“I’ll take you bit by bit if I have to,” Jodge said, “but I’m getting past you. Count on it.”

  He took a step towards it and sent out another wash of flame.

  CHAPTER 23

  Rohit worked as quickly as he could, aware that a single mistake here would mean losing the Fusion Generator completely. He swapped out circuit boards, patched up wiring and replaced crystals from the backup store cabinets. He still couldn’t get the unit to come back up to full capacity.

  “This thing’s screwed nearly as badly as the A.I. unit. I might get us enough juice for four hours,” he said to Anna. “And that’s being optimistic.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “I think the Opas must have gotten down to the core,” he said. “To get access to root around down there I’d have to shut the whole facility down entirely. And it would take a couple of days, easily.”

  “You’re saying we need to evacuate?”

  “I’m saying it’s your call. But you need to consider it, and soon.”

  Anna didn’t get time to reply. The ground bucked below them as if hit by a huge hammer. The icy surface cracked and crackled, the ice itself starting to flow like thick glue.

  “It’s melting,” Rohit said.

  “How in hell can it be melting? It’s a hundred and fifty below in here.”

  “Davide or N’tini will have to answer that; I’m guessing the Opas can generate their own heat somehow. But don’t quote me, and don’t spend any time thinking about it. Head for the door; we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “They can’t penetrate the suits.”

  “No. But they can eat the plastics and the wiring in the servos. And if they do that, we’re left stuck inside an immovable suit. Come on.”

  Rohit made for the door. It was like wading through treacle. The iced Opas were already taking on a greenish tinge, and the icy surface which had been solid seconds earlier was now slushy. Over by the A.I. unit a bulge had formed as the Opas clumped and began colonizing. Rohit tried to move faster; he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what that clump might become.

  A blue-green aura rose up from the floor, dancing and swirling around his helmet.

  He kept pushing through the slush underfoot. It reached almost to his knees, and he was all too aware how exposed the plastics of the servomotors would be if any of the Opas got in there. He was almost running when he reached the door. Without thinking he tongued the switch to open it. He almost fell out into the corridor as the Opas left the dome in a wave. The viewing window in the corridor let enough light in from outside for him to look down at the wave of Opas that ran for yards along the corridor, with more of the slushy material emerging with every second.

  Anna was still six feet away from the door. Rohit turned, intending to offer his hand. His gaze was caught by movement behind her; the Opas rose up in a wall like a great wave, six, eight, ten feet high.

  “Run!” Rohit shouted.

  Instead Anna instinctively looked back. The wave of Opas fell on her and knocked her to the floor. She hit it face-first, her visor breaking open. The Opas swarmed over her like ravenous insects, filling her helmet. She tried to scream, but Opas poured into her mouth. Her arms flailed as she tried to push herself upright,but the weight of the slush and Opas held her down. The Opas filled her nostrils, took her eyes, began eating her hair. Her struggles were mercifully brief. Within seconds the Opas had swarmed all over her and the suit was submerged in a sea of green.

  More and more of the Opas poured out of the dome into the corridor. The protoplasmic sludge thickened and clumped in places, and long tentacles emerged from the sea to taste the air. Three of them turned and focussed on Rohit.

  Rohit fled.

  CHAPTER 24

  Davide and N’tini sat on a bed in the dark room; there had been some clumsy banging around for the first ten seconds until they found it, and now that they had they were reluctant to leave it. There was no sound from out in the corridor, no light seeping around or under the door frame, just pitch blackness and an ever deepening chill.

  Davide swept up the duvet they’d been sitting on and wrapped it around them both, drawing Ntini close to sit shoulder to shoulder.

  “Rohit will get the power back on,” he said. “Any minute now.”

  “No,” N’tini said. “The Opas are winning every battle, overcoming every challenge we set them. We’re out of our depth here. We need to get to the lander and leave, before a nightmare turns into a catastrophe.”

  “I agree with you there,” Davide replied, then paused. Something had flickered off to his right, near the door at floor level if his sense of direction hadn’t failed him, a patch of the distinctive blue-green aurora. In the darkness it was hard to tell if there was a deeper shadow inside the aurora, but whatever it was, it was inching its way towards them across the floor.

  “We’ve got company,” he whispered, and helped N’tini to stand.

  A second patch of aurora was now showing, two feet to the left of the first. From their size Davide thought they must be more of the mouse-sized things they’d seen earlier. They were both converging on where the two biologists stood.

  “We can’t stay here,” N’tini whispered.

  The swirling auroras moved closer.

  “When I say go, we’ll head for the door,” Davide said.

  “I can’t see it.”

  “Nor me. But I’ve got a good idea where it is. Hold my hand.”

  They fumbled around until he had her hand in his.

  The aurora was almost at their feet.

  Davide threw himself across the room, dragging N’tini behind him. He had a bad moment when he couldn’t find the handle, then his palm fell on the metal. He jerked the door open and they both tumbled out into the corridor. Before he could get his balance and turn to close the door the two patches of aurora were out in the corridor with them.

