Kali's Children (Kali Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Agreed,” Wallace said. “Gunny?”

  Monroe stood up straight. “Yes, sir.”

  “Break open the weapons locker.” He glanced at Cody, as if pondering. “A sidearm for Dr. Brenner as well.” He turned to Deveau. “Corporal, can you access the bridge-sat?”

  Deveau ran his hands over his controls for a few minutes. “No, Commander. Transmitter is offline.”

  Cody grew despondent. The bridge-sat created a shortcut between two points in space-time, like pressing two opposing ends of a balloon together until they touched. That shortcut, that bridge between two points, allowed a signal to reach a destination in hours, instead of decades or, more likely, never.

  “Corporal, copy all records into a portable viewer,” Wallace said. “Once we’re topside, we can transmit to the bridge-sat from the hopper.”

  “Yes, sir.” Deveau opened a compartment in the wall. He pulled out a square viewer slightly larger than his hand. He activated the flat device and started to download files, which took a few seconds.

  Monroe returned with an armful of weapons. She gave a coil rifle to everyone except Cody, who was only vaguely familiar with the weapon, which magnetically fired rounds at hypersonic velocities.

  “Come here a sec, Doc.” Monroe held up a pistol that was maybe twice the size of Cody’s hand, yet it held a hundred or more of the tiny magnetic rounds. “Ever use one?”

  “Used to a long time ago,” Cody said. “But I haven’t held one since the war.”

  “Then it’s time for a refresher.” She gripped the weapon, pointing it at the floor. Her thumb was next to a faint green light. “Safety’s on. When you wave your thumb over it”—she did so, and the light turned red—“it’s hot.”

  “Seems simple enough.”

  “It is.” She put the safety back on. “It’ll fire as fast as you pull the trigger.” Gripping the weapon by the barrel, she handed it to him. “But don’t do that unless we tell you to. Clear?”

  “Yes.” Cody held the pistol as if it would bite him. It weighed perhaps two hundred grams, even with the CF battery loaded, but it could easily penetrate light armor. He was pretty sure he could pull the trigger—especially after what those things did to Forester and Walters. Eric and Alice, he reminded himself. The creatures had also killed many on board the Spinoza, including his colleagues, who had all died in terror and agony.

