy of the tape of those conversations so we could know what happened.”

Hoshea came up panting at the Void Crosser’s door. He slid it open and stepped inside. He wanted to ask plenty of questions but couldn’t settle on any one. It didn’t seem like an appropriate time anyway. Shane nodded. “Keep the ship ready. If you have to leave without me, do so. I have to finish my mission.”

“What? We need to leave.” Hoshea heard the thing coming and began to panic.

“I still have to find that alien entity; this beastly metal thing doesn’t match the description. The only thing I can figure, is that maybe a new menace landed on the ship. Either way, I don’t have any kind of tape. You wait for me.”

Despite his fear, Hoshea straightened up, “I’m coming with you! I’ll help you finish your mission.”

Shane’s eyes flared, “No! I’ll do this alone! It won’t be able to find me. I don’t need your help, Captain! Now stay here, that is an order.” He closed the door on Hoshea and left him standing in the pool of light from the Void Crosser’s cockpit. With the docking door sealed, there was no way for that creature to know he was in here. Hoshea reached forward and locked the door so no one could open it from the other side. He still panicked. What if it found him, what if it did to him what it had done to the rest of his crew?

Simply remembering the rest of his crew’s fate made his knees weak. It didn’t make sense, it didn’t fit into the world that he understood, it was a strange outside thing invading his universe. Anderson couldn’t be dead. Surely not Warder, or Haris, or Kyle. They were all still in there waiting for him to fly them away.

The strange voice, the strange, deadly words: it was something else. The creature was different than anything the ASA had faced; it made Hoshea’s blood chill just thinking about it. The clicking sound greeted his ears. It moved down the hallway, slowly stalking Shane. Leaving Hoshea behind to hide, leaving Hoshea to stay on the ship, staying safe while Shane was out there risking his life.

The soft beeping emanated from Stelloid as it stood in the hall waiting. Hoshea listened carefully; it was the same beeping that had come from the creature right after it had killed Kyle. Why did the beeping sound so familiar? It was kind of like a life signs detector, but the stelloid couldn’t have one of those… could it? The beeping had come just after Kyle had died, just before Shane had arrived. It can track us, Hoshea realized in a panic. It could have easily broken into the life signs tracker system in the ship; now it could easily hunt Shane down. The Stelloid couldn’t sense Hoshea because he was in a different ship, the Void Crosser, rather than the cruiser.

The Commander can’t hide from this, Hoshea thought, pacing the small space as the Stelloid moved away. He needs to know what the Stelloid has, how it tracked us down so easily!

Hoshea slid the door open after turning the Void Crosser’s lights out. He stepped out into the hallway, glancing both ways like it was a street and he was seven. He hoisted his radial-21 to his shoulder and pointed it across his path; the light on the front illuminated the shady corridors. Fetching out a mirror, he angled it around each corner before crossing, Kyle’s last scream echoing in his ears.

No spiders, no creature, no Shane. Hoshea neared the front end of the ship, out of the engine and navigation sectors, the doors on either side led to fancy conference rooms or quarters for diplomats. The vessel seemed overly large for a diplomatic cruiser, but perhaps the ASA had slightly darker reasons for choosing such a large ship. Cruisers like this were designed to be used in first-contact scenarios, when the ASA introduced itself to another species. Perhaps the ASA wanted to impress or intimidate while working to ‘create a peaceful union’.

An eerie noise reached Hoshea. A sweet, soft musical tone. It sang out across the halls; it was comforting and peaceful, but that made it all the more scary. It reminded Hoshea of the child-like scream that the bestial monster had issued. Hoshea slid another door partially open to check the perimeter. It was there. It was singing.

The mechanical thing hoisted itself up on a long table; from somewhere in it came noises unlike anything Hoshea had heard. It was enchanting and terrifying. Shane crouched in the opposite corner. He looked up to see Hoshea and scowled, motioning him back as he aimed at the target. Hoshea was suddenly sad that this creature might die despite what happened to Kyle.

Shane fired multiple shots while sliding under his opponent, again, that scream that seemed to shatter reality. Shane came up, sticking an energy grenade to his enemy before sprinting out of the room towards the front. The being screeched in protest, racing after him and firing off splashes of green light, until with an explosion, it hurtled backwards again, letting out its piercing cry. Hoshea sprinted through the room and after Shane, who was waiting for him around the corner.

“You know, Captain, usually when I say stay, I mean stay, just so you know.”

“You need help, Commander.”

“No,” Shane growled, “I don’t, I’ve gotten this far by myself, and I will continue to do so!”

“It can track you with the ship’s life sign detector.”

This gave Shane pause. “Interesting… Two of us are more likely to be caught than one. Get back to the Void Crosser, I’ll join you soon.”

The sound of a Stelloid coming down the hall after them changed the plan. Shane cursed and motioned for Hoshea to follow him. They sprinted down the next hall, heading towards the back of the ship. Hoshea glanced behind him at Shane, who was slowing down and counting doors. “Did you find what you came for?”

Shane pushed a button to open one door. “Well, I now know that this monster is the same as the one they let on board, but no, I don’t have a recording of those conversations.” He stuck a hard drive into the computer system and pressed a key code combination. “I have that now.”

