Malice

Turbulence caused the craft to shudder, waking Liam Gregory from his slumber. The airborne quake was as brief as it was violent. His nerves calming, the researcher ran a hand through his short black hair and rested his head against the wall so he could see out the shuttle window. Below them, he could see light from the planet’s sun glinting off the waves of an ocean. That light warmed his pale skin, helping him to relax a little more. Ahead, land rapidly approached. Liam could see the edge of a tree line just beyond the rocky shore. He knew from the dossier that this forest stretched for about twelve miles inland, though from his window seat it seemed only a short sliver of green running along the base of towering mountains. The mountains ran parallel to the shoreline like the spine of some gigantic stone creature.

“Doctor! Look!” His assistant, Angela, exclaimed from the seat behind him. “There’s the station!”

Liam looked toward the top of the mountain range. He could see the Orion Station sitting atop one of the mountain peaks- a gray, steel, three-tiered pyramid. From this lower peak, the rock dropped down about thirty feet to a long ridge line which stretched for eight miles before ascending into the clouds of an ever-present storm to the higher peak. That snow swept facility was their destination.

Angela chattered excitedly from her seat behind him. Liam just gave occasional nods and affirmations while he pretended to listen, his thoughts elsewhere. He would have loved to share in her excitement of this trip. He reasoned that her joy and enthusiasm were excellent traits for a young mind such as hers to possess. The scientist had been trying not to dampen her spirits the entire trip from Earth two weeks earlier, but his concern around the circumstances was steadily growing.

“Orion Hub, this is Shuttle Epsilon-three-four-one-niner, requesting permission to land.” The voice of the shuttle’s main pilot, Captain Nikolai Fairmont, broke Liam’s train of thought. A few moments of static filled the shuttle. The captain looked at his copilot, Staff Sergeant Mikells, then repeated his message. The whine of the engines grew subtler as Fairmont slowed the shuttle, probably to give anyone at the landing hub time to respond Liam surmised. The second, longer round of static sounded louder than the first. After a while, their captain spoke again, “Orion Hub, this is Shuttle Epsilon-three-four-one-niner, be advised we will be landing on pad one.”

Liam heard the clunk and whirr of the landing gear engaging as the shuttle descended from the sky. At the foot of the mountain a control tower emerged from behind the trees. The landing pad itself didn’t become visible until they were almost directly over it. Slowly, the shuttle hovered lower and lower until the last jarring shudder at the landing gear made contact with the pad deck. The shuttle’s rear ramp lowered as the whine of the engines died down and Captain Fairmont appeared in the open cockpit doorway.

“Alright, everybody out, flight’s over. Welcome to Etharis.”

Liam felt the cool air from the mountain as he followed his three companions down the ramp. They found themselves standing on one of three large slabs of concrete and steel, elevated near the tops of the trees surrounding them. Each pad took up one side of the large square control tower, with the side facing the mountain occupied with one end of the long tram line which ran to the main station. Aside from their ship, the landing pads were vacant, and no one had come out to greet them.

“Stay here,” Captain Fairmont told Liam and Angela, “We’ll go inside and have a look around.”

Liam didn’t object. While field research in Xenology was known to have its hazards, but a month-long communications black out, coupled with other… circumstances made him feel very uneasy. He was not eager to be the first one to encounter anything unpleasant- and Angela, she was too obsessed with the surrounding flora to care.

“Liam- er- Doctor, come look!” The fiery red head often forgot formality when she was excited, “You can see where the branches of the trees grow together and where the trunks twist and combine with each other!”

Liam joined her at the edge of the platform, “Yes, that is one of the fascinating things about this planet- every tree grows multiple stalks. All these trees are actually part of the same organism, growing from a single root system like individuals controlled by a giant hive mind. It’s the same with every forest on Etharis studied thus far. Maybe you can help Doctor Stevens with studying them."

Doctor Marcus Stevens- he was the reason Liam and Angela had been selected for this mission. He was the lead researcher over the team at the Orion Station and a renown Xenologist. For ten years Liam had worked under Stevens as his own assistant. However, that was years ago, and Liam remembered a jolly, chubby eccentric who worked far too much and laughed at his own jokes, not the gaunt, pale, rail-thin ghost of a man Liam had seen in the video logs. Those logs, the last of any messages to be received from Orion, were what convinced Liam to come.

“Hey!” Liam and Angela turned to see Mikells on the catwalk of the level above them, “C’mon in, the place is empty! We’ll have to suit up and use the tram ourselves!”

They entered the tower to find Captain Fairmont already halfway through donning a bulky, metal-plated contraption that looked like a mess of steel, cloth, and wires. As they entered, he gestured to a row of pods on the wall just inside the door containing suits that resembled armored versions of the ones worn by humanity’s early astronauts.