  Cody held the weapon carefully, trying to stay as far away from the trigger as he could. He had to pull the trigger when it mattered. If he couldn’t, then the people around him might not be the last to die.

  ~~~

  The going seemed easier. Either Cody was getting used to the gravity, or he was just eager to be off the sunken ship. They moved through the body of the broken Spinoza, mostly staying out of the flooded sections, assuming the creatures invading the ship couldn’t survive out of the water.

  A rumble reverberated through the ship as another section collapsed.

  “That’s the water pressure doing that, right?” Bodin asked.

  “I think you know better, Sergeant,” Deveau said.

  Monroe nodded slowly. “Our ocean buddies are probably looking for us.”

  “They can’t fit in here,” Wallace said. “That’s the good news.”

  “They may not need to.”

  Everyone turned to Cody.

  “They looked just like the smaller ones, remember? It’s possible the larger ones are opening parts of the ship for their young to enter so they can…” Cody swallowed.

  “Teaching their young how to hunt.” Bodin chuckled. “How touching.”

  They continued another twenty meters then went through a door leading to another intersection. Wallace stopped just short of it, holding his fist in the air and crouching. Everyone else did the same. Monroe grabbed Cody by the shoulder and pulled him down to a kneeling position on the deck.

  Wallace glanced around the corner, down the intersecting hall. He gave another hand signal, and Bodin crept forward, disappeared into the other hallway, and came back a few seconds later, no longer crouching.

  “Space suit, sir,” he said, gesturing behind him. “Must’ve gotten loose.”

  The corridor turned into a larger open area where a passageway on the lower deck ran under where they stood, making it a sort of bridge running over the deck below. A ladder led down to the lower corridor, which was flooded. A suit floated in the water. The shape flopped around, undulating for a moment. Then it stopped. The suit bulged as if someone were inside.

  “Let’s check it out,” Wallace said. “Move.”

  Monroe and Bodin splashed down into the waist-deep water. Wallace followed, sliding down the ladder. Cody came up behind, moving carefully down the ladder then lowering himself into the water. Deveau remained on the upper deck, keeping an eye out.

  Monroe and Bodin stopped just short of the floating space suit. It flopped a few more times. Cody waded close by. “What is it?”

  Bodin nudged the suit with the end of his coil rifle. “The hell’s in there?” The arms and legs of the suit wavered back and forth in the water. The torso looked solid.

  “Helmet’s closed,” Monroe said.

  Bodin glanced behind him. “Commander?”

  Wallace stared at the body. “I’ll grab it. You two get ready.”

  Monroe and Bodin nodded and pointed their weapons at the suit. Wallace reached for it.

  “Wait a minute.” Cody took off his belt. Everyone eyed him strangely, but Cody ignored them. He swung the belt until it looped around the leg then gently pulled the suit toward him, legs first. When it was in reach, Cody grabbed hold of a leg. It was soft, as if it were empty. And then something wiggled inside, something that was anything but a leg.

  Bodin reached for the faceplate, but stopped. His mouth fell open. “Jesus Christ.”

  Cody peered inside the helmet. Lieutenant Kelly’s lifeless eyes still stared upward, clouded over, wide with terror. Her body rippled in a way that wasn’t possible… unless every bone had been broken.

  The suit bulged until two of the metal clasps snapped open, exposing the suit’s interior. Dozens of dart creatures squirmed inside the suit, squealing and crying out at the interruption of their meal. As one, the creatures turned from Kelly’s exposed organs and stared at the remaining crew. Their small pointed heads opened wide, spreading out a good ten centimeters in diameter. They undulated, causing the water around them to quiver. The creatures poured out of the suit, filling the water like a black stain.

  “Oh, shit.” Bodin grabbed Cody and pulled him away from Kelly’s body and back to the ladder. Monroe and Wallace followed close behind. The dart creatures screeched loudly enough to hurt Cody’s ears.

  Monroe fired her coil rifle. Water churned as she sprayed the general area. The weapon chopped Lieutenant Kelly’s body into pieces, along with at least some of the creatures that fed on her. But there were so many that the small coil rounds couldn’t possibly kill all of them.

  Cody pulled himself up the ladder. Over the chatter of coil-rifle fire, the things’ screams echoed in the confined space. He had never been so afraid, even when parachuting from the orbital ring back on Earth. Halfway up the ladder, his legs gave out, and his chin bounced off a rung. Panicked, he struggled to get his footing but kept slipping on the wet rungs. He let out a shout when a hand wrapped around his wrist. Jim dragged him the rest of the way up. “You all right, Doc?”

  Cody stared up at Jim. “You made it.”

  “Obviously.” He smiled as he lifted his rifle. He fired rounds into the water while the others scrambled up the ladder, moving more gracefully than Cody had managed to. The creatures scurried frantically through the water as Jim’s rifle fire chopped through them. Soon, they disappeared from sight altogether, leaving behind the tattered remains of Lieutenant Rachel Kelly’s body.

  Wallace regarded the scene for a moment. “Let’s move. I don’t want to be here when the mother shows up.”

  A shape lumbered down the hall
on the partially submerged lower level, toward the smaller creatures still thrashing in the water. He couldn’t make out details, but the waves from the wake were at least a half meter tall.

  They ran down the corridor and through a door. Cody’s legs gave out in the high gravity. Monroe caught him before he fell and supported him the rest of the way. A tremendous bulk splashed into the water behind them. A low growl rumbled through the air as the last person went through the door. Wallace shut it and slammed the locks into place—just as something huge slammed into the other side of the door.

  Monroe released Cody. He leaned against the bulkhead, trying to catch his breath.

  Jim put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a good shake. “You all right?”

  “Yeah.” Cody struggled to catch his breath. “Welcome back, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry about Lieutenant Kelly.”

  Jim nodded. “Yeah, me, too.”

  The door thumped again. Cody jumped, but everyone else ignored it.

  “Report,” Wallace said.

  “Lieutenant Kelly suited up to venture into the quarters,” Jim said. “They were flooded. She wanted to ensure they could get Doc’s kit so we could talk to the Spicans.” He sighed. “She said if she didn’t come back in half an hour to go find you guys.”

  The door thumped once more, but Cody ignored it. She had died because of his gear. If he’d had it with him, she would be alive. He shook his head. He couldn’t think that way. If the Spicans were present, he needed his equipment—and she had known that.

  “Oh, and we found one other, sir,” Jim said, breaking into Cody’s thoughts. A voice squawked in Jim’s ear, loudly enough to make him cringe. “Speaking of which.”

  “Let me hear,” Wallace said.

  Jim touched his collar, and the voice became more distinct as it blared through unseen speakers. “Jim, did you find them?”

  “Yeah, Anne, I have you on speaker.”

  “Oh, hi,” the voice said. “Uh, I mean hello, sir. Private Anne Salyard, sir.”

  “Glad you made it, Salyard,” Wallace said. “What is your location?”

  “I’m in the launch bay, sir. Sir, have you seen Lieutenant Kelly? I thought she was with Jim.”

  Everyone remained quiet for a moment before Wallace answered. “We’ll meet you there. Be careful.”

