Trembling with fear, Jack turned around in a split second, instinctively reaching for one of the guns in his bag. Standing in the doorway was a giant figure, clad in metallic armor, and wearing a heavily adorned helmet reminiscent of that of a medieval knight. A bony frill covered in spikes, like that of a triceratops, jutted out of the top of the helmet, but he could make out no other distinguishing features under the armor. Nevertheless, the silhouette was unmistakable—for the first time, he had come face to face with a Kharlath. The creature let out another scream and swung its polearm-like weapon in a wide motion. With a loud screech, the energy lance came to a halt mid-swing, stuck in the upper frame of the door. Frozen in this awkward position, the creature's eyes met Jack's. He could detect no emotion behind them, at least none that he could recognize. Operating almost entirely on pure instinct at this point, he gripped the pistol in his hand, pointed it toward the Kharlath, and squeezed the trigger. With one little motion, a blinding flash, and most of his opponent was reduced to a bubbling, liquid mixture of metal and organic matter.
An unimaginable pain coursed through Jack's arm—the price of using a plasma pistol with no firing glove, but that was the least of his concerns. He could hear multiple pairs of heavy footsteps heading toward him, no doubt his slain enemy's comrades. With no time to spare, Jack retreated back under his shelf, just to see two more figures make their way into the doorway. Without thinking, he pointed his gun and squeezed the trigger again, twice. Two more flashes of light followed suit, and two more puddles of former-living-being fell to the floor. No more footsteps could be heard, and no more figures could be seen, but Jack couldn't muster up the courage to move from under the shelf. The room was eerily quiet now, and he could hear his heartbeat, faster and louder than he'd ever heard it before. His tried to drop his weapon, but his hand refused to obey him. He did not know whether it was truly glued to the metal, or if it was simple reflex, but he did not dare to check. He could smell his burned flesh, and he was consciously aware of the pain, but he didn't actually feel it, not anymore. Jack lay there for a few moments, afraid to even breathe, before he began inching his way toward the other side of the shelf, and the service tunnel. "Once I'm in, I'm safe," he kept thinking to himself, even his thoughts reduced to a whisper.
Without even daring to get up, the young soldier crawled through the narrow passage, dragging his bag behind him, with his other hand still clutching the pistol. It didn't register as a foreign object to him, not anymore. The weapon was a part of him now, just another appendage. He carefully dropped the bag in the tunnel and strained to lift up the hatch one-handed. There was no way to bolt it down from the inside, but at least it stayed in place. He slowly got up to his feet, for the first time in what felt like forever, and leaned back against the wall. Even as he was leaning, his hair was brushing up against the pipe-laden ceiling of the corridor, but he did not care. What had felt claustrophobic and restrictive mere minutes before was now oddly comforting.
A wave of tiredness washed over him, as if he had been running for hours. He took his time to consider the situation. There was no way to climb up the way he came, even if he had the use of both of his hands and wasn't weighed down by his bag, the opening was too high up. He clearly wasn't going back into the armory, not under any circumstances. He could shoot the lock off of the door at the end of the corridor, but he had no clue as to what might await him on the other side. He raised his gun and pointed it at the insta-foam. He had made his decision. Whatever reason they had for sealing that section of the tunnel, at least he could be sure there were no Kharlath hiding on the other side of it. He winced as he forced his finger to coil around the trigger, his hand now trembling. Another flash came, more brilliant in the darkness of the tunnel, and the insta-foam evaporated into mist.
Just as soon as he cleared the way, a viscous fluid began pouring in from all sides of the tunnel. Jack recognized the unmistakable odor of liquid insulant. Unpleasant, but fortunately not dangerous. As he began making his way through the rapidly growing puddle of insulant, the tunnel began to shrink around him, soon enough reducing him to once again crawling on his knees and elbows. The smell was almost unbearable, and his eyes were itching. But Jack powered through with a sense of purpose he had never experienced before. The smell, pungent as it was, no longer bothered him, and he kept his eyes closed—they weren't much use in the dark regardless. Once he felt he had gotten far enough away, he opened his eyes once more and took a look around him. He was greeted by the welcome sight of his lost flashlight, only a few meters away. As soon as he reached it, he fell on his stomach, relieved. One more hoop to jump through, and then he was done.
