Holly anxiously waited in the hallway by airlock access after Stocky – or James – grabbed Patterson’s suit and took her away to get ready. He had told her to keep an eye on the airlock and warn them if there was any activity within it. Apparently aware of her yawning, Patterson had set the intercom to play loud, angry music.
She supposed the music helped, but she was certain she wouldn’t have trouble staying awake anyhow. As soon as they had left, that bone chilling fear had returned. She felt it ever since following James to Command to get their suits, and it kept her awake. It was an inescapable dread. Sandwiched between the two fears of being alone and being with one who had every incentive to use her as bait. For he knew that she couldn’t fight the horrors that Pazuzu made.
The fear had been manageable until James and her had reached the darkened cavern that was Propulsion Two. Then it became suffocating. She cowered next to him when they creeped through the Gates to Sci-Med. Every illusion of motion and undefinable form in the shadows terrified her. And equally terrifying was that James didn’t appear to feel fear at all.
Her suit recorded her breathing deep in the orange and her pulse was racing while thinking about it. It wasn’t a problem now, but it would drive an irritating warning light within her helmet when she had it on. She pushed the memories out of her mind to calm it. And she told herself that it would be easier going back since it would be all three of them.
But it would also be waiting. And although James and Patterson had grown very close to each other, they likely held little love for her now. She tried to tell herself that it would be alright as long as she didn’t get injured or do anything to provoke them to abandon her. They weren’t murderers.
Fallen angels though.
She couldn’t survive alone and so had no choice but to trust them now. She thought back to the brutal pummeling she took on the Mess while slowly pacing the hallway. The punch to the stomach had happened so fast and took the wind out of her. She couldn’t breathe after that, and nor could she see because of her tearing eyes. Ginting was killed sometime after that. She remembered falling, and something hit her head. It had felt so good to just slip into unconscious sleep at that time. Her eyelids drooped low.
Angry screaming jolted her back fully awake, and she squeezed the grip of her weapon. She had almost blacked out again, or maybe she even had – but only for a few seconds. She looked through the window into the airlock access. Nothing had entered the airlock. The music had not changed much.
She pulled a container of stims out of her pocket and popped another one into her mouth. She hadn’t been able to fight Pazuzu’s monsters on the Mess and she couldn’t allow herself to feel even more tired and lethargic now. Patterson and James needed to come back soon and get this behind them. She would feel so much safer once back with Moussa and Sam. She could rest then.
The insane screaming ceased and was replaced with a quiet calm. It was surreal and eerie, and seductively pulled at her mind like a dream. The music simply belonged; it was as her world had become. Her eyelids hung low and heavy as the lyrics began to reverberate through her mind.
“…not waiting for you anymore.
I love you. I love you anyway.
Is it so rare…
that I’ve been sleeping with the dead?”
Dead? Did she hear that right? The word appeared threatening. Her mind perked up just a little bit, sharper than before. And the surreal voice continued to speak.
“You are among the dead.”
She opened her eyelids once more at hearing “dead” and looked toward the status indicators for the airlock while listening closely. Hurry up, you two. Her gun was pointed in anticipation. She thought she heard a soft chant.
“I am Mot. I am Mot."
She knew that name – from somewhere. It was something she was only vaguely familiar with. Something loosely connected to another thing dear to her. But something within her suggested that she would soon be intimately familiar with it. With him. And again she heard the chanting. And she knew it did not belong.
And as the instrumental beat increased in tension the chant became louder and more threatening. And soon terrifying.
“I am Mot.”
She broke into a hacking cough as she sprinted to the intersection of the main halls. The camera they had placed was enough of a close watch. She could be further away just like her companions. And she was relieved to see them talking down the hall. It felt so much better to know that she wasn’t alone. She steadied her breath while silencing the moisture alarm in her suit which let her know she had let out a little pee.
The embarrassment from that at least woke her up.
But then a disturbing realization overcame her. They did not hear it! And they surely would if it had been real. The weight of shame filled her heart on realizing that she was scared out of her mind. First she had betrayed them and now she couldn’t stand a proper watch. She wished God had never assigned her to face this threat; she was not fit for it. Life felt every bit as oppressive as death.
