VOICES (Revised 12/12/23

The initial impact embedded the enormous ship's tall stack of aft compartments 30 feet beneath the parched, cracked soil. Loose dirt held the rear 100 compartments high above the ground like a misplaced skyscraper. The long dead derelict simultaneously blotted out the harsh glare of the twin suns overhead and acted as a reverse chimney stack, allowing cooler air to rise out of the moon's porous interior.

An unseasonably cool darkness cloaked the creatures hiding in the bowels of the abandoned wreckage and after years of unbroken silence, they trusted their surroundings. But today, something felt different. A single tiny pin prick of neon light had formed at the center of the deepest compartment and while the sightless creatures did not see the orb's growing light, they felt its radiating energy. As the miniscule orb grew, so too did the eerie blue glow and fierce energy spilling out from its endless depths. Its dark energy ebbed and surged.

The creatures nesting in the forgotten chamber fled to the far edges of the compartment as the sudden sound of tearing metal and building heat forced them from their cool retreats. Some unseen force trapped between dimensions ripped at the very fabric of time and space. And whatever this thing was. It wanted in.

Raw energy arced from the surface of the paper thin orb. It whipped neon tendrils outward in rhythmic, undulating ribbons like lightning bolts searching for points of anchor. The flailing strands struck the steel walls, exploded in white-hot balls of fire, heating the metal superstructure. Giant patches of glowing energy heated the hull to a near melting point as the gloom of old gave way to a thousand blinding embers. Each drifting like blinking blue lightning bugs, and each hotter than the surface of the two suns outside. Air in the compartment shot up 50° per second until the cracked and flaked paint blistered and sloughed off in liquifying sheets. A hellish maelstrom fit for none replaced the cool darkness.

Creatures of all sizes raced away from the growing epicenter, either skittering down into the dark security of the familiar tunnels far below the moon's surface or unwisely, upward into the towering spire stretching up towards the blaring stars high above.

Something not of M6-117 was emerging through an interdimensional portal. Through a doorway of unimaginable and incalculable energy and anything near it melted in its brutal fury.

With every consecutive pulse, the radiating orb grew in size until its throbbing raw energy slammed against the inner walls, deforming the now super-heated hull to its melting point. Only the compacted sands outside contained the quickly weakening hull. But even that restrictive force could not hold back the inevitable as a quarter of a million tons of sand became a sea of liquid glass. The steel hull bulged outward like an over inflated balloon readying to give way.

Shadows formed at the inside edge of the opaque orb's thinning surface. First one. Then two. Then a whole host of ghostly apparition appeared inside the orb. The unchecked energy exploded outward, rupturing hull supports inner bulkheads and liquid glass outward. Crumbling hull supports detached one by one as the upper compartments sank into the ground. The orb shielded those within, but there would be no safe place for those in the compartments above or outside. Hell had come to M6-117, and all who stood before it might would fall down in fear.

A shadow inside the orb raised its hand, held it high for a moment, and then threw it down. A corresponding pulse, much larger than all the others, exploded outward and the wavering compartment gave way to the downward forces of gravity. The aft compartments leaned out, tipped forward beyond the point of no return and fell, gaining speed as gravity drew them low. The orb pulsed brighter as if fighting the crushing forces above. As the twisted wreckage settled, the orb's opaque blue became a transparent glass bubble filled with large men dressed in black Necromonger armor. The waiting horde readied itself to become one with this time and space.

The bubble popped, the super-heated energy drew back into the vacuum, tempering the molten hell-scape. A cool darkness returned. The chamber solidified into a twisted black cavern hewn from shining black lava rock. And with that, even more dangerous things stood in the dark. Necromongers had come for purposes of their own.

Bright lights flared in the darkness, revealing seventeen pallid warriors of the dead, standing in a time stream not their own. The future had come round to rejoin the past and with it, death followed. The sphere had served its purpose. Deposited its payload. And gone in the blink of an eye.

"We're here." Commander Krone said, checking the temporal chronometer on his wrist to make sure they had emerged at the right place and time. "The time dilation worked. Lord Marshal be praised."

"Take us through the threshold," the men murmered in reverent unison.

Commander Krone was a tall, muscular, imposing man. Ugly in mind, body and spirit. He bore a series of ragged scars carved into his face. The deep trenches resembled cracked furrows plowed into a parched field. The act of self-flagellation had done little to improve his already menacing face or his pleasant demeanor. Krone wore the ceremonial honor guard armor given to him by former Lord Marshal Zhylaw. As a selfish, self-absorbed tyrant, Krone valued the armor above all his possessions. It was a connection to royalty and the gods.

"Orders, Sir?" one the grunts asked, stepping forward.

"Master Sergeant Benson, take your team, clear a path between here and the surface. Then spread out and search for the girl. If shes not topside, regroup with us later." As Benson made to turn away, Krone added, "And Benson, Lord Marshal Vaako wants the girl alive. She is an insurance policy."

"Conversion?" Benson asked matter-of-factly.

