There was no sound within the ktonshi vessel, just the pulse and vibrations of its life mechanisms felt through its internal surfaces. Gentle air currents that reeked of fetid tissue and digestive fluids wafted along its web strewn, darkened corridors, a sensory delight to the denizens that dwelled within those silken threads and undulating walls.
Except for one.
Its assigned task was to tend to the harvested, to check the ripeness of the ones marked for consumption, and ensure those blessed with becoming were slathered with the zhterha - a critical supplement that ensured the infected vermin would emerge from their chrysalis with the higher functioning of a true ktonshi.
Reaching up with its front two legs, it turned one of the paralyzed food sacks in its cocoon to ensure the digestive juices worked evenly inside it. For a brief moment, it met the glassy eyes of the vermin - the human - within. Stretched wide open in pain and fear, surrounded by a face caught in a terrible rictus of prolonged death as ktonshi poison slowly dissolved their insides.
It turned its many eyes away from the sight and hid a cringe before moving onto the next vermin filled food sