PERIL (24 page)

“AAWWWRRRRYYY!!!” Bains screams.

“Bains!” Magruder yells.

The creature’s tentacles slam against Bains’ robotic suit. Bains manages to break free of the creature’s grip long enough to deliver a whopping blow. The creature falls to the ground. It gets up and rushes her again. Two smaller creatures climb onto the back of Bains’ robotic suit. Magruder rushes over and grabs one of the creatures. It dissolves into its misty form causing her to loose her grip on it. It reappears into its organic state attempting to gain the upper hand.

Magruder accesses her suit’s laser drill, which is used for
drilling through rock; she cuts through the creature’s flesh splitting it into. It disappears retreating back into the misty darkness.

While Bains is being double-teamed by her adversaries, Cruise manages to get into the Launch Bay. Bains can see him getting into the Grey Goose, but is too busy fighting for her life to stop him. Magruder finds Bains’ weapon and fires on the larger creature attacking Bains. It retreats into the mist. She tries to crank up her weapon to fire again, but it is out of power. Magruder throws the weapon down and joins Bains. The two women fight the other creature hand-to-hand. It slams Bains’ robotic suit down onto the ground and snaps at her with its large teeth. Magruder aims her robotic suit’s laser at the creature. It disappears before she can get a shot off. Magruder helps Bains to her feet.

“Wait here, I have to find my cryo-unit!” Magruder says.

Bains goes over to her cryo-unit checking to make sure it is secure.

Magruder is searching frantically in the darkness for her cryo-unit and Mya. She can hear the bleeping sounds again. She follows the sound.

Bains pushes her cryo-unit into the Launch Bay. She can see that the Grey Goose is gone; only the Titan remained.

“CRUISE YOU BASTARD!” she screams. 

Bains goes back into the atrium to find Magruder and Mya. Magruder can hear Mya’s coos over her suit’s intercom and she hears the
dreaded bleeping sounds getting louder.

“WARNING! LT. MAGRUDER, YOUR STASIS UNIT HAS BEEN COMPROMISED!” Magruder’s suit warns, confirming her worse fears.

She finds the cryo-unit. Its lid is opened and one of the smaller creatures appeared to be feeding on her body.

“NOOOO!” she screams.

Magruder’s holographically projected face on her visor begins to break-up as her body dies. Her face disappears from the visor, leaving only the reflection of the creature feasting away on her corpse lying in the cryo-unit. The robotic suit then looses power and slumps over.

Bains arrives at the scene and fires on the creature with her suit’s laser. The creature hops from the unit and into the darkness. Bains quickly grabs the satchel holding Mya and makes her way into the Launch Bay. The satchel and the environmental suit hides Mya’s terrifying secrete. Bains is clueless. She notices that the large crate containing the Shiva has been ripped apart from the inside out. The Shiva is nowhere in sight.

She opens the Titan and pushes her cryo-unit into it. Bains starts the vehicle and leaves the habitat. She races across the rocky terrain. Cruise has a head start, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t launch the ship without her access codes. 

Chapter Twenty-Six

Bains can hear Mya’s coos as she races to the Decima. While she drives across the landscape, she is visibly distraught and ponders on the deaths of her fallen shipmates.

“Everyone’s dead, except for that bastard–––Cruise!” She thinks to herself.

“ISIS!” Bains says aloud.

“Yes, Captain.”

“I’m in route! Has LT. Cruise made it there yet?”

“No, Captain.”

“
Good, don’t let him onboard until I get there!”

“Your access code will prevent him from launching the ship, however I cannot stop him from boarding.”

“Acknowledged!” Bains snaps.

Bains notices the planet’s atmosphere appears to be changing. Most of the mist was high above the planet’s surface. It stretches higher than the clouds and the rings that surround the planet now glow with an eerie greenish tint.

“ISIS, what’s happening to the planet?”

“Unknown. There isn’t sufficient data to explain the anomaly, but suffice it to say, the planet is undergoing some sort of
transformation.”

Bains continues to drive towards the Decima. She approaches a large plum of smoke and dust. It is the Grey Goose. In Cruise’s haste to make it to the ship, he has hit a ditch and flipped the vehicle over. One of its wheels is still spinning as the Grey Goose lies on its back. Bains doesn’t stop. She leaves Cruise behind like he did her, Magruder and the baby. On the Titan’s monitors, Bains sees several mist creatures approaching the overturned vehicle. She continues on leaving him to his fate.

