Bad Ends

Things fall from the sky every day. We see them all the time. Most burn up, just a bright streak of flame. We used to go looking for the stuff that survived. Now, it’s come looking for us. 

***

It takes a day to get us ready. Pressure seals come loose, filters have to have a good scrubbing, and all the battery packs need charging. She needs a vision check; the sensor array in my helmet is Kraeth, so it’s technically not compatible. Somehow, we make it work. There’s no point in even getting anything around if the haze rolls in. The solar panels won’t work, and it just eats at the armor anyway. We sit in the bunker, waiting for it to pass, hoping the hull holds up another day. But today is looking good. No green fog out the window, just the usual grey mist. Perfect hiking weather. I eat up. She harasses me if I don’t. I got woozy once, and almost didn’t make it up a ridge in time. Got far enough up a hill I could take my helmet off and chow down. Almost died because I skipped breakfast. She’s never let me live it down. The suit takes a while to put on. A lot of it came from different… sources. I’ve had to use a little this and that to build it, but it usually works. It ain’t tailored though, that’s for sure. “Have you lost weight?” I chuckle as I get her strapped on. She doesn’t think it’s funny. I’m sure she would roll her optics, if she still had any. HUD comes up, and she’s tethered to the helmet. Sensor info pours in, and analysis floods out on the display. I’ve learned to ignore most of it. It’s a lot of pilot data, and I’m definitely not a pilot. I sure ain’t flying anywhere. Double check the guns. Extra ammo’s ready to rock. Gas grenades are set. Never actually used them, and considering the atmosphere out there… well, they may at least scare something. I yank the dust curtain shut, and pop the hatch. I set the lock, and make sure the auto gun is working. It’s scanning, just like normal. That was one thing built to last. The air tastes sour, even through the mask. It is going to be a long, stinky day. 

***

It got really exciting around the bunker two nights ago. We had been stuck inside for a week. There had been zero breeze, so the fog just hung around. We had passed the time cleaning and swapping stories, but there’s only so polished each surface can get, and only so many stories we have to tell. We rearranged the paint bottle collection. Twice. Then the weather changed, and that sickly green started to fade. We started preparations for going out, and I lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling in anticipation. She has a theory. Stuff crashes on the planet regularly, and usually in the same general area. When my ship went down, the captain had said something about a gravity anomaly. She remembers something similar from when she arrived, and thinks that the planet sits at a point of gravity convergence, like a galactic eddy in a stream. Things passing by come in, get stuck in the swirl, and rain down here. It doesn’t help that we’re on the edge of a dense pocket of pure dark matter. Ships like to come in and try and top off their fuel, but then get stuck in the invisible current and plummet down here, at the bad ends of things. Works out for us, though. Sometimes those wrecks have cool stuff. So, two nights ago: I can’t sleep. I want to get prep going so we can take a trip out. And suddenly, there is a flash in the sky. A ball of light shoots past overhead, followed by a shower of smaller streaks twinkling through the atmosphere. There’s a dull thud, and I know whatever it had come down close. You never know with these things. The first one I ever cracked open was some kind of probe, and all it has was chemical fumes. I didn’t enjoy that. Still kind of fuzzy from that one. But, yeah, some good stuff! A crate of protein bars, a generator, this armor from a soon-to-be-dead guy the aforementioned paint collection – that’s my personal favorite. And she and I wouldn’t be together if the current hadn’t brought us to this spot. So, I have something to be grateful about. So, ship came down, went ‘KA-BOOM,’ now we’re gonna’ see what cool stuff is left. Hopefully. Maybe more paint. You know, the good stuff. *** Yeesh, it is muddy today. My boots sink ankle deep, and it makes an awful sucking sound every time I take a step. Gross. I have to stick to the hill tops, and not just because of the soggy ground. The fog is still clinging to the low valleys, and I can’t risk her health going straight through it. No animal tracks. I find a couple of carcasses along the tree line; poor dumb animals came down from the hills too soon, dropped dead at the edge. The plants love the stuff, though. Every time the fog rolls though, they get bigger and erupt into a whole rainbow of colors. It would be pretty if it didn’t also make them feistier. We’ve discussed it at length, and still don’t understand the fog. Like, it’s clearly poisonous to most of the animals. I guess there’s a couple lizards and some freaky bugs that are fine, but anything else drops dead. Not to mention, it eats armor, circuitry, paint bottles… what kind of weird ecosystem is, like, generally deadly? She said she didn’t have anything in her database that matched, and I sure have never seen anything like it. Ah well, we didn’t choose the neighborhood. 