Please, hurry up.
----------------------------------------
Patterson strapped a flamethrower to her EVA suit with D-clamps and holstered the laser pistol that she had pulled from Chandna’s fingers. She appreciated the extra firepower. Pazuzu would not make a second ‘offer’ to her. She discreetly observed Holly go through several fits of coughing. Lord, let it just be the gas. I can’t help them anymore.
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James gave her a confident nod and Holly a timid one.
“I’m ready too.” She duct taped a pipe wrench to her thigh. James was smart packing a bludgeon. “How’d you get through before?”
“We walked fast,” James said. “We need to do that again. It’s probably looking for us now. Keep two or three meters of spacing from one another. We’re more vulnerable both when we’re too close and too far apart. And let’s assume that both monsters are out there.”
“Don’t worry about the De Silva monster. Pazuzu hasn’t had the time to perform much alteration. Shoot him in the head and heart and he’ll go down for good. Concentrate on that Creature.
The Chandna-thrall gave me the reply conversation from our earlier inquiry. It spent much of its time boasting of having killed the Eliohuatjay and a whole bunch of others. It says it’s not planning on invading mankind but does intend to kill us.”
“So we kill it,” James said. “That’s the only way we can go into cryosleep.”
I don’t know if that would be safe even then. She stayed silent, not wanting to add to the depression.
Holly put on her helmet, looking tired and dazed. “Make sure your cameras are working, and that you can bring up infrared on your HUD.”
Patterson and James checked that and then they passed around flares, which they strapped to their chests and stuffed in their cargo pockets. She caught his gaze. “Sorry you won’t be able to smell.”
“We have plenty of eyes,” he said, “and I’m sure it’s found a way to mask its scent.” He opened the airlock and then looked back at them again. “One more thing, we survive by staying together – fighting together. I don’t care what you see or hear. I don’t care how scared you are. You don’t zone out, freeze up, or run away.”
Patterson nodded, and when she saw Jame’s gaze shift to Holly she looked also. Holly was nodding agreeably but there was fear in her eyes.
They went into the airlock to Aux Two, and she shut the door behind them. The porthole on the other door showed the accessway to be in total darkness.
“TURING,” Holly said, “restore lighting in the accessway to Aux Two.”
TURING didn’t answer.
“The ship is too damaged for reliable coms,” James said.
A brief flicker of light in the accessway illuminated the face of a monstrous figure just outside the door. The thing was waiting for them – posing for them. A triple row of salivated sharp teeth glistened in a gaping maw. And then there was pitch darkness again.
Holly fled to the back in terror. “It’s out there!”
“Good,” James said, appearing not to notice her fear.
No cover. “Should we try to wait it out?” Patterson asked. “I don’t think it’s wise to fight in the accessway.”
James lifted his mace. “I’m tired of waiting.” He angrily thrust the end of it through the porthole glass, bursting the ‘shatterproof’ material. The siren blared a useless warning of a quarantine breach. He pulled the mace back and then began to fire his laser pistol through the opening.
Both women flinched from the violent destruction. Patterson quickly overcame her momentary shock. “Did you hit the thing?”
“I think so,” he said, looking through the open porthole. “It’s not dead; it retreated into Aux Two. It distorts infrared somehow and so I couldn’t get a good look at it.” He turned toward them with half of his eyes covered with nictitating membranes. “We’re going to struggle to see it.”
Patterson lit a flare and tossed it through the porthole. The light showed the door to Aux Two closing and an empty path before them. James opened the door with the manual operator (the hydraulic assist had died), and she went in after him. She saw a patch of artwork painted on the wall, and she lit her helmet light and went to it, looking out for boobytraps.
“That wasn’t there when we came through,” Holly said from behind.
The artwork pictorialized a series of events. It started with a man and a woman speaking with a winged fiery serpent. And then there was a man and woman dressed in skins standing together with one who’s face shown with light, and they stood over a flayed animal. The next clearly depicted the crucifixion of the Messiah and looked almost identical to their plaque on the Bridge. After that was an enigmatic picture showing life and death. And then the last seemed to depict a judgment – with a dark monster and the fiery serpent before a great throne.