  Davide heard a whooshing noise to his left and turned that way to see a dim yellow-red glow, in the direction of the airlock.

  “Come on,” he said, and dragged Ntini up to her feet.

  They ran full pelt towards the glow. Twice Davide banged hard against the corridor wall in the dark, but he couldn’t afford to lose momentum; the two patches of blue aurora were still scurrying along behind them.

  CHAPTER 25

  Jodge kept advancing, but only one small step at a time, fearful that if he pushed the beast too far back he’d be where he started, at the airlock door and unable to burn it. Thankfully the beast seemed determined to put up a fight. It kept coming for him, tentacles whipping furiously even as he hosed them down with flame. He’d already burned almost a quarter of the thing to ash, and still it kept coming.

  He heard running footsteps at his back, but couldn’t turn; he needed all his focus on the thing in front of him. He took another step forward, leaning into it this time and sending out a burst of flame, not just on the tentacles on the end of the arms, but onto the arms themselves. He got both of them before the thing, for the first time, showed signs of retreating. Its aurora flared, yellow gold streaks amid the blue-green. It retreated in on itself, little more now than a large ball of matter with a small crown of tentacles. It rolled away from the flame.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Jodge said, and stepped in closer. As he aimed the blowtorch the thing sent out two tentacles, thin as whips and nearly as fast. One caught Jodge’s hand where it gripped the torch, threatening to pull the weapon out of his hand. He grunted as a searing flash of pain hit him, then shoved the torch on to full blast, stepped forward, and hosed the thing down across its head.

  It burst into a tall flame with a flash of heat so strong that Jodge had to step back. Still it tried to roll away, but the flames had it now, and seconds later it collapsed into a bubbling, flaming pool of goop on the floor. Jodge hosed that down too for good measure.

  “Behind us!” N’tini shouted behind him. “There’s more.”

  Jodge turned, weapon already raised. Two shadowy figures almost ran into him in the dark. There was just enough light from the burning Opas to make out Davide and N’Tini. Behind them he saw two patches of blue aurora, almost at their heels.

  “Get behind me,” he shouted.

  The biologists complied, just in time. Jodge hosed the aurora down with flame mere inches from his feet. It was two of the mice-sized things, and they went up fast and furious.

  “Is that all of them?” he asked.

  Davide replied.

  “Looks like it. How about yours?”

  “Down and out. Let’s get to that airlock before we get any more surprises.”

  When they turned the curve in the corridor they saw dim light ahead; the power was still on in the lander beyond the airlock and light was coming through the porthole window. Jodge reached the door first and punched in his security code.

  The door didn’t open.

  “Try yours,” he said.

  Neither Davide’s nor N’tini’s codes worked.

  They were still pondering their situation when heavy footsteps sounded along the corridor. Seconds later a light approached and soon after that Rohit appeared, still wearing a suit, his headlight almost blinding them after they’d spent so long in darkness and gloom.

  “We’ve got incoming,” Rohit said. “Lots of incoming.”

  “Where’s Anna?” Jodge asked.

  “She didn’t make it.”

  “What do you mean she didn’t make it?”

  “I’ll tell you, but not now,” Rohit said. “Stand aside, I can get the door open.”

  “What do you mean she didn’t make it?” Jodge said, more forcefully. If Rohit hadn’t been wearing the suit he’d have tried to punch it out of him there and then.

  N’tini’s shout cut through everything else.

  “Something’s coming.”

  Jodge turned to look down the corridor. The first sign of trouble was the blue-green aurora that filled the far end.

  “Watch my back,” Rohit said. “I’ll need a few seconds.”

  Four figures emerged in the aurora, two of the large ape-like colonies, and two of the dog-shaped ones, although these were even bigger than before, more wolf-like. Beyond them the corridor quickly filled with a wall of green, within which came scores of the frog-like things, several cats and literally thousands of flying insects. The bigger colonies came on fast.

  “You didn’t tell me you were bringing friends,” Jodge said and with more courage than he felt stepped forward to shield the others from the approaching Opas.

  b

  “Got it,” Rohit said behind Jodge’s back. Light flooded into the corridor as the airlock door opened to its fullest extent. It seemed to give the oncoming Opas pause. They halted some three meters away from Jodge, and showed no sign of coming forward.

  The light showed up something else to Jodge. He had a long welt across the back of his hand where the tentacle had caught it, and there was green among the red blood that seeped up in it.

  “Come on,” Rohit shouted.

  He turned to see that the others were already inside the airlock.

  He shook his head, and showed Rohit the infected hand.

  “I’m not safe,” he said.

  “No,” N’tini shouted. “We can get you into the med bay topside.”

  “And have me go the same way as Mark? Not to mention risking infecting everybody? No. I’m staying. I’ll buy you some time…as much as I can. Go, now, before I regret it.”

  N’tini made to step forward to drag him inside the airlock. Davide held her back.

  “Jodge is right,” he said. “The risk is too high.”