Gathering all his remaining strength, Jack stood up in the vertical tunnel. He pressed his back against it, fastened the bag around his body, and lifted his legs one by one against the other side. Slowly, painfully, he started making his way up. His entire body was burning, and he could feel the pain in his left arm now, the pistol weighing it down like an anchor. With great effort, he placed his arm in his lap and continued his ascent. Every inch of the climb felt like a battle against his own body, but he remained undeterred. The former galley attendant of the Excalibur could hardly recognize himself. All his life, he had been a chronic underachiever, a nobody from some backwater colony. But it was all leading up to this. His moment of glory. Climbing up a service shaft, covered in liquid insulant. Not the most prestigious task, but one he took pride in nevertheless.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
With one final, agonizing push, Jack flopped onto the ledge of the upper tunnel and began the last stretch of his painful journey. He lacked the strength to fully stand, even on his knees, and his left arm was trailing behind him, heavy and limp. But his spirit was not yet broken. Through sheer force of will, he slowly slithered across the rest of the tunnel until he came upon the last vertical shaft. He had forgotten about it. His face turned red, flush with anger and frustration. 'All this effort, all this pain, just to be stopped by a hole in the floor?' This just wouldn't do.
Jack scanned the surface of the tunnel, looking for any leverage he could use. His attention quickly turned to the pipes running across the ceiling. They looked sturdy enough. He propped his left arm beneath him and grabbed at one of the pipes, shaking it as vigorously as he could. It wouldn't budge. He had just found his leverage. He gripped the pipe with all his strength and, in a display of almost superhuman willpower, began slowly dragging his body over the shaft. As soon as he was halfway above it, he let his legs down, remaining suspended in the air. The weight of his entire body, and the bag, was now resting on his right arm. Under normal circumstances, not a challenge, even for someone of his modest physical condition. But in his present state, he could feel his hand slipping. In one final push, he propped his legs against the wall of the shaft and threw himself to the other side, landing painfully on his chest. With his body still in one piece, and the bag still safely attached to him, he continued his arduous crawl, this time even more slowly.
The final few meters of his journey were, somehow, the most difficult. With his entire body on fire and his chest creaking with every breath, Jack struggled to even stay awake. He hadn't slept or eaten in well over 24 hours by this point, and the adrenaline was wearing off. He pondered for a second if he should just lay down and go to sleep right then and there. He was as safe as he could be, and, after all, he didn't know what the situation would be on the other side of the hatch. Fighting his way out of trouble was well beyond his capabilities at this point. But the prospect of waking up as the last human on a Kharlath-occupied station worried him far more.
He forced his eyes open and dragged his body to the exit hatch. Using his last remaining reserves of strength, he pounded against it as hard as he could and then fell on his back. After what seemed like an eternity waiting for a reply, he started hearing the screws coming undone in rapid succession, and the hatch soon opened to reveal a friendly face—it was Eve, flashing a cheerful smile at the sight of him, a smile that quickly faded as soon as she noticed his condition.
"Help, we need a medic here!" Eve yelled out in a tone Jack hadn't thought her capable of, at once commanding and terrified. A tangled mass of hands reached into the tunnel, pulling him out along with the bag. As he began drifting in and out of consciousness, he saw only flashes of what was happening around him: Eve's friend, Louise, asking him questions and examining him; a few concerned faces he didn't recognize; Louise once again, trying to pry the gun from his hand; Captain Rollk looking at him with an indeterminate expression; loud noises, bright flashes, horrible smells, an awful battle just out of sight; and finally, darkness. Just darkness.
After a while, Jack began wondering if he had died. If all his effort and heroism had been for nothing, or perhaps he had made the ultimate sacrifice so that all the others could live. He imagined himself receiving a hero's funeral, with all his former bullies and tormentors crying crocodile tears at the sight of him. He imagined Eve in a flowing black dress, telling his family and friends all about his heroic exploits while letting herself shed a single, solitary tear when no one was watching. But of course, these were just fantasies. He wasn't really dead. He was still thinking, wasn't he? And what would that imply? Jack wasn't a particularly religious person, but he had a very binary view of how these things might work. Either you died and that was it, or there was a real, proper afterlife. This sort of limbo simply did not fit into his worldview, so he dismissed the possibility altogether. No, he was clearly still alive. The pain was proof of that. And what a horrible pain it was. After a few more hours of pondering life's various questions, Jack came upon a startling realization: he was asleep. He had been asleep for a while and could wake up as soon as he wanted.
Finally, Jack opened his eyes and rejoined the world of the living. He felt very woozy and found it incredibly hard to concentrate. He tried to focus on his surroundings but couldn't distinguish anything around him. All he saw was white, a bit of blue, and lots of lights. He was lying down, presumably in a bed. He tried to move his left hand. He no longer had his gun. It felt strange, as if he had lost a part of himself, but he was also relieved. He made another effort to focus his eyes on something, anything. He saw a chair and a blond woman sitting in it. She was pretty. Did he know her? He knew she was Louise, though he couldn't quite remember where he learned her name. A disembodied voice came from the woman's direction:
"Don't try to stand up; you've got enough painkillers in you to put down an elephant." The disembodied voice laughed. "Oh, by the way, we won. The station is safe. You can go back to sleep."