“Suit up?” Angela sounded surprised and unsure. It briefly occurred to Liam that she had never worn a Space Knight suit before.

“Protocol,” Mikells replied as he joined them and grabbed a suit from one of the pods, “Alien planets often contain gases or substances that are harmful to humans, and the tram doesn’t go all the way to the station, so we’ll have to walk through the cave system for a little while. We don’t need anybody dying in there.”

The process of donning the suits took about half an hour. After that, the group descended to the lower level where they boarded the eight-seater, open tram car which would take them into the belly of the mountain. Liam felt slightly annoyed at the sight of it. Open trams had no walls or ceiling, which meant they were often so loud you had to shout to hear each other without specialized headsets which, of course, none of them had. The ride itself was a long one, taking nearly three hours to reach the center of the mountain. When at last the car did reach the top, the entire party was glad to be rid of it and begin their hike through the caves to the station’s entrance. Flicking their suits’ mounted lights on, they started the trek through the dark mountain.

As they walked, Liam’s thoughts turned to his former mentor and those last messages. The government had shown them to him when he was recruited. He and Angela were tasked to assist or, depending on the situation, retrieve the doctor's research. His former mentor’s voice filled Liam’s mind as he played those last two messages over again in his mind.

“Doctor Stevens, video log entry number 565. A few weeks ago, the exploration team found a significant artifact on the higher peak. It’s definitely artificial in origin, though the materials used seem to be rock and minerals from the mountain. What a find! I’ve spent every waking hour studying it! My team tells me I should sleep, but who can do that with such a revelation at hand! Never have we encountered any evidence of intelligent life outside Earth! This will be a most monumental discovery!”

The last message, only a mere two weeks from the previous one, was far different. “Doctor Stevens, video log entry number… I can’t remember. I’ve locked the artifact in a chest, I can’t stand how it watches me when I am in the room with it. Maybe I just need sleep, which just makes the situation worse since I can’t sleep. I have… nightmares- premonitions are more what they feel like- of death and decay. My own, and those of the Orion’s crew. In addition, myself and other members of the crew are experiencing shared hallucinations. So far there have been five reports of a strange shadow in remote parts of the station. We will see if this video even records, our systems have started to sporadically malfunction for no apparent reason. It feels like this whole place is going nuts!”

The caves suddenly dead ended in a near perfect semi-circular chamber. As they entered the chamber, their flashlights quickly found the fifteen-feet high, twenty-feet wide, three-feet thick doors marking the cave entrance to the facility. The massive doors were ajar, but only enough for the group in their suits to shimmy through sideways. Dread found life in their minds as they stared into the ink-black darkness beyond the gap. The four of them exchanged glances before Captain Fairmont took a step forward and led the way to the doors. He sidled through the gap and was silent for a moment before calling the rest of them through. When Liam’s turn came, he tried not to think of what would happen if the doors suddenly sprang back to life with him in between them.

On the other side of the door, Liam found himself standing in a short corridor devoid of any light besides the flashlights on the suits. Not far ahead, the hallway made a sharp left into the unknown. The steel walls and ceiling showed no signs of distress besides the obvious lack of illumination. Their footsteps made small splashing sounds in the small puddles formed by the cave water now creeping through the doors. They proceeded down the corridor cautiously, Fairmont still in the lead. The knots in their stomachs were validated by what they found around the corner.

The facility was in shambles. Lifeless lights hung out of their steel chambers in the ceiling, offices and labs were filled with shattered glass, upturned furniture, and scattered papers. Occasionally, Liam noticed a bullet hole or blast mark from the security personnel’s kinetic and energy weapons. A few of the emergency lights were still running, casting eerie shadows on their surroundings. Many of the doors were open and battered, but a few of the heavy sliding doors remained shut, stubbornly sealing the contents of the rooms beyond like tombs. Increasingly, Liam found himself taking note of nooks and crannies he could hide in if they were suddenly attacked.

“Has anyone noticed there doesn’t seem to be—” Angela started.

“Any bodies?” Mikells finished for her. “Yeah, I thought it was strange too. You’d think we’d find someone, or at least blood.”

“There does not seem to be any organic material anywhere,” Liam observed, noting that one drop of blood was visible either.

“Mikells, power up your rifle. We need to find the control room,” Fairmont ordered, “There, we can access the logs and figure out what happened here.” Liam heard the low ring of Mikells’ rifle powering up behind him and mechanical click as Fairmont armed his own weapon.

Clunk, THUD! The silence was interrupted by the sounds of above them as some unseen object crashed onto the second level’s metal floor. The entire group spun to look in the sound’s direction, letting out audible gasps or small yelps. Their lights illuminated the ceiling, causing it to glow.

