“Let’s hope we’re off this ship long before that event occurs,” said Theo, leading the others along the rows of pods.
When they’d almost reached the halfway point, Henry moved over to a patch of congealed liquid on the floor and knelt to examine it more closely. He dipped a finger in the thick substance. It came away stained dark purple. “It has the consistency of blood.”
Theo looked at one of the nearby empty pods. “Maybe it’s not an invasion force, but food, and this room is a huge larder.”
Max glanced around nervously. “Food for what?”
“That’s one question I’d like to remain unanswered,” said Henry. “Because it’s probable, if these giants are being eaten by something, it’s even bigger than its meal.”
Their eyes followed the blood trail to a large trapdoor in the floor. A recessed lever beside it seemed to be the control to open and close it.
“I wonder where it leads,” said Max.
Henry grimaced. “Nowhere pleasant I expect.”
They moved on and stopped at a gap in the pod wall on their left. A crane contraption with long, jointed, metal arms and large mechanical hands, hung from a rail that ran the length of the ceiling with junctions leading down each row of pods.
The wide, high corridor that intersected the two sections of pod walls, led to a door of the normal size they had previously encountered. At the far side of the ship was a much larger door. A circular section in its center fed out rays of chunky metal pistons that connected to the thick, metal frame, seemed to be part of the locking mechanism.
“That huge door could be an airlock,” Theo suggested.
Max calculated the size of the door. “Whether they entered voluntary or under duress, it’s certainly big enough for the pod giants to fit through.”
A rasp of metal filled the space. Their eyes darted to the door at the end of the corridor as it slid open. The silhouette of an alien they hadn’t yet encountered gradually appeared, framed in the light shining through the door.
Theo reacted first and pushed the others to the side. “We need to hide,” he whispered. His gaze searched for a suitable place to conceal themselves. He pointed at one of the empty pods. “In there.”
They climbed up the thick tubes and cables and entered the pod. There was plenty of space for them all to fit inside. They backed into its darkest recesses and waited.
The new arrival’s unhurried footsteps on the cold metal floor grew nearer. When it stepped out of the side corridor, it was bathed in the pods ghostly green light.
The three men stared at its graceful, deadly form.
It was slim, about nine feet tall and covered in shiny brown skin covered in a faint hexagon design that looked almost metallic. Eight long, brown tendrils curved out from the back of its head to hang down its back, almost like dreadlocks. Its face was vaguely human—two bright blue eyes, small nose, mouth with lips and ears on the side of its roundish head. Though there was no sign of any sexual organs, its feminine features and its two pert breasts identified the creature as female. The two slender elbowed arms attached to small shoulders ended in hands with five long fingers, one of which seemed to be similar to a human thumb. Surprisingly, for creatures they’d thus far encountered on the ship, she was clawless. Her long legs had a knee joint and five toed feet attached to an ankle. She moved gracefully and though she emitted no obvious threatening behaviour, the alien carried an aura of menace. She walked out of the corridor and over to a control console protruding from the wall, which lit up with a touch of one of her slender fingers. Another press activated the crane.
The three men dragged their eyes away from the alien to watch the crane. It moved through the room and paused before one of the occupied pods. The green liquid cocooning the giant creature bubbled and gurgled as it drained into the pod’s base. When it was empty, the door slid open. The crane’s long arms reached out and gripped the creature around its waist. Tubes connected to various parts of the giant hissed when they detached. The giant was lifted out and carried over to the alien creature. When the claws released its grip, the giant crashed to the floor with a loud thud. Its job completed, the crane returned to its previous parked position.
The alien deactivated the console and walked over to the still creature that dwarfed her slender figure and halted a short distance away. It stared at the giant.
When the alien hadn’t moved for a few minutes, Theo whispered to his companions. “What’s it waiting for?”
Henry shushed him to silence. It was a stupid question that none of them could possibly answer.
A few moments later the giant moved. It gagged, vomited green liquid and convoluted as its body functions returned. It opened its large eyes and gazed at its surroundings. From its confused expression it was obvious it failed to recognize its environment. The giant showed no fear on sighting the alien creature, but it did show caution. It clumsily climbed to its feet and staggered until it regained its balance. It stared down at the alien creature whose head was level with its knees and lifted a leg to squash it.
The female alien smiled and leapt at the giant. In mid air she disintegrated into a mist of tiny creatures that swarmed over the giant like ants attacking a larger prey. Amidst the hoard, a larger, paler form stood out.
Eaten alive, the giant’s agonized screams echoed through the cavernous space. Purple blood sprayed the floor to form puddles when arteries were severed and flesh and organs were devoured. Within the space of a minute the swarm vacated its meal and once more gathered together into the form of the female alien. All that was left of the giant was its skeleton and head. The bones clattered to the floor in a pool of its blood that seeped toward the grating in the middle of the room.
The alien grabbed hold of one of the giant’s horns, dragged it over to the trapdoor and activated the lever. The door groaned open. The rank stench of rotten flesh, death and sewage wafted from the chute. The alien dropped the head into the hole and it joined whatever foulness existed below. The alien’s form separated into four smaller similes of itself, and each chose pieces of the giant’s remains from the macabre pile and threw them into the chute. The bones clattered noisily down its length.
The three men were shocked by what they’d just witnessed. The alien’s appearance, though surprising, was nothing compared to their astonishment when it burst apart to attack the large creature and then rejoined once they’d finished feasting. Fear of discovery and a similar fate kept their breaths shallow and their bodies still, but their eyes continued to watch in fearful fascination.
The grating of metal set Richard’s alarm bells ringing. He spun to face the threat. A ceiling grill vent clanged to the ground with a loud metallic crash that echoed along the corridor. The howl from the monstrous cobweb-veiled head that appeared in the opening quickly followed, as did Richard’s footsteps running from the Web monster’s unwelcome arrival.
The Web creature dropped to the floor and with muscular legs propelling it forward, it gave chase.
Richard rushed along the corridor. He glanced back. The monster was hot on his heels. He slapped the button on the next door he came to, and hoping something less threatening lay on its other side, rushed through.
During his dash through the pod room, Richard gazed in fascination at the giants imprisoned in large transparent containers. He skidded to a halt when he spied the small alien creatures dragging large bones through puddles of purple blood.
Surprised by the sudden arrival of the strange creature, the female aliens stared at the creature. Though they knew of the recent arrivals presence aboard the ship, they hadn’t yet laid eyes on any. Its lack of any obvious defensive body parts gave it a vulnerable appearance, and certainly not one that caused them any concern.