Chapter Forty-Nine
When Buddy promised they could catch up, he meant it.
Their ship came screeching into view. The stars slowed down and Aphrodite tried to swallow all the organs that swam up her throat, back down.
Then she took a moment to study the large ship before her.
“Wait, why didn’t they take the Council ship? ”
Buddy answered:
The Council ship was not docked when they left the station. I tried to shut down their departure shortly before the pest locked me in that vase. Someone else took the Council Ship out…they were forced to take something slower.
From the observer’s view, the Vroskrowz ship loomed ahead, stopped and imposing over them. A massive, dark cloud that blocked out the light from the stars behind it. The front lights were flashing.
S.O.S.
Aphrodite locked her helmet into place as Buddy crept up toward the docking area of the ship.
With a few taps of his tentacles, their loading door opened and the smaller vessel crept inside.
Aphrodite tiptoed across the floor of their ship as they docked inside the larger ship. That’s not a good sign.
“Xexis, how many people does it take to run this large of a ship?” Aphrodite peeked over her shoulder at her mate.
“Six crew are needed just to steer. This is an emblem ship, much like the first one you were on. This is Xnasis’ royal vessel.” Xexis’ mask kept his face impassive, but his voice was thick with concern.
“How many do you think they have on this ship?” Aphrodite directed the question to Buddy.
I am still calculating, but I can see two life forms that are not infected and twelve that are.
Aphrodite pulled away from the dash, “Come with me, Buddy, if we forsake our escape vessel for saving Xnasis and Kinsi, so be it, but I need you with me.”
Buddy chirped, disconnecting from the ship and bobbing above her head. Aphrodite faced Xexis, he nodded to her quietly. The whole ship went dark, as did the larger one. Emergency red lights made the darkness feel even thicker.
“Safe to say they know we’re here.”
“They baited us…they want more infected to the Council.” Xexis put his gloved hand to the sensor next to the smaller vessel’s door. “But we are not the prey today.”
Aphrodite felt the two claws pop out of the back of her armor as she nodded toward the door.
The endless parade of doubt inside her mind was silent for once as they crept out of the ship and into the loading bay of the other.
Buddy scanned the ship with a soft blue light.
Her data pad chirped as a map was uploaded.
They treaded lightly, following the path up the loading bay and into the belly of the laboratory on the ship.
Tubes of gurgling water as the only light source inside the lab, Aphrodite tried not to look too closely.
Memories of an angler fish man eating others would come back to rock her resolve.
Xexis produced a blade from his side, the edge of it sparkling with electricity.
Aphrodite hunkered down behind him as she checked her scanner.
Three red dots appeared before them. Buddy lit up the room in an orange grid and she could see the technicians ahead of them.
Hunkered over, lumbering forward, their fingers clawed at their heads.
Then three faces jerked up, foam spilling from their mouths.
Red eyes, fingers ripped to shreds, the dead launched across the room.
Aphrodite didn’t have time to react as Xexis cleaved through them with ease.
Every movement and strike from his body was fluid.
He danced between the enemies, his blade cleaving through their skulls and burning the Brexzkit from their corpse.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Aphrodite stepped out from the shadows, watching him in awe.
Three more dots surged forward. Then three more.
A wave of bodies and infected human, Vroz, and others.
Where did they come from? Were they from the station?
Were they just collecting corpses? Xexis was surrounded as Aphrodite sent Buddy into the center.
His flash went off, startling the army of infected.
Xexis struck, using the bright, disorientating beam to his advantage.
Fortunately for Aphrodite, it illuminated a different enemy.
Seconds before a knife could embed in her helmet, Aphrodite spotted Danny descending into the lab from the bridge above.
She rolled away from him, bolting across the room.
Buddy zipped to her side, but Danny was much faster.
Without having to use his armor or suit, Danny wasn’t hindered with technology.
His body was loose and gummy, arms swinging wildly.
Aphrodite dodged, ducked, and danced out of his reach but he didn’t stop.
