“And what priority are our lives?” Russell’s jaw was set.
Alex’s turned his unblinking eyes on the NASA engineer. Morag noticed they seemed to shine silver in the dark of the cockpit. Like those of a wolf or some other large night predator. “You just worry about staying alive, got it?”
“Or not,” Casey sneered at Russell. He muttered as he looked away.
“Questions?” Alex looked along all of their faces.
Morag had too many to count, but kept them behind her teeth.
Alex turned back to the door. “Medium projectile range, free fire, shoot to kill.”
“HUA!”
“Shields up.” Discs of air whirred to life on the HAWCs’ arms.
“On my order.” Alex put his hand on the spinning lock wheel, and turned back to the group. His eyes found Morag.
“Stay at our center at all times.” He smiled, or so she hoped.
Morag sucked in a breath, conscious of her heartbeat. “Sure.”
Alex waited for a few seconds, spun the wheel and then shouldered the heavy door open. Thick fog wafted in.
“Go, go go!”
Sam, Monroe, and Casey flew out through the hatch door like they were a single being. Morag jumped through after them and Alex grabbed Anne and Russell and threw them out. They hit the squelching ground, rolled and came up fast, immediately running hard behind the HAWCs.
CHAPTER 35
Zlatan felt the animalistic urges run through him again like a wave. He was the largest and most advanced of the Kurgan, and perhaps that was why he had been able to resist the undeniable changes for so long. His remaining team had shed their clothing, or simply burst from it, and now stood swaying before the meteorite fragment as though it was some sort of religious icon they needed to pay homage to.
He grimaced from the gnawing in his gut. He hungered for meat, red meat, raw and dripping. He tilted his head back, and would have closed his eyes but he had no lids anymore. He saw and heard everything, and felt connected to the life inside and out.
He looked back at the meteorite fragment. It sung to him, caressed his brain, and urged him to leave this former life behind, and to once and for all be free. It promised a new world with a new beginning and a new order. He would be part of it. He heard his men’s thoughts, still vaguely human. But the others outside did not think at all like them. They were now part of some sort of growing hive mind.
Zlatan stared at the beautiful thing nestled in the rocky cradle of the fragment. It had been searching for them for a billion years, after being blasted free from its home world. It loved them, but knew it needed to make changes for it to adapt, and change them to adapt to it.
A ghost from his past life still haunted him — a lovely Russian girl. He struggled to remember her name — it came back in a rush — Rahda, yes, that was it. He tried to recall her voice, but when he searched, the insect-like buzzing in his head just grew louder as if it were trying to wash away all trace of her.
The singing in his head grew more insistent, almost painful. He lifted an arm and saw that the material of his suit was splitting, showing the weird mottled flesh and bony plates like on those of his men. How could he ever go home now?
Zlatan’s eyes traveled up to his hand and he examined it closely; the fingers were becoming fused together into just three sharp prongs, more like those of some sort of burrowing creature. He would have laughed if his mouth permitted that action now.
“You all look like crap,” one of the Americans had said. Zlatan felt his face. There were strange lumps and fissures, and the size and shape was grotesquely wrong. The American was right; they were being made sick and strong at the same time, more and less human with every breath they took in this hellish place.
His attention was drawn to the American soldiers as they burst from the space shuttle with the women. His men didn’t care anymore, preferring the siren call from the thing inside the asteroid fragment. He knew what the Orlando crew had become, and also knew soon enough they would fully transform too. They had lost everything, and could never return home.
He lifted a grotesque arm to wave to the fleeing people and tried to call to them, but all that emanated was a mewling sound from a throat not designed for words anymore.
The irresistible singing pulled at him, but his Herculean will kept his gaze on the ever-thickening mist. There was something else that drove him on that was far more compelling than the entity inside the Orlando. Something he desperately needed to do.
He began to follow the Americans.
CHAPTER 36
Sam Reid bullocked through the strange growths as all around them the dense fog was alive with sound and movement.
It’s like some sort of weird alien jungle, and it’s growing. Out in the speckled air things called, squealed and buzzed in a mockery of a real jungle, and each of the noises was strangely similar to something earthly but then foreign enough to not be identifiable.
One of the long bugs from the Orlando cockpit window alighted on Sam’s shoulder, and before it had a chance to stab at him with its stinger, he reached up with an armored-gloved hand, grabbed it and squeezed. Green mush burst from each end, before he threw it to the mud.
He briefly looked down to where it had landed, but already the weird slime had closed over it, sucking it down and swallowing it completely.
If we fall, there won’t be a need for a burial here.
The HAWCs were a wall on either side of the remaining civilians, and he and the other soldiers fired at things big and small that tried to take a run at them. The RG3s made a soft spitting sound and in return, there came screams that could not possibly have come from human mouths.
Sam never saw the things clearly, and frankly, he didn’t want to. One thing he knew for sure, there was no way he was going to end up like Steve Knight, peeled from his armored suit and devoured right down to bones.
The constant zumm of insects grew louder, and things flitted overhead, darting in and out of the soupy air, perhaps attracted by the sound, movement, or their body heat. Some of them were the revolting bugs from the Orlando shuttle, but others were the size of small dogs and looked assembled from overlapping plates, spikes, and too many eyes.
Underfoot things crunched like seashells and he remembered what Morag had said about the giant roach and imagined that if he left a foot on the ground for too long something with sharp, bristling claws would latch onto it. He lifted his feet a little higher as he charged onward.
Around them, towering columns rose where he was sure there had been none before, and they loomed from the fog like silent sentinels, dripping with the slime, but now also wriggling with life, as though under the coating of mucus. There were countless worms moving up and down their trunks. Or perhaps they were internal organs, drinking or digesting, or excreting strange materials they feed upon.
He glanced at one of them a moment longer, and he was sure a single grapefruit-sized eye opened stickily on the trunk. It was milky white, and it watched them pass by before the entire column leaned after them, like a revolting finger trying to touch them.
Sam put his head down, trying to focus; the trunk-like finger things were all around them — hands — that’s what they were. Wanting to grab at them as if the entire disgusting mess was trying to stop them from leaving.
Then, it was like they had fallen into a vacuum — there was no more sound or movement, and immediately Sam sensed danger. Behind him, Alex Hunter roared a furious warning. Then they were hit.