“Let me guess,” Mikells said, “The control room is on the second floor?” They all looked at Fairmont, who simply nodded in reply. Mikells continued, “Ok then, let’s go to the strange noise in the creepy body-less station on an alien world. This is messed up; we’ve got a regular horror movie going here guys.”

“Enough, let’s go.” Fairmont demanded.

The elevator was out of power, so the company searched out the stairwell in the dark. They found it with the door caved in like it had been struck with enormous force. They all entered the empty column and looked up. The flashlights told them little though, as the light was greatly consumed in a strange, greenish fog on the second level. Thin, nearly translucent pale flakes floated aimlessly in the cloud like massive pieces of dust. No one moved or made a sound until, after a long while, Liam realized he had been holding his breath. Fairmont again took the lead, motioning for Liam to follow as he climbed the stairs. Liam took a long, slow gulp and stepped forward, grabbed the rail, and started his ascent. His movements were robotic as he forced himself to think only on the next step and shut out the gnawing thoughts of fear which circled his conscience like hungry wolves. Slowly, the rest of the company fell in line behind him.

The door to the second floor was intact. Opening it, Fairmont stepped through the doorway, scanning both directions of the corridor they entered. Liam followed, stepping to the right to get out of the way of the others filing in. As he did, his boot connected with something below him, unseen in green-gray fog. He looked down and started slightly as his lights pierced the ominous mist and revealed another space knight suit sitting on the floor. It was leaning against the wall, empty. The glass of its helmet visor was completely shattered, bits and pieces of it glinted in the light from Liam’s own suit.

“Hey guys! Look at this! There’s a suit here, like ours, but it’s damaged and empty.” Liam knelt and shifted the suit so the group had a better view of it. He ran his thumb along the name tag beneath the broken visor, CODY. Apparently, this suit was a personal one. After studying it for a second, he shifted it again so they could see the torso where it slimmed down from the chest plate to the waist. On the angular slope, they could see four round holes. Three were in a perfect horizontal line with the fourth slightly above and between the last two.

“Are those bullet holes?” Angela’s voice quivered noticeably.

“I don’t think so,” Liam answered.

“I didn’t know your expertise was in bullet holes,” Mikells said sarcastically.

Liam glared at him, “Look at this,” he pointed to each of the dark indents, “there are striations on the outside of the formation leading into each hole. It looks like something carved out the plating as it made the hole, and I’m not an expert, but I am pretty sure bullets don’t do that.”

“He’s right,” Fairmont was done with this standing around, “C’mon, let’s find the control room. The sooner we get out of here the better. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this place.”

“Just barely?” Mikells quipped.

Liam stood, and as he did, the lights from his suit caught something in the murky corridor. He yelped and fell backward, panic spiking throughout his body. He felt the others immediately rush to his side and pull him up.

“What?” Angela asked, concerned evident in her voice, “What is it?”

“I-I,” Liam panted as he turned back to where he had just been looking. Finding nothing, he looked around the corridor. As the panic subsided, he sighed, “It was nothing, I just thought I saw something. All this has me worked up.”

“The last thing we need is to lose our heads, so get yourself under control,” Fairmont lectured. He turned and started walking down the hall. Liam cast one more glance around before he followed, his nerves still tense. Had he really imagined it? Of course he did, no other explanation made sense. Still, he couldn’t completely deny that, for just a moment, he had seen a ribcage floating in the murky gloom down the hall.

The group followed the captain’s lead, making their way through the murky corridor. After they’d walked for a while, they found the control room door still intact. The lights on the door’s control panel were still one, indicating the room still had power. Hope fluttered into their minds for the first time since entering Orion. The captain took out a key card from one of his suit’s pockets and inserted it in the bottom of the keypad, then typed in a code. With a hiss, the large doors slid open and flooded the hallway with artificial light. Whatever hope they had of finding survivors would not be rewarded, however, as the room itself was empty. Still, a wave of relief swept through them as they entered the room, the doors locking shut behind them.

The fog was much less prevalent inside the control room. Faint traces of it wafted through the air as the members of the company moved to the various stations. Liam figured, since they were there, he might as well try to do what he was sent to Etharis to accomplish. Logging into the main computer, he began searching its database for Dr. Stevens’ research.

Liam’s attention to the conversation was interrupted immediately as a list of video logs by his former mentor appeared on his screen. Scrolling down, Liam realized the Doctor had made entries on a nearly daily basis for his entire stay at Orion. Then, the last three indicated a change in the pattern. Two weeks separated the entries he had seen from the previous daily ones. The final entry was just four days after the last one he had seen. Feelings of excitement and apprehension battled in Liam’s stomach as he read the date on the last entry. What happened here? What had become of his friend and mentor? Did he really want to know?