Hoshea glanced out the door. “We have a whole horde heading this way.”

“I don’t really care, Captain,” Shane muttered. “Now, if you would please shut up, I can finish what the ASA sent me to do alone.”

Hoshea unslung his radial-21 and sprayed forth a volley of laser power, splintering bugs into shards. He glanced over his shoulder at Shane, who was busily working at the desk, and pulled out the hard drive. He returned to the door and hurled an energy grenade into the mess, disintegrating them in a burst of purple light. Shane motioned for Hoshea to follow, sprinting for a cargo hold ahead, “We need to get back to the ship.”

A splashing stream of green energy forced them apart as the mechanical creature raced towards them. Hoshea yelped in fear, whipping out his weapon and shooting yet again at the ever-agile target. Shane jammed his hand into the open controls, finally getting the door to engage. Hoshea sprinted in, and they hid amongst piles of crates.

“The only way this thing will let us leave is if we kill it. Especially since it can track us.” Shane muttered, pushing Hoshea down, “You stay right here, I’ll take care of it, that is another order, Captain.”

Hoshea leaned against the crate, breath coming in rapid gasps. Get a grip on it, he told himself, trying to relax. The creature was drawing closer. Hoshea could hear the click, click, click of its legs on the metal floor. Hoshea curled up, trying to make himself as small as possible; if it saw him, he was dead.

Shane ran between boxes silently, pulling out a small ASA Solite device to break into systems like the one for the ship’s intercom. The Stelloid spun slowly in a circle as it moved through the boxes, pointing one ot its arms not of the spidery body at anything it perceived to move. “Come out, humans, accept your death, it comes for you hidden in the shadows…”

Shane responded through the ship’s intercom. “You are assuming you can catch us. From what I have seen, I’m much faster than you.”

The stelloid paused, glancing around to discern where Shane’s voice came from. It hissed in displeasure, then spoke again. Its voice had a magical note like something pure and great, something drawing others to itself. Hoshea found himself with a great desire to walk towards it. “You are so much weaker than we are. We are the Stelloids, the people of the stars!”

He had to remind himself that predators did the same thing. It’s like an angler fish or a flytrap, Hoshea thought with sudden clarity, they draw their prey in towards themselves with lights or smells or, in this case, sound.

Shane rolled to the side and pressed his back against the next crate. Deftly, he pressed a clasp into the wood that connected the metal cuff on his arm. “Oh, so you guys live in suns, or in space, while we live in planets, so obviously we are weaker, makes sense.”

The stelloid rushed forward, knocking over boxes and crates. Shane wasn’t there anymore. It cocked its head in confusion and answered to the room at large, its life signs detector wouldn’t work at close quarters. “You are fools! We live on worlds of our own, worlds of purity and light. We are the perfect creature; you are squabbling messes.”

Shane dodged quickly across a gap between boxes, trailing a wire behind him attached to the clasp on the crate he had left. He didn’t move swiftly enough, the Stelloid turned on him, the plates of its armor shifting and grinding as it raced at him, the legs clacking, arms raised, firing off green light splashing across the boxes, leaving burnt gashes across the surfaces it passed.

Shane attached a second clasp and stood up, sprinting away. He hit the deck three paces in letting the beams of energy pass over his head. Just then, one of the Stelloid’s legs caught in the wire stretched between two boxes and pulled it tight, the Stelloid tripped forward, and an explosion blasted it into the air, crashing into the wall. Shane took the opportunity to raise his weapon and hold it down on auto-fire; the radial-21 sent off a beam of blue-white light that lashed out at the Stelloid.

It pulled itself up as the blast struck it head-on, and it returned fire, forcing Shane to duck behind another crate. The Stelloid screamed in agony, a scream that once again seemed almost to blur reality; it shook the world around it, a scream of something so innocent and pure it seemed not to fit the metallic monster facing them.

Shane was down again, rolling between boxes, placing small metallic disks against specific crates. Hoshea watched from his hiding place, sadly realizing why Shane worked alone. Hoshea could never hope to add anything to a team of them. Nor could anyone.

“Your suffering shall be ever so much greater, human, for the insult you have thrown upon one of the higher beings!”

Shane didn’t respond at first, but as the stelloid began to hunt amongst the huge crates again (watching for trip wires), he strove for something to say to distract it again. “You remind me of the Zytoc,” he muttered softly to his handheld system activator, which sent his words out of the intercom. “A species of alien near Earth.”

“Yes,” the Stelloid hissed, “I know much of your wicked history!”

“Well, they called themselves a higher species and wore big metallic armor that made them look fearsome and scary while they marched around giving out threats that they couldn’t uphold.” Shane placed the last of his small metal disks and dodged back away, waiting for the right moment.

“That is a greater offense, yet we people of the stars are far beyond your mortal comprehension! You dare compare us to a species below even yourselves?” The Stelloid still searched as it spoke, coming dangerously close to where Hoshea hid. He backed up, crossing to a different crate.