  ~~~

  Cody looked up at the red number four on the stairwell. Engineering was on the fourth deck, but then it had been dry. At that point, water sloshed over Cody’s ankles. It was only a matter of time before the entire ship flooded.

  A stench, strong enough to make him want to gag, permeated the air. As a boy, Cody had once found a dead rat. The smell coming from Deck Four was the same.

  They’d just gone through another door when Wallace asked, “How much farther?”

  Deveau held up his portable viewer. “Up ahead, sir. I hope that hopper is still intact.”

  “Don’t we all, Corporal.” Monroe nudged Cody as she emerged from the door. “How you doing, Doc?”

  “I’m okay, uh, Gunny.”

  She smiled at him. The smile was different from any she had given him before. Instead of sarcastic, she seemed almost genuinely amused. “You have trouble with titles and last names, don’t you?”

  Cody shrugged. “I guess I always preferred first names. But it’s okay. I know you guys prefer titles. I’ll adapt.”

  She nodded. “Sonja.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My name is Sonja.”

  Sonja, Cody thought. That’s nice. He was about to say so when Bodin spoke up.

  “Well, shit.”

  Cody could have said something vulgar himself if the idea hadn’t repulsed him. A cooling pipe had fallen from the ceiling at just the right angle to smash the door controls to pieces.

  Bodin gritted his teeth. “I’ll be goddamned if that’s an accident.”

  “What else could’ve happened?” Monroe asked. “No way those animals did it.”

  “It doesn’t matter right now.” Wallace peered at the door. “Does somebody have a cutter?”

  Jim stepped forward. He knelt and put on a set of goggles. The light from the plasma torch lit the entire hall. Jim held the torch to the door, and half a minute later, something metallic hit the deck. The four bolts holding the doors to the bulkhead had to be strong enough to seal tightly against a vacuum, but the crew also needed to be able to cut them away in an emergency. The situation certainly qualified.

  Another bolt fell. “Two more,” Jim said, “then we’re—”

  A voice crackled over the comm system on Jim’s suit. “Hey, you guys here yet?”

  “Anne, I’m cutting through the door to Bay Two,” Jim said. “From there, we’ll head to Bay One and you. ETA, about two minutes.”

  “Yeah, I copy,” Salyard said. “Be advised, I’m hearing funny noises over there. We may have locals.”

  Another bolt fell away. “Roger that. See you soon.” Jim glanced over at Wallace. “Last bolt, sir. The door’s weighted to open away from us, and it should fall that way.”

  “Get ready,” Wallace said. He brought his coil pistol to bear. “Dr. Brenner, you don’t fire until we tell you, understand?”

  Cody stared at the pistol in his hand. “Understood.”

  Finally, the last bolt fell. Everyone faced the door again. It started to fall away from them, but then it stopped. Jim jumped back as the door teetered for a moment—then fell toward him instead.

  “What the fuck?” Sonja said. “Jim, you said—”

  Cody nearly dropped his coil pistol.