“I’ve got something!” Liam shouted. The others gathered around him as he hit the play button on the entry. His screen was filled with the sad image of a very tired and haggard old man wearing a blue turtleneck and a white overcoat. Deep, dark circles colored the bags under his bloodshot eyes. His unusually thin face was somewhat hidden by a wild and wispy white beard. The ghoulish scientist stared blankly at the screen for a long while before speaking.

“My dreams are coming to pass. People have been going missing for days. It started in the caves, but now from inside the station itself. We are being hunted. The air monitoring system has detected changes in the composition of our oxygen, and our comms systems refuse to work despite being in perfect working order. Some of the crew have reported seeing the shadow near where some have gone missing. I’m sure, whatever the thing is, it is tied to both the artifact and the disappearances. If anyone finds this recording, you must get out. Now! Don’t attempt to find the artifact, recover my research, or repair this station. Leave immediately, it’s your only hope of survival. Good luck, and goodbye.”

The video cut out. As the ominous warning began to sink in, bringing with it a slowly warming panic, Liam looked up and saw one security camera was, somehow, still operating. It was watching the corridor they had traversed, not far from the control room. The others noticed the screen too, and Liam wondered if it had been on before. As they watched the screen, all of them noticed something moving in the gloom. After a few moments it drew close enough to the camera to be distinguished- it was a figure inside a suit just like theirs, running down the hallway.

“A survivor!” Angela exclaimed with tremendous relief.

“Let’s grab them and go back to the hub,” Fairmont said as he hit the door control. While it hissed open, Liam saw the captain and Mikells exchange looks and double check their weapons. He felt relieved that they shared his silent skepticism.

The two armed men led the way, charging through the door as soon as there was room enough to step through. The four of them sprinted down the hall. After all the fear and suspense, Liam relished this burst of swift, decisive action. It ended too soon, with the group peering into the gloom, confused at not having seen the survivor.

“What is this? We should have passed them by now, they were coming toward us!” Fairmont was breathing heavily as he scanned the empty corridor.

“Wait, what is that?” Angela’s attention was focused on something off to the right. “Guys, over here!”

They all came forward and looked where she was pointing. Hidden in the dense greenish air was a suit, sprawled out on the floor. Their lights illuminated the name CODY beneath its shattered visor. Liam felt his breath catch in his throat at the sight. Panic seeped into his mind, quickly retaking the ground conquered by their sprint.

Before anyone could say anything, Mikells’ feet were suddenly pulled out from underneath him by an unseen force. He shouted as he fell on his front, his visor cracking audibly when it connected with the floor. Fairmont dove to grab his outstretched hand but was too slow. With disturbing speed, Mikells was dragged into the darkness. Fairmont quickly scrambled to his feet and turned to the frozen scientists.

“RUN!” His words broke the shocking ice holding the other four in place. Their muscles sprang to life as they followed him into the corridor, sprinting towards the stairs as fast as their suits would allow.

Liam heard the shattering of glass and a strangled yelp from behind him. Turning, he only barely glimpsed Fairmont vanishing into the darkness, choking on the fog which sifted through his shattered visor. For a split second, Liam thought he saw a thin black shadow, like an arm, attached to the top lip of the helmet. He didn’t stop, he turned and willed his body to go faster in order to catch up to Angela, but the fog was thicker now, and he couldn’t see her. Finally, near the stairs, he saw the young scientist curled up on the floor, hyperventilating.

“Come on Angela,” Liam said as he knelt down, “Keep going, we can get out of here.”

But they wouldn’t. A powerful force struck Liam in the side, sending him flying. He landed on his back and sat up, terror welling up inside him. He saw a figure shrouded in what appeared to be some sort of black cloth. It had no face, and no legs. Two thin and disproportionately long arms extended from a floating ribcage. Each arm had four claw-like phalanges. It quickly struck Angela, shattering her visor, then stabbed through the suit. Liam watched, mortified, as Angela’s skin became pale, then gray. It cracked, like dirt in a sun baked desert, then it started to flake away. In moments, everything, even bone, that had been Angela was part of the fog surrounding them. The creature dropped the suit, turned toward Liam, and lunged.

Turbulence caused the craft to shudder, waking Liam Gregory from his slumber. The airborne quake was as brief as it was violent. His nerves calming, the researcher ran a hand through is short black hair and rested his head against the wall so he could see out the shuttle window. He felt relieved his nightmare was over but couldn’t shake the words of the dream Stevens in his head. “I have… nightmares- premonitions are more what they feel like- of death and decay. My own, and those of the Orion’s crew.” What would they find on Etharis?