  N’tini buried her face in Davide’s shoulder as he led her to the far end of the airlock.

  “Close the door,” Jodge said. “Please. Do it quickly. These things could come at me at any moment.”

  “You’re a good man, Jodge.”

  “And so are you. Now go.”

  Rohit slid the door shut. Jodge heard the click as it locked into place and watched through the small window as Rohit turned away to follow the others towards the lander.

  Jodge turned back to face the Opas. Now that the door was shut again the corridor was thrown into gloom.

  The Opas came forward.

  CHAPTER 26

  "We can’t leave him,” N’tini said as Davide opened the airlock into the lander module.

  “We don’t have a choice,’ Davide said.

  Rohit was already out of his suit and making for the cockpit.

  “You do know how to fly this thing, don’t you?” Davide asked over the com.

  “I’ve had simulator training,” Rohit answered.

  “And he has me to help,” the lander’s A.I. said. Davide listened carefully in case there was any evidence of a slur in the A.I.’s voice, but heard only the normal, slightly flat voice they knew so well.

  “Get buckled in,” Rohit said. “I’ve given the A.I. the hurry up. Take off in five minutes.”

  Davide and N’tini took their seats and strapped in. The A.I. spoke again.

  “The camera in the airlock is functioning. Would you like to see?”

  N’tini shook her head, but Davide thought he owed it to Jodge to bear witness. The A.I. threw up a holo in front of him. He couldn’t see much, just the airlock door and the porthole window, but the flare of flame was clearly visible through it.

  “Give them hell,” he whispered.

  The flame flared again.

  CHAPTER 27

  The Opas kept coming and Jodge went right on burning them down to ash. He was backed up tight against the door and maintaining an arc of clear space in front of him, but with every passing second the Opas pressed closer and the backpack was getting lighter as he burned through his fuel supply. He knew that Rohit would be doing everything he could to get the lander away quickly and Jodge was determined to buy him enough time.

  He’d already put down two of the bipedal ape-like things, and thought it was another when the next figure approached him. He stopped burning in amazement when he saw it was completely humanoid; two legs, two arms and proper fingers, not tentacles. There was almost a face, with two small pits for eyes and a hole for a mouth. It walked forward and stood just out of Jodge’s reach. It appeared to be watching him.

  Jodge raised the blowtorch. The thing in front of him raised its arm, mimicking his action. Jodge tilted his head to one side. The thing followed suit.

  “Another giant leap for mankind,” Jodge muttered. The thing’s mouth moved in time as he spoke. When Jodge moved the torch from side to side, the thing did the same, at exactly the same time.

  It’s reading my mind.

  Jodge knew that if the A.I. were working, or the biologists were present, this might have been a breakthrough moment, communication between intelligences even. But those bridges had been burned with the first infection. Jodge’s duty was to the team in the lander, not to any sense of history. He pushed the torch up to its highest setting, set the flame on and stepped forward to hose the thing down. It came to him with its arms open.

  Jodge just had time to note that there were more humanoid figures emerging out of the aurora before the whole dome shook and a roar like thunder filled the air.

  “Safe journey,” he whispered.

  The Opas rose up in a wave and fell on him.

  CHAPTER 28

  The A.I. showed them the view as the lander left the surface.

  The complex was laid out below them. The Drill Dome had collapsed in on itself and the ice for several hundred meters around was covered in green in a wave that looked like it might keep spreading. The blue-green aurora danced over everything.

  “Look,” N’tini said, “by the dome.”

  The A.I. obliged by zooming in.

  A dozen humanoid figures walked out onto the ice plain. They were tall and slender, with eyes too large for their heads.

  “They’ve been watching us as much as we’ve been watching them,” Davide said.

  “We gave them the opportunity to explore a new environment,” N’tini said. “And they’ve proved better at it than we were.”

  The humanoid figures came into sharper focus.

  “Do you see it?” N’tini said.

  Davide nodded. It was the first, and last thing he saw before they left Europa behind.

  The Opas had chosen the configuration they would use for this next phase of their exploration.

  They all looked like Jodge.

  About the Author

  WILLIAM MEIKLE is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with over thirty novels published in the genre press and more than 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press and Severed Press and his work has appeared in a large number of professional anthologies and magazines. He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company. When he’s not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.

  About the Artist

  CYRUS WRAITH WALKER has been a production designer for the publishing industry for over 12 years. He holds a Master’s Degree from Portland State University’s Master’s in Book Publishing program. Since then he has provided the small press, authors, and cover artists with their book production needs including cover art and design, interior print layout, and custom eBook coding, plus photo realistic art assets and matte painted cover art. He has designed over 900 books and worked with clients such Gene Mollica Studio, Llc., in New York, Dark Regions Press, Dark Discoveries Magazine (Pre-Journalstone), Forest Avenue Press, University of Hell Press, N.W. Metalworx, multiple indie and well known authors, and currently Weird House Press.

  Cyrus Lives in Portland Oregon, where he enjoys hobbies such as robotics and artificial intelligence, and gaming.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11