***

After a few hours of hiking, I spot the first piece of debris. Engine cowling, and part of an atmospheric thruster. It's pockmarked from the mist, but still salvageable. No fuel, which sucks, and the vector nozzles took a beating, but the central turbine seems to be intact. Maybe I can make a cool jetpack out of it, or something. She tells me, “Ickey, it's not meant for that.” She's a spoil sport, sometimes. I give it a geotag in the nav for later pickup. We keep going. 

***

Finding all kinds of stuff now. A few ripped-up chairs, not worth keeping. Chains, wiring, and straps. I throw what I like in my pack, discard what looks like garbage. A whole ditch filled with spilled fuel, dumped there from a cracked tank. I scoop up a canteen's worth, tag the rest. No paint bottles to add to the Sykes family collection. Bummer. The body in the tree, though - that one is different. We find bodies all the time after a crash. Unless it burns up in the atmosphere, there is a good chance the ship will just disintegrate as it falls, spilling all its guts onto the ground - including passengers and crew. It doesn't end well for them. She and I are the only two I know of to make it down okay, and she was mostly left just a head and torso. The others that make it down don't last long. But this guy – this is really weird. At first, I was stoked. Kraeth armor, a little beat up, but not shot or burned. I figured it might even be compatible with what parts I've already got! But as I pry him free from the limbs of the tree, I get a glimpse under the helmet. I practically jump off the tree, and the body tumbles through the branches. The guy is for sure dead. But what happened to him doesn't look like anything I've seen. The body is shriveled up. Like if you had sucked out most of what kept you alive. Desiccated like a mummy. What is left is just a dried out bag of bones and dusty organs. Decompression doesn't do that. And he ain't burned. Whatever happened is nasty. I leave it there. 

***

I poke at a big chunk of windscreen, likely torn away from the cockpit. All the embedded diodes for the HUD display are busted, but you can still see through the screen pretty well. Good impact resistance, and the fog shouldn't bother it. Too heavy to drag right now, but I tag it for later. Geez, is it noisy out here. All the critters that hunkered down during the fog have rushed out, eating each other, hooting and hollering, having an absolute rager. They don’t even shut up as I crash through the brush. I have to turn down my audio sensors to think straight. There's been more bodies. Some we can reach, others we can't. The ones we can… I don't know what to make of them. A dozen or so, mostly Kraeth soldiers, a couple officers, a Solean or two, one in coveralls. A good half of them are the same as the first, shriveled up. The others aren't much better. All stabbed in the chest, which is gnarly enough. But when she reads the scans from my helmet, she says their lungs have imploded, every bit of air sucked out of them. That's not so strange; decompression does horrible things to a body. But, you don’t usually get stabbed after being blown out a ship. We keep going. 

***

The hulk of the ship came down in the middle of a grassy field, surrounded red and purple blossoms. The grass isn't all that dangerous, although it will slice you up pretty bad if it's dry enough. I don't like the kinds of things that lurk in it, though. It's quiet. Sensors don't see anything prowling about. I'm not sure if I like that or not. The ship isn't Kraeth, it's Thorakian: the Godhead's Pursuit. Which means it's probably from the Concordance, which is also weird. What would a Concordance ship being doing out on this end of the galaxy? It ain't flying again, that's for sure. There's no blaster burns on the hull, but the whole port side has been sheared off. It's settled with an unnatural curve, the keel is likely cracked. A whole shipyard full of mechanics and ten tons of flexiglue couldn't put this sucker back together again. Still, doesn't mean there aren't valuables inside. Yeah, we're going in. 

***

It's the middle of the day, sunlight filtering through the purple-tinged sky, but it might as well be the dead of night inside the wreck. What light there is quickly fades away just past the threshold. It's still. Like a tomb. Which I guess it kind of is. There are more bodies with the same injuries as before. The walls have blaster burns, but none of the soldiers do - everyone has either been stabbed and semi-imploded, or they’re withered to the consistency of leather. Stranger still, I don't see anyone that isn't Concordance. Did someone kill them all, take no casualties of their own, and then leave? These guys aren’t exactly pushovers. On the bright side, this is a treasure trove! There are working rifles, rations, a water filtration system that doesn't smell like mold, medpacks, fuel cells, you name it. Sure, it's all dinged up, but a lot of it works. And, best of all, someone on board was a model maker, and they didn't open all their paints. Score! There is no way I can strip all this out now, but we think that if we grab what we can and seal it in an intact compartment, it'll last. I'll drag a sled here tomorrow, and keep making trips while the fog is at bay. It takes some hot, stinky work, but I eventually get a lot of the loose stuff I found thrown in an old mess hall, the door shoved tightly closed to prevent leaks. We decide to leave the bodies alone; something about them just feels wrong. I toss some of the best small stuff in my pack. There's still plenty of rooms to explore, but they should be okay sealed up. Good to go. 