  Bodies were stacked almost to the top of the door, and the dart-like creatures that had consumed Lieutenant Kelly flowed over and around the bleach-white bones, picking off the few remaining morsels.

  Bodin gripped his coil rifle. “Son of a…”

  The creatures stopped. As a whole, the group of tiny predators seemed to regard them. In unison, they squealed loudly enough to make the deck vibrate.

  Wallace leveled his coil pistol at the door. “Hit them!”

  Hypersonic bullets thundered throughout the corridor. Cody nearly dropped his pistol to cover his ears, but he managed to hang on to it. The remains of Spinoza’s dead crewmembers burst into pieces as the gunfire ripped through them and through the creatures that had eaten them. The surviving scavengers scurried across the floor to the other end of the bay, leaving the door wide open.

  Wallace waved everyone forward. “Move it!”

  Sonja charged through with Bodin close behind. Wallace dragged Cody behind him, and Jim brought up the rear. Beyond the door was a large open area with ankle-deep water. Hoppers sat in their bays, waiting for a launch that would never happen.

  Around them, the dart creatures scurried through the shallow water. Another hole must’ve opened up in the Spinoza. More bodies, most of them picked clean like the others, had been piled up along the wall. There were so many. It had to be the rest of the crew. Everyone on Spinoza, whether they had died in the crash or survived only to be killed, had been dragged to the bay and collected for food.

  The mass of creatures squirmed toward them. The deck plates buckled and vibrated under their feet, as if something big were stirring restlessly under the floor grates.

  Sonja and Deveau stood side by side, firing into the water. The dart creatures, which could evidently survive in air for at least a short while, climbed the walls and stacks of bodies to get away from the gunfire. Bodin fired on the wriggling mass, shattering tiny bodies and pitting the bulkhead with rounds.

  Bodin pushed Cody along toward another door. Jim was already there, swiping his hand over the controls. Wallace and Jim aimed at the door as it slid open. The two of them went through, sweeping their weapons across the interior of the bay on the other side of the door. Cody stumbled after them, barely hanging on to his coil pistol.

  In the launch bay, hoppers rested in their launch pads, but the rear door of one was open. It s
at with impellers folded along its sides. Standing in the hopper’s rear door was a very young woman, who was waving at them to get aboard.

  “Get in,” Wallace ordered. He turned back toward the open door where Sonja and Deveau rained death on the little monsters. “Gunny, Corporal, time to go.”

  Sonja and Deveau backed toward the door, still firing. When they were through, Wallace closed the door. Sonja fired a few more times into the diminishing opening before turning away.

  Bodin nudged Cody into the hopper. “Move it, clue. We ain’t got all—”

  The door groaned. It had stopped closing, but the servos continued to push at it, trying to force it shut. Large black hooks wrapped around the edge of the door, stopping its movement. Something shattered inside the wall as the door motors gave way entirely, and the door swung open.

  A dark-blue snout, a gigantic version of the small dart creatures, emerged from the opening. Reflective plates, almost like chrome, covered the length of the snout. It had no obvious eyes or nose, but it did have a mouth. The snout spread open into a three-meter diameter maw full of black spikes. They didn’t look quite like teeth, but they obviously served the same purpose.

  The deck vibrated. Water rippled out from the creature in all directions. Cody’s coil pistol vibrated in his belt loop, along with the belt clasp. Even the hopper itself vibrated.

  The young woman—Anne, Cody presumed—waved them over. “Commander!”

  Wallace pressed himself against the far wall. The creature’s snout swept the room between him and the hopper.

  Sonja strode toward the snout, undaunted. The thing detected her movement immediately. Its mouth remained open as it moved in on her. “Get out of there, Commander!”

  Wallace dove toward her through the deepening water. Sonja pulled the trigger almost before he was clear. The creature’s mouth exploded, sending pieces of meat through the air. Coil rounds ripped through the monster. The metal plates lining the snout fell away as the high-velocity rounds obliterated the connective tissues that had held them in place. The massive body sank to the floor.

  In the other room, the smaller creatures squealed, singing a single note in unison, more in tune with one another than any choir could ever have hoped to be. The god-awful chorus lasted for a few seconds. The dart creatures piled into the launch bay, swarming the dead monster.