1900 hours, Star date June 12th 2035.
Lieutenant David Cohen looked at the control panel in a dazed stupor. He plunked down into the chair, reached over and switched on the log cam as if by habit, but he was clearly beside himself.
“Begin log. My friend Christy…
… Lieutenant Christine Sellers, tactical engineer, was… was killed today. I am now the last survivor…”
David Cohen flipped off the log cam. He paused for a moment to collect himself. It was all so extraordinarily overwhelming. He looked as his shaking hands and fought back emotion, thinking to himself how absurd this was. For the first time in six months, Cohen was truly alone.
“No one was around to see you like this, so why does it matter,” he thought.
But it was just natural instinct, years of training. He clutched his shaking hands into a fist. This was not the time to lose composure. He stiffened, gathered his wits and flipped the log cam back on.
“I might have wounded it but I’m not certain. Its habitation was last scene in sector D. We were ambushed while we were trying to gather food. Capturing it is no longer an option. Its growth acceleration is… is incredible, and the cause has not yet been determined. It might be the atmosphere, but that is unconfirmed. I haven’t been able to get close enough to do any sort of analysis, obviously. The level of its intelligence is also accelerating at an extraordinary rate. It seems to have a remarkable ability to process and assess information. It’s as if it… learns as it goes, on the fly, from our activities, its environment and surroundings spontaneously. It may have assimilated everything we said and did when we had it in containment.”
Cohen paused and contemplated on those implications.
“However, that is also unconfirmed. I’m running low on nitrogen. Maybe a few ounces left. All the other extinguishers have been used up. Fortunately, there are no signs of immunization, and the nitrogen seems to still be holding up quite effectively as a repellent. I’m also low on ammo. Signal number fourteen has been sent at 1900 hours. For now… for now my sole objective is to try and stay alive. End log.”
Cohen switched off the cam. He glanced at the .45 lying on the panel next to him. He sat for a moment, reflecting on his days at the academy. This was the first time he wished he had spent less time in academic classes and more time becoming a better marksman, heck, any sort of marksman at all would have helped. It was then he realized how exhausted he was. If he didn’t try and get at least a couple of hours of rest, he would be as ineffective with the .45 as he would be without it.
He glanced over at the sealed door, the only thing separating him from what had been terrifying his crew for three weeks now. He wondered how much longer he could keep the specimen from getting into the control area. But it would have to do for now, because he had no options. If that thing could get through this barricade, he thought to himself, it would eventually get to him anywhere else on the ship.
The Horizon’s main mission had been to survey various interstellar environments and test atmospheres for future terraforming projects. The ship had gone off course while in hyper-drive and out of contact with ground control while his crew became preoccupied with this unexpected issue that proved to be a formidable deterrent not just to the mission, but to their very lives.
It had been many days since they made any contact with control. Every once in a while they would send a signal, hoping base could intercept it. The only way out of this situation was in the escape pod, but they had to wait for a return signal so they could confirm base knew of their location. This was becoming a long shot. The specimen had grown at an accelerated rate and had become extremely hostile. And now it seems they were being hunted, so it was becoming a race for time.
For now, all was quiet. Maybe he did wound it, Cohen thought, but it was doubtful. Perhaps he just pissed it off even more. Cohen shuttered at the thought.
But he finally resigned to the fact that nothing more could be done at the moment. He had been awake for 48 hours straight now. He felt his eyes grow extremely heavy. He reclined in his chair, eased into the contours of the cold leather, his body submitting to the only remedy now at his disposal… sleep.
2300 hours.
The sun seeped into the window of the control room and cascaded across Cohen’s face. The heat was a naturally induced awakening. He slowly opened his groggy eyes and stared at the window, soaking in the warmth of the sun rays and reveling at how peaceful it was. He had a glimmer of recollection and wished he was back home on those cool Autumn mornings when he would sit on his outdoor patio, listening to the chatter and frantic activity of the birds, drinking coffee and taking in the first glimpses of sunrise.
How absurd these terraforming experiments were. The thought of creating an artificial atmosphere in the middle of nowhere, void of natural life and organic material like that of earth, colonizing an environment that was not meant to sustain carbon-based organisms, left him in disgust him. He had been on quite a few of these expeditions, and they were all the same… artificial and cold. He found contemptuous amusement in the attempts of humans to try and recreate something only God could master.
Realizing he had gotten almost four hours of sleep, a wave of confidence washed over him. He got up and checked the barricade, somewhat surprised nothing had changed and all was still quiet.