Hoshea’s boot scraped against the crate with a sound barely at the hearing threshold. The Stelloid perked up and turned. Hoshea hunkered down, breathing quickly. Shane quickly spoke out again to draw its attention. It loved talking about itself, so he asked it the first question that came to mind.

“How do you speak English?”

The Stelloid laughed like the chuckle of a child, yet somehow terrifyingly stripped of mirth, “You find that language hard to speak? The celestial language is far harder! But do you not know that English, or the cursed tongue, is the common tongue of the galaxy?”

Shane was genuinely confused by this, “That doesn’t make sense. How? I know it is the common tongue of the area around Earth and the five species in that area, but you are talking about the greater galaxy.”

The Stelloid prowled forward almost to where Shane needed it, “Not just this galaxy, but some places beyond, there was a species of creatures called Silen, our greatest adversary. They nearly brought us to our knees, but in the end, their compassion not to kill every last one of us brought about their downfall. Their language was very complicated; similar to what you call ‘Latin’ in your world, but changed dramatically. Every new planet and species they discovered and assimilated into their giant empire, they instead taught English.”

Shane pressed the button. The explosion sent the creature far into the air, crashing hard against broken fragments of crate and supplies as Shane detonated the metal disks. The scream sounded again, and Hoshea crouched low and covered his ears.

The Stelloid stumbled up. Shane continued the conversation as if nothing had happened, “So how did they know English?”

“Enough,” gasped the Stelloid, “of your games! This ends now!”

The Stelloid charged forward recklessly, one of its mechanical legs not engaging correctly, smashing the crates it hit to bits. Shane raced backwards to a better hiding spot, firing a volley to distract it. The Stelloid didn’t dodge each blast that struck it in the chest squarely, and it didn’t seem to notice. A terrible rage emanated from its lips. A sound so vile and beastly that Hoshea wondered if it could be coming from the same innocent creature of light and purity.

Shane whipped out some kind of whip cord that wrapped around the monster and pulled it up short with a shock of electricity. Half of its armored suit stopped responding. It clanked and screeched to a halt, joints squealing. One of the arms shot out, sending its laser across the space where Shane had been.

Shane fired a grappling hook at the roof. It connected with an overhead steel beam. Shane shot up into the air out of range of the blast and dropped straight on the Stelloid’s head, Solite training evidenced in his every move.

The Stelloid whipped up and around the armor grating. Shane prepared the electric cord again, but one of the working legs shot out and caught him on the head. The Stelloid let out its childish giggle that sent waves of fear down Hoshea’s spine as Shane toppled, blood seeping from the gash on his head.

Hoshea gulped, sweating and in fear, Shane was about to die. Hoshea gripped the weapon tightly in his hand, breathed out evenly, and then charged.

He vaulted over two crates and side-stepped a second. The Stelloid looked up from its prey and faced Hoshea, giving him enough notice to send a liquid blast of green light streaming towards him. Hoshea dropped to his stomach and slid across the ground with his radial-21 up and trigger held.

Streams of brilliant light sparked across the Stelloid’s armor, and it howled in agony, backing up. Hoshea shook Shane awake, “Commander! Wake up!”

Shane opened his eyes slowly, “captain? I told you too…” His head slumped again, Hoshea looked up at the Stelloid arching over him, “You are an insignificant speck of dust in front of me, I am a stelloid, I am of the people of the stars!”

“A speck of dust in the right spot can stop the whole machine!” Hoshea muttered, grabbing a pulverizer detonator from Shane’s belt and leaping up, planting it against the Stelloid. The Stelloid stumbled back, armored legs not engaging. Hoshea dragged Shane backwards as the explosion went off. It was smaller than some, but it hit just right, like a speck of dust between gears. Smoke and fire shot into the air, for once, the Stelloid didn’t scream.

Hoshea stepped towards the metal carcass, and a piece of it detached and slid towards him. It was the centerpiece of the spider’s body, the human-shaped lump of metal. Its arms split open, the face flipped up, and the main body slid back, revealing the Stelloid’s true nature.

The Stelloid was pale, thin, and weak with a humanoid body. Its skin was a flawlessly white-pink, perfect, thin, and barely opaque. Veins and organs were visible next to muscles on its small body. The head was about the size of a human’s, but the body was not in proportion. A small hand with three fingers reached up feebly towards Hoshea. “You don’t know what we are doing!” It hissed out, small metallic devices were strapped across its body, all of a shiny, clearish metal. They sparked and fritzed as it spoke, “We are the people… the people of the stars. We are trying to save… save this galaxy, protect all. Humans must… must die.”

The small, innocent-looking creature expired, going out with these words, “The hordes will come for you.”

Hoshea limped back towards Shane, who was still trying to reorient himself. Hoshea helped him up, “Come on, Commander. We have to get you back to Moon City.”

Shane didn’t respond, but as they walked gradually back towards the exit, Shane spoke. “You know, captain, I just maybe might have been wrong about not needing help.”

“Maybe.” Hoshea agreed jovially, then, more seriously, he looked into Shane’s eyes. “Something dangerous is coming.”

Shane flashed a cocky grin, “I say, bring it on.”