Patterson focused on the fourth image. There were fourteen wrapped infants and fourteen skulls, and a dark monster stood among them. She pointed at the image. “That’s us. Here we were born, and there we died.” She moved her finger from the infants to the skulls.
“Don’t think about it,” James said. He pointed at the last image, which showed the dark monster and the serpent on their knees before the one with a radiant face, seated on high. “It knows it will lose.” He walked on to the door.
It wasn’t as he thought. Pazuzu was admitting that it couldn’t break their faith. But it wanted them to know that it would kill them now. She remembered a passage in Job. “I thought, ‘I will die in my own house, my days as numerous as the grains of sand. My roots will reach to the water, and the dew will lie all night on my branches. My glory will remain fresh in me, the bow ever new in my hand.’”
Pride. She had thought that she would never be defeated. But her discipline and skill now appeared trifle. Only the Most High is beyond a fall. Still, only one of them needed to survive in the Piloting Module to defeat Pazuzu. And by God, she would make that happen.
She glanced at Holly. “Alright, let’s kill it. No hesitation; no quarter.” She extended the safety line of her suit and fastened its D-ring to an overhead clamp. “Get back here, James, and both of you secure yourselves. I’m going to open the door wirelessly.” She waited for them and then patched into the control unit using her suit’s comms console.
The door opened and a second later a mighty blast knocked them down onto the deck. She heard a hailstorm of pebbles pummeling her suit, and her pistol flew out of her hand. She quickly forced herself to sit up, keeping a hand on her wrench in case they were attacked. The suit’s monitor showed her heartrate was racing, but there were no alarms for a breach, camera malfunction, or loss of comms. Holly coughed over their channel. Nobody sounded hurt.
“Trap! Remember, it’s intelligent.”
“Yeah,” James said as he got up to his feet. He pulled her up. “Now I owe you one.”
“Let’s not do that to one another.” She looked in his eyes and he nodded. They bumped helmets and then they helped Holly. They gathered their weapons and verified their functionality. The corridor’s paneling was scarred and bent, and the half open door was pockmarked. Darkness filled the Gate beyond.
“It didn’t rupture the pressure hull,” James said.
“It must have been a small, improvised device,” Holly said. She haggardly leaned against the wall. “Not much explosive force but using shrapnel.” She had another fit of coughing.
“These suits can take some meaningful impact damage,” James said, “but I’m not looking forward to going through that passageway you mined.”
Patterson looked at the many scuffs on her suit. It wasn’t severe enough to appreciably degrade the reflective coat, but she wanted to warn the others since further impacts would strip more of it off. “The impacts stripped off bits of reflective paint.”
James looked at his own suit and nodded.
“What do we do?”
They looked at one another for a while in silence. “I think we can still cross,” Holly said. “This thing doesn’t want to trap itself in Aux Two. We probably need to be more afraid of tripping explosives inside Aux Two or Propulsion Two than in the accessways.”
Patterson looked back into the dark entrance ahead. That blast had come from just inside the Gate. “Then we can avoid them,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They crouched low with their weapons drawn as they approached the ruined door. Holly threw a flare under it which illuminated nearby equipment now streaked with glossy resin and heavy condensation. The Gate was silent, all equipment shut down. An unknown haze filled the atmosphere.
They glanced at each other for confirmation and crept under the door. They threw more flares out into the darkness beyond. Their light cast the machinery in a contrast of red light and utter darkness. The hazy air bloomed with red light. They spread out quickly, bracing against equipment and interior bulkheads for cover, and surveyed the Gate with their weapons.
“It looks clear,” James said. “For now, anyways.”
Patterson waited a few seconds for Holly’s command but she remained silent. Her helmet’s HUD showed that Holly’s pulse was racing. Don’t lose your spirit, it’ll get worse before it gets better. She spoke for herself as she began to walk into the darkness, “Straight through.” She looked back over her shoulder to confirm they were following. She had no doubts about James, but Holly was another matter. She didn’t appear that scared yet, but how long would she keep it together?