***

She and I are already picking out where we're going to put the new bottles in our collection when we come across the creature. We took a wrong turn, and bumbled into the forward section of the ship, not quite to the flight deck, but near the crew's command section. I thought we had been down this corridor already, and she argued that we hadn't; as usual, she was right. I pried the door open, thinking I had propped it once, and it slipped. What was on the other side wasn't what we expected. The door opened with a hiss, a pale orange cloud pouring out of the crack. We jumped back, and I pawed at the mask filters, making sure they were still firmly in place. Whatever it was didn’t immediately corrode my suit, so that’s a plus. She gives me an analysis: aerosolized compression fluid. Common stuff, it’s usually pressurized and used to buffer sensitive cargo, or to pad vehicle suspensions. As it becomes a gas, it’s like trying to walk over sand, only you’re swimming in the stuff. The stuff boils as it depressurizes, spilling out into the corridor. It must have been some kind of leak from the crash. I think about turning and leaving it for now; it is not going to be fun to navigate. But the gas spilling out is too dense for me to shove the doors shut again. And I don’t want to leave this area open and exposed, officers always have good crap. Safe to walk through, so we might as well. With any luck enough gas will be gone by the time I leave that I can lock the place up. It’s hard to see, even with the helmet’s sensors. We’re in a big room, lots of equipment, but that’s about all I can make out. Shadowy objects are suspended randomly throughout, still propped up by the escaping fluid. I head towards one. It’s a body. Another body. Floating above me. I tug it down closer. Solean, still easily recognizable, face contorted in a scream. The whole corpse is preserved in mid-death spasm, hands clawing at the sky, eyes and mouth agape. It is grotesque. I pocket a nice chronometer off his wrist. He ain’t gonna’ use it no more. As the fluid changes states and empties the room, it gets easier to see. I quickly move from body to body, grabbing what I can. The casualties are all messed up in different ways: a few have been stabbed and imploded, a few clearly asphyxiated by the fluid, and still more shriveled up like that an old fruit peel. A fight must have happened here, but what kind, neither of us can say. And then I spot the thing in the center of the room. It’s big, much larger than a normal person; I mistook it for another piece of machinery. I’d say it was a Havros, but ain’t no Havros ever looked like this. Suspended in midair, limbs splayed out in every direction, it resembled some enormous arachnid. I get closer, and can tell it’s superficially an anthropoid. I think. At least in part. The organic portion of the face was a beauty, but pale as moonlight. From there, person and machine blended together, smooth metal submerging porcelain skin. The face is dimly lit by its helmet, internal lighting casting a cold blue glow. The torso looks entirely mechanical, encased in plate armor and electronic components. I don’t recognize the style. She agrees: not Kraeth, not Solean, not Almorian, or Gaz, or anything else we had seen before. Six arms branch off, mostly cybernetic, but ending in living tissue hands that resemble the pale face above. One hand has a grip on a wild looking rifle, an exotic-looking thing decorated with a golden ring and glyphs in a strange language. Another hand clutches a Kraeth soldier by the throat, both frozen in mortal combat. I’m so distracted by the monster that I nearly trip over the item at its feet: a huge thresher, a giant bladed staff, a similar partial-ring affixed to the top. I’m pretty sure it isn’t meant for farming. I scoop it up. It’s a lot lighter than it looks. I give it a whack, but the still-thick air makes it nearly impossible to swing the blade. No problem: I can take it with me. Time to go. As we leave, I give one glance back at the room, and catch a glimpse of the bizarre creature within. The gas has largely dissipated, the bodies, equipment, and debris settling closer to the floor. The monster has come down as well, but rather than falling in a heap on the ground, seemed to be standing upright. It is… odd. Odder still, its eyes are open. I could have sworn they were closed. Creepy. 