Bains approaches the Decima. There are no creatures in site, however the ship’s hull looks battered. The creatures had tried to board her, but their attempts were unsuccessful.

Bains uses Titan’s remote access to open the Decima’s Launch Bay doors and she boards the ship. After sealing the hatch, Bains quickly pushes her cryo-unit with the satchel holding the infant to the Decima’s Med Lab.

“ISIS, initiate Emergency Launch Sequence!” Bains commands.

“Please state your access code,” ISIS replies.

“ASHLEY BAINS!” Bains says.

Ashley was the name Bains and Tyler had decided to call their unborn child; the child Bains thought she aborted. This is the first time she spoke the name aloud since she embarked on this mission. Bains is unaware that Ashely is alive back on Earth with The Seeyer. Bains was asleep during the abortion procedure. She had no idea that The Seeyer had the fetus removed by the Mystagogues fo
r
Project Neonat
e
.

Bains places the satchel holding Mya onto a bio-bed and walks her robotic suit over to an awaiting spike. She backs into the spike and waits for ISIS to transfer her back into her body.

“ISIS, begin transfer!” Bains commands.

Something doesn’t seem quite right. Bains notices mist forming in Mya’s helmet, but before she can see the horrific events that follow her consciousness is snatched from the robotic suit and placed back into her awaiting body.

Bains awakens in the cryo-unit and the lid slides open. She coughs as she regains consciousness and slowly exits the unit.

    She scans the room, but there
is no infant in sight, only its helmet is left rocking back-and-forth on the bio-bed. A torn environmental suit and the shredded satchel is evidence of Mya’s transformation. Bains hightails it to the bridge.

Later deep in space, a mysterious ship picks up a signal from Bain’s distress beacon. The occupants know its coordinates well. They have been there before. They jump to light speed traversing the galaxy faster than rays escaping an exploding star. The ominous ship drops out of light speed and come to an abrupt stop directly over Bains as she floats in space. Her space suit looks like a tiny pebble compared to the enormous city ship. After destroying the mist cloud that
pursued Baines, the strange beings lift her up into their craft.

…Bains finally lets go of her memory of the past events and finds herself back in the present. She is held tightly in the grip of one of the strange beings. It holds her up above its head with one arm. Her visor now flashes, “REMAINING OXYGEN TIME: 10 SECONDS.”

“KILL HER!” one of the three bizarre looking beings says angrily.

“She deserves no less for the violation that has been
committed. They all do,” another being, echoes for her demise.

The being that holds her in the air above it, slams her down onto a strange table. It removes her helmet and she breathes in oxygen from the room. The being grabs a large instrument from the table and injects Bains with it through her suit. She screams out in pain.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?” Bains cries out.

“SHOWING YOU MERCY,” the being replies.

Bains had been infected down on the planet by the mist creatures and she didn’t even know it. The injection has eradicated the organism she carried healing her, but leaving one odd side effect. Bains now has the ability to transform herself into mist at will.

“Like u
s
your ancestors
,
you
will evolve,” the being, states.

The city ship’s inhabitants are mankind’s ancestors. They had left Earth long ago and encoded our DNA with a message, the symbols, warning us not to follow them.

The Ancestors encountered the Shengella-Tori here at MV5. They fought the alien race and closed off their access to our Universe. The fortress is a blockade to the Shengella-Tori’s Universe. The mist creatures are the Shengella-Tori’s weapons against their sworn enemies, The Ancestors. These mist creatures are designed to seek out and destroy any life form with human DNA––––including Mankind.

The strange ship points itself towards Earth and takes off at light speed with Bains aboard it.

Another ship has left the planet and is now in Sector L25. It is Captain Yuri’s ship, the Phoenix. It only has one occupant aboard her–––Lt. Ricardo Corrales Cruise.

Back on the planet, at the fortress wall stands the Shiva. A mist creature inhabits it. With its six arms, the Shiva presses down on the strange symbols and opens the wall. A
black hole emerges from behind the wall, erasing the century old blockade. It quickly envelops the entire planet and its three moons. Through the black hole comes an armada of Shengella-Tori ships, determined to find Earth and settle an old score.

THE END OF A BEGINNING…