"Lay not a single finger on her or suffer his wrath." Krone warned. "He wants her as the all-father created her. If she should find her way back to him in any other condition. I suspect your fate would be indeed dire. As would ours."

"Affirmative." Benson said, nodding he understood the valed threat. Benson turned to his team, gestured for them to follow him towards a distorted hole in the far corner that had moments earlier, been an open hatch. "Dumort," Benson said, turning to his men. "Make sure the team is ready. There will undoubtedly be indigenous predators left alive between her and top side. We don't need any surprises."

"Yes. Master Sergeant." Dumort replied, gesturing for his team to hold out their gravity rifles for inspection. The six-man team resembled the defensive line of some ancient football team. No neck gladiators chosen for their ample brawn, but not for their walnut sized brains. Each man was over 6'-7" and most of them weighed at least 285 pounds.

Krone turned to the remaining men and said, "Master Sergeant Avenesque, after Alpha Team clears the path topside, you can take your team outside and destroy their ship. If that's not possible, disable it by any means necessary. Then, come back inside and find that black-hearted bitch, and gut her from tits to asshole." He smiled at the thought and added, "And, as good measure, take her head. I think the Lord Marshal may enjoy a trophy."

"And what of the two men with the girl?"

"Standard protocol. Conversion or death. I leave the choice to you." he said, turning to the two men at his side. "As for you two, stay close. There's no telling what else may be in here."

If one thing could be said about Commander Krone, it would be that he is hyper focused on personal security.

"Avenesque," Krone said, turning back to him. "When you're done, return here. The Lord Marshal said we will find the obelisk in the down low." He gestured to the tunnel opening the raptors had fled into earlier. "The Athena hid it deep in the core."

"Affirmative," he said, offering a casual nod and looking at the opening.

____________________________________

Moss' suit was a sealed enclosure, but he had included several exterior monitoring systems that turned out to be quite handy in the dark. Motion detection for one, ambient noise detection for another and, to top the list off, atmospheric conditions. Pretty standard stuff all in all, but helpful in his current circumstance. Which was limited forward vision, non-existent peripheral vision and absolutely zero chance of hearing anything sneaking up from behind. That's why Moss was proudest of the noise detection. It allowed him to hear the beasts scurrying about in the darkness long before they jumped out and took a bite out of his backside. Nope. Those little shits wouldn't be able to do that at least. In fact, the last minute addition of noise surveillance had already saved him a few run-ins.

During Moss's slow trek into darkness, he needed to keep noise to an absolute minimum. But the creatures did not feel that way. They stomped around, making whatever noise they wanted. As a result, Moss found he could triangulate the creature's positions using reflective sound waves bouncing around the ship's many flat surfaces. Echo, echo. Who hears the echo? I hear the fucking echo. That's who, he thought. Of course, his primitive setup wasn't perfect, but it gave him a chance. Since entering the darkness, he had concluded that most of the wreckage was empty. All except the huge ones who didn't go splat in the fall were left alive.

To improve his electronic ears, Moss turned the high gain setting on the noise monitoring system to max +10db. The increase in db extended the system's regular range, although sound quality suffered slightly. It reverberated and sounded tinny, as if he had his head in a toilet bowl. But tinny or not, the system picked up the strange voices filtering up through the bowels of the wreckage. Voices he knew should not be there. Raptors infested those passages, not humans.

Moss scowled and thought, I must just ibe magining the voices. But the voices came again. So Moss stopped, took out a multi directional microphone and turned in the direction he thought he heard the voices. If there were voices, he needed if they belinged to Dahl and Carlos. The voices were real. They had to be. But there were to many. At least 7 or 8. Maybe more. Moss took a knee, presenting a smaller target just in case something was close by. No one should be down there, but hey, why take any chances, right?

Moss realized why all the creatures he had been avoiding were heading down into the tunnels. They weren't looking for him or trying to get to safety. They had heard the voices and were going to investigate. 

He considered going back to investigate, but realized that meant he would have to negotiate the last 2 hatches he just struggled to get through. Moss stopped below the next hatch. It laughed down at him from 15 feet above his head. He instantly regretted not lightening the suit by at least another 25 pounds. The 6 or 10 or God only knows how many hatches he had just fought to get through had completely sapped most of his strength. Pulling himself up in the suit had become a serious problem and now even walking made him breath hard. Luckily for him, the suit had 02 recovered system built in. No need to lug around heavy 02 tanks. But the sealed system was necessarily a good thing, because now the suit reeked of sn internal stench the incoming filters had no hope of removing. Stale urine.

Moss spent hours jumping and grabbing and shimmying through the wreckage, only to get to this far and find his failing muscles aching and cramping. Exhaustion and trembling fatigue had forced him to rest for nearly twenty minutes. If something raptor or human had come at him at that point, he would not have been able to lift his shotgun fast enough to fight it off. If he was going to continue on, he would need to devise a new plan. The suit was only good for limited use and was well beyond that. 