His knives lit up with the same kind of electricity as Xexis’ and Aphrodite realized too late the damage it could do.
Danny buried it between the platelets of her armor and pried one off like the top of a clam shell. Her armor crumbled, sizzling and hissing.
“Not the only one frying technology, are we?” Danny sneered, swinging again.
Aphrodite dropped to the ground, kicking at his shins as she hit the deck.
Danny grunted, something deep in him cracking.
She heard it, but the Brexzkit never seemed to be bothered by wounds.
He snarled, crawling after her like a feral spider.
Foam dripping out of his mouth and eyes glowing bright red.
Aphrodite yelped, clawing ass over head to get away from him. The engineer’s hatch called to her. Xexis bellowed, but he was surrounded. Aphrodite was on her own.
“Tell him to get to Xnasis! Tell him to save Kinsi!” Aphrodite yelled, hoping if he didn’t hear her that Buddy could at least tell him. As she pried the door to the engineer’s hatch, tossing herself down the ladder, she called out. “Tell him this is my hunt and that is his!”
Buddy’s text filled her data pad but she didn’t have time to read it. Danny was already scrambling down the ladder. Buddy zapped him with electricity but the dead protection personnel swatted him away like a fly.
Aphrodite stood on the perforated metal bridge that ran the length of the ship, ducking under a massive pipe and backing up slowly as Danny’s boots hit the metal with a heavy thud. “Now, now, what’s an engineer going to do without all her fancy tech?”
A loud clatter disoriented her as she tripped and stumbled backward over tools on the bridge. Danny snickered, stalking towards her. However, Aphrodite recognized the weight of the crowbar as she grabbed onto something around her.
Some designs are just universal.
Wrapping her fingers around it, fury pumping through her veins, she crawled backwards on her elbows and feet. Danny loomed over her. “Aphrodite Kerso, oh how I’ve waited to kill you.”
“I have to ask,” she blurted out, steadying the thumping of her heart. “Can you remember who your victim was? Before they died? When you’re in there, you have to, right? Because you knew how to be Max, kind of? I mean it’s not replacement of the real thing.”
She needed time. The ship was in S.O.S. mode, which meant it was calling other ships toward it. Someone else would likely pick up the signal. Other victims would be baited much like she was with the first ship.
How fucking clever… The whole reason she was in this mess was a ship flashing S.O.S.
“There are still some connections, yes. We can gather surface personality and thoughts, the last few moments. Though, that all depends on the damage done to the vessel prior to our feeding on it.” Danny crouched down before her.
“Which is how I will trick your mate into coming to you, following the sounds of your screams for help. I’ll know exactly what to say moments before I carve him open and spit a new cell into him. ”
“So, you have cellular breeding; you simply apply a new cell into a new host, like spider putting their young in to a victim for them to eat their way out of. That’s…
cool?” Aphrodite wasn’t the biology person but she remembered that from school.
She slid further, finding Danny amused by her movements.
Good, fall for the trap. “Xexis got that ship out of a quadrant it wasn’t supposed to be in, but he didn’t kill all those people on it, the original humans on that ship. You all did that, didn’t you?”
“An experiment. They dropped us into the vents of the ship, watched us eat through the crew till they tore each other apart. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry, we never stop.” He lulled his head to the side and her heart stopped.
“Who? Who dropped you into the vents?”
But Danny didn’t answer, just smirked, wild and carnivorous, as he slithered closer. He dropped onto his hands and feet, his speed concerning as he bound up and over her.
She thrust a finger up, panic shaking her down to the bone. Please, fuck, please, I need more time. “One! One more question! Why me?”
Aphrodite watched the wicked glee crawl on Danny’s face as he closed the space between them.
Just…about…there. “Thanks to you, we were saved before the others burned the ship. You and your mating hunt saved us from extermination. We reanimated your dead friends! Just long enough until we fed through all their bones and organic matter.”
He leered at her, unknowing he was in the strike zone.
“It’s too bad about the weakened bones then.” She exhaled.