***

We had been in the ship for hours. The sun was setting, and clouds had rolled in over the horizon. Rain - real rain! - washed some of the remaining filth from the sky. But it made the walk tough, tougher than normal. What had been damp on the journey over was now a bog. It would be slow going. I do not like being out after dark. She’s been mad at me about it before: strange things come out at night, dangerous things. And even with my helmet and her processors, they have the advantage out here. I press on. I can’t take the same route home. Too flooded. I hug a ridge line parallel to our original course. Through the nav I spot a couple of my geotags a few hills over, but I can’t get to them right now. I’ll try and grab them tomorrow. She was the first to notice how quiet it got. The only sound was the wind, rain, and my labored breathing. No insects. No howls in the distance. No scurrying in the undergrowth. Dead quiet. Like when a predator is nearby. I pick up the pace. The hilltop with the trashed engine was now in view, highlighted on the nav. I ignore it. That is, until I spot movement. Something big, perched atop the wreckage. Watching. It takes a tick before I can bring up the binoculars. Whatever it is disappears behind the wreckage before I can focus. But something was there. We aren’t alone out here. And whatever it is knows it, too. I race back home, crawling over rocks and sliding down gullies. I almost impale myself on the scythe a dozen times. It takes hours, and I am utterly exhausted as I cross the perimeter. Home. The auto gun lazily rotates, scanning for threats, and I am ever so glad I left a light on outside. I stumble into the yard around the bunker, and everything looks normal. Completely normal. I guess I let my imagination run away with me. Thank goodness. I fall to the ground as the gun suddenly swivels and opens fire, obliterating the tree line behind me. Burning vegetation cascades overhead, a shower of embers raining down from the black sky. The rapid fire sound of the cannons reverberates through my guts, my chest smashed against the dirt by the weight of her on my back. I’m sinking into the muck, struggling to crawl toward the airlock, mud threatening to swallow me whole. The guns stop, a dying whir echoing across the clearing as they spin down. Whatever they were tracking has died or moved out of range. I slump against the doorway, surveying the remains of my homestead: jagged tree stumps, splintered by the outgoing rounds. Spot fires dotting the skyline. Other than the ringing in my ears, the jungle has gone silent. I tap the access code, and fall through the hatch. I leave the guns online, just in case. I go to flip the door shut when a sound chills me to the bone. It is a voice, clearly speaking, but in a language I have never heard. It is a woman’s voice, but heavily processed, the speech of a machine. I don’t know what it says, but I understand the tone: cold fury. I slam the hatch shut. I lay on the floor, sweat filling the visor of my helmet. I tap the release, and gasp in the cool, clean air of my home. She drops to the ground; I know she’ll be mad, but I’ll make it up to her somehow. Pulling my pistols, I turn off the safeties. No way we are giving up without a fight. Ickey Sykes does not just stand there and die. I call out to the creature over the PA. “Hey!” It comes out with a squeak. “This is my property! Our property! Come back and you’ll get more of the same!” I peek out the porthole in the hatch. It’s calm. I duck down, checking the other windows as I make a lap of the room. Quiet. The battered jungle sways in the breeze. And then the comm crackled. “Kraeth-dialect. Male. Strange…” it croaks, a silky-smooth voice plastered over with the staticky growl of a machine. “You are alone. Unless you consider that rudimentary AI to be alive.” “I’m not alone!” I scream into the mic, backing myself against the opposite wall. My paint bottles topple over. “And I’m not afraid to get violent!” Silence. And then it laughed. It is a chuckle, slight, amused - and made all the more disconcerting by its synthesized nature. “Oh, how I understand. I am always alone, yet I am never alone.” Something scratched against the hull behind me. I jump, and put a shot through the wall. The wind howls through the gap I’ve just created. “Violence is my consort. My constant companion.” The whole hovel lurches, and I’m thrown against the cabinets. “I am made of violence.” I don’t know what to do. The auto gun hadn’t worked, and whatever it is has enough strength to knock around my bunker. And now it was talking through my comms. My comms! “What do you want?” I shout, steadying against the worktable. Maybe I could get it to leave with bribery. “I have things to trade! Good stuff! Useful on a planet like this.” I creep towards another window, pistol at the ready. “Maybe we can reach some kind of arrangement? It’s a big world -“ “I already know what I want. You have something in your possession.” My eyes dart to the airlock: the scythe. I didn’t even realize I had brought it in. “It’s yours!” I level the pistols at the doorway. “It is indeed mine. I have carved my way through many to get it back.” I recoil in horror as the entire roof is torn away, a metallic screech hammering my eardrums. The moist night air rushes in, pooled rain cascading into my ruined home. I am exposed to the night, the mist, the rain; the unforgiving expanse of a nightmare world. And it. I stand powerless before it. I drop the pistols. Useless. There is nothing I can do now. Except stare. Things fall from the sky every day. We see them all the time. Most burn up, just a bright streak of flame. We used to go looking for the stuff that survived. Now, it’s come for us. The monster towers overhead, crouched on the ledge. It tosses the roof aside, casually throwing tons of metal with no apparent effort. One of its many arms levels a rifle - that bizarre rifle from earlier - dead center of my face. And then it smiles. “No. What I want…” It pulls the trigger. “Is your time.”