At the hatch leading into the next compartment, Moss fell off the handrail for the third time. He wasn't able to hold on anymore. He cursed the suit's inventor and hastily began construction of a makeshift scaffolding from loose debris laying nearby. The momentous undertaking had gotten him up to the hatch, but he was certain he couldn't get away with making that much noise again. Especially, not with a group of unknown people getting closer, and having no way of knowing if they were friend or foe.

Moss removed a glow stick from the pocket on his thigh, broke it in half, shook its contents forcefully, and hurled it to the ground in disgust. Mostly, he was disgusted with the nagging toothache in his mending arm. It was a serious liability that throbbed incessantly. Lockspur was right, he was a fucking anchor, and they were going to die because the hand on his broken arm was too weak to hold on. His injury was limiting enough, but the added side effect of 24 hours of high dose morphine still filtering out of his metabolism, rendered his stamina non-existent.

Moss unclasped his helmet and carefully lifted it over his head. His eyes, still used to the light inside the helmet, succumbed to the near darkness and after a few tense minutes, his eyesight adjusted to the eerie amber light of the neon glow stick. Moss quickly pulled out a pair of glasses and switched the night vision function on. The tiny view screens were blurrier than the suit's helmet, and he soon found himself wishing he could put the helmet back on. But that wasn't an option, the helmet only worked in tandem with the suit's power system.

Moss studied the helmet. Mental note, if you survive, make a detachable power supply. A lighter, detachable power supply. 

The stench of dead raptors filled Moss with a salivating, acidic urge to vomit. The sealed suit may not have saved him from the stench of his own piss, but it had mercifully saved him from that unwanted stench of spilled and rotting raptor bowels. He had passed dozens of chewed up and macerated carcasses on the way there. Most of them had met violent, dismembering ends in the great fall and most of those lifeless remains were now little more than picked over, loosely held together skeletons. The surviving raptors had gnawed some carcasses to the marrow.

Moss peered through his glasses, grateful he had thought to bring extra supplies and quietly removed his cumbersome suit. He used his combat knife to cut out the system's batteries and almost electricuted himself in the process. Whether it be by skill or luck, he cobbled together an independent power supply. Then he sorted out the exterior monitoring systems and strapped them around his chest using the wide bandolier he had draped over his shoulder. He linked the portable monitoring systems into his glasses. The systems improved the glasses' paltry capabilities, and for that, he was thankful. After Moss was confident he had everything he needed, he propped the suit up in a seated position, leaning it against a large box. He placed one glow stick at its feet and another inside the helmet, which he placed back on the suit. He placed a section of bent pipe in the spectre's grip and pointed at the floor in a non-threatening manner. Anyone seeing the empty suit and pipe would think someone had sat down to take a rest. Hell, it looked like someone had fallen asleep. Moss had a theory he wanted to test. And the empty suit and dummy rifle would help him do just that. OK, he thought. Now we're going to find out. Are they following; are they hostile?

Moss carefully made his way up through the maze of snaking twisted handrails to the hatch leading towards his teammates. His forearm protested, but thanks to a drastic reduction in armor weight, not as much as earlier. He stopped just inside the next compartment, peering over the edge, listening to the approaching voices, hoping his theory was wrong. A million questions swirled in his mind like vultures over a carcass. Why are they here? How could they know the three of them were here? And most of all, why are they coming up from the bowels of the ship? None of his questions made any sense. 

Searching flashlights loomed in the near distance. The voices had reached the adjacent compartment. A tense silence returned and one by one, individual lights went out, until only one dim light remained. A group of dark figures slipped through the hatch, silently landing on the floor, taking care not to give away their positions. Why the covert approach? Moss thought, peeking over the edge. Maybe their unsure if I'm dangerous?

Six dark figures slipped through the hatch and spread out in a skirmish line. They crept into center of the room, spreading out, flanking the resting figure in a semi-circle. Moss did not recognize their morbid armor or strange weapons. He had seen nothing like these heavily armored brutes before. They stopped a few yards away, weapons casually held waist high and took aim.

Moss swallowed roughly, watching in disbelief. As his eerie experiment unfolded, an all knowing silence consumed the room. They were foe. A meaty arm rose and when it dropped, every weapon fired. The combining forces of all 6 rifles tore the empty suit to shreds. Moss' mouth fell open. He had never seen weapons like those. The empty, tattered, and torn suit fell to the floor as a myriad of searching flashlights burst into action. One of the passed over him. He jumped back, fell off the hand rail, landed hard on his hands and knees and his mending arm screamed beneath the cast. He clutchied his arm to his chest as tears streamed down his cheeks. The pain was shrill and bright and he was sure he had broken it again. Moss forced himself up and darted away, clumsily mounting the handrail and falling into the next compartment. He was certain they had heard his stumbling retreat. And now, he had given away he knew they were there.

With his theory about the newcomers confirmed, Moss forgot about the raptors. They were only a side threat now. He was certain the raptors ahead perished in the collapse and those behind would fall to his new friends back there. And if any of the remaining raptors came his way, his portable systems would alert him.

Great, Moss thought, just one more thing in here that wants to kill me.