The pains in Cohen’s stomach brought back the harsh reality that he needed sustenance, and especially water. But the only food and water that was available was in sector D. For now it was just pain and slight feelings of weakness, but soon it would take a great toll on his strength and energy.
Cohen came to a resolve that he had only one choice. He had to take a chance.
He had seen the adverse effects of people dying of starvation firsthand during many of the past missions of his deployment in North Africa and Southeast Asia. It was a horrible way to die, and he wasn’t about to go out like that. Nor was he about to shrink like a coward behind some barricade when his other crew members had sacrificed their lives just to survive.
He tucked away his .45, shouldered his pack, and grabbed the fire extinguisher lying on the floor. He took a deep breath and punched in a short code on the module next to the door of the control room. The locks released and a burst of pressurized air hissed as the door decompressed. The door slid open to the side.
Cohen peered out into the lifeless corridor, disconcerted by the stillness that brought him a feeling of extreme unease instead of relief. He braced his fire extinguisher as a ready weapon and cautiously made his way down the corridor to the staircase that descended into the lower deck, or what his fellow crewmen had commonly called “the dungeon.”
Cohen stopped at the head of the stairs and stared down into the blackness below.
The power had been shut off. It was at that moment Cohen realized he was dealing with a superior intelligence.
“How could intelligence of a species accelerate so quickly,” he thought.
When they had first taken it off the back of Admiral Turk’s bio-suit it was but an inanimate blob, a lifeless-type amoeba about the size of a man’s fist. Now… now…
Cohen knew what fear was. He had done several tours as the third World War was winding down with Team Delta as an information analyst, and now had become almost immune to the inhumanity of war, its pointless carnage and death. He had been shaken many times by overwhelmingly uncertain, extreme, and hostile environments on countless occasions, but nothing prepared him for the dread of heading down into that darkness. Yet he was determined nonetheless.
He switched on the LED built into the chest area of his bio-suit and begun the slow decent down the narrow and twisting metallic staircase.
The hum of the system generators that gave this part of the ship life was dead silent. How odd it was that he could now hear each one of his descending steps echo as his boots struck the steal surface one by one, a sound he wasn’t unaccustomed to and that now made the atmosphere unfamiliar and exceptionally unsettling.
Once he reached the bottom he knew there was no turning back. He cautiously made his way down the corridor to the chow hall. The lights from his suit reflected off the conduits and exterior system contours, which caused distorted shadows that danced on the walls around him.
Once Cohen reached the chow hall, he surveyed the area. The body of Lieutenant Sellers was gone, and he could only imagine why the creature took it, but that didn’t matter right now.
Cohen wiped the sweat from his brow, momentarily perturbed by the weltering temperature, probably now in the low hundreds, and the creature’s ability to manipulate the air system. The fact there were no signs of its presence at the moment gave him a sense of reassurance.
He set his bag on the counter near the sink and begun to pull MREs, canned goods, and water bottles from the cabinets, gathering as much food as he could gather. This was a strange task, as it was uncertain how much food he would need and for how long. Cohen was extremely meticulous in his actions and he liked consistency. He wasn’t used to this type of uncertainty, absence of any specific objective, only the objective to survive as long as possible, which he had no way of estimating. But the pack could only hold so much, so once it was full, he sealed it up and shouldered it.
He started to make his exit when he noticed a shadow that didn’t match the shapes he had seen before. The shadow swiftly moved across his peripheral vision in a spilt second, so swift that Cohen wasn’t sure if he had imagined it, or better, hoped that he did. Cohen then noticed something in his peripheral vision again and glanced to his left. He barely made out a flash of two blood red oval eyes and a mass, double the size of mass as before, bearing down on him from above. Just as he reached for his .45, something swiped the front of his suit, smashing his only light source and ripping the front of his suit to shreds.
The force propelled Cohen backwards over the top of the counter, crashing to the floor on the other side, sending pots and kitchen utensils flying in all directions.
As Cohen gathered his bearings, to his chagrin, he was sitting in pitch black darkness. There was no noise other than a strange clicking sound like a large dog would make romping around on a linoleum floor.
Cohen felt around the floor with his hands for his .45. He found the extinguisher instead. He sensed movement in front just above him. He fired the extinguisher widely in all directions until it was empty. He must have hit his target because he heard a high-pinched squeal and a thud like something falling off the counter to the floor on the other side.
Cohen knew he had just seconds to make his way back to the control area. He knew the area well enough to make it out even in the darkness.
He quickly stumbled out of the chow hall and fled down the corridor. He sensed the presence behind him as he made his way to the staircase, a chill up his spine, and this wasn’t just the unease we get when we think there are phantoms behind us that aren’t there.
As he leaped from the base of the staircase to about the fourth step, he felt something swipe at his heel. He stumbled his way up the spiral structure and made his hasty ascent. He heard the clicking noise on the metallic steps following behind.
Cohen reached for the railing on the last set of steps and propelled himself forward with a burst of momentum which gave him quite a lead from his pursuing foe. He bolted down the corridor, ducked into the control room and punched in a short code on the panel next to the door. The door slid shut. Cohen caught a glimpse of the creature as it lunged at him.
The locks clamped into place, followed by a vacuum sound, then a rhythmic pounding on the door from the other side. It was powerful and violent contact, each crash slamming against the door with determination. The door buckled and quivered, absorbing blow after blow. Just how long it would hold was uncertain, but doubtful it would hold up indefinitely against that type of assault.
Cohen slowly backed away, stunned, not sure what to do next. Everything flashed across his mind in a split moment… everything… the entire mission, his past missions, the fact he bypassed early retirement just for the adventure he had become addicted to, a mistake he had come to painfully regret at that moment. Cohen gradually came to terms with the fact that this would be the last mission he would ever take part in. That he would die out here in the middle of nowhere, under the most unusual circumstances, with no one ever knowing where he was or what happened to him.
He glanced over at one of the computer monitors flashing data across the screen. It was a jolt of hope he wasn’t expecting.
He darted over to the screen. The signal had been intercepted, and now ground control just needed confirmation. Cohen rapidly typed the necessary data. The screen flashed “Coordinates Confirmed.” The timing was surreal. Cohen sunk into the chair and let out a snicker of both disbelief and relief all at once.
The creature continued its assault. The door begun to ripple and pull away from the seams, as pressurized air streamed through the cracks. Whatever was on the other side was determined to get to him, and probably wouldn’t stop until it accomplished its goal.
Cohen snapped back to reality. He quickly stumbled around the control room, rummaging, gathering storage packs, papers, equipment, odds and ends.
The creature outside the door reached through a gaping rip with its tentacle like claw, clutching at the inside of the door as if searching for something to give it leverage.
Cohen rushed across the room and threw everything into the airlock, and climbed inside. He heard the door explode inward and knew the creature had gotten through, but he didn’t look back. There were space suits hanging nearby, but there was no time for them now, and he certainly didn’t expect to be returning.
He punched in some code. A hatch door to the pod opened. He tossed everything in, climbed inside and activated the lever that shut the hatch. He punched in some more code. The power surged, lights and buttons flickered and flashed all around him, followed by “IGNITION ON” that flashed on a small screen in front of him.
He switched on more levers, pushed buttons, and typed in more code. “IGNITION ON” switched to “LAUNCH ON” and continued flashing on the screen. A digital countdown appeared on the tiny screen in front of him. He strapped himself in, settled back, clutched the controller, and braced for the launch.
The creature begun pounding on the airlock door, which was much less durable. A second hatch door on the bottom of Horizon underneath the pod opened.
… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1.
The pod detached itself from Horizon and dropped into empty space. The thrusters propelled the craft forward. 5 meters, 10 meters, 25 meters, the pod flung itself away as if it knew its escape from the mother ship was its primary purpose.
Cohen looked down and noticed he was bleeding rather profusely from the wounds in his chest. Funny, it was something he hadn’t even noticed until now. There was no pain, just the cold wetness of blood that had soaked through his under garb. He peered through the window expanse in front of him. He marveled at the vastness of it all, the stars and galaxies strewn across the tapestry of infinite blackness.
Cohen switched the pod to idle mode. He knew at that moment without his space suit he could never go back to Horizon even if he wanted to. He was at the sole mercy of his rescuers, and this is where he would stay, confined inside his galactic tomb until they could eventually reach him. He was confident now that it was only a matter of time they would find the ship and track his pod, but it still sent an unsettling chill down his spine, a panic attack of sorts that could very easily overcome one’s sensibilities if one didn’t have a command of his mental faculties.
He reached inside a first-aid kit, grabbed a pack of hemostatic solution, ripped open the pack and applied it to his wounds. He then grabbed some gauze pads and pressed them against his chest. He sat back… gradually gave in to extreme exhaustion.
He felt profound warmth encompass him, a feeling he had never felt since Christmas Eve when he was a child in New Hampshire — the white snow, the Christmas carols; that familiar Christmas tree smell, the smell of ornaments, presents, Yule log embers, baked cookies, and the thrill of anticipating the next morning. It was a welcoming experience. It would probably be a few days, possibly a week until they could get to him, but at this moment he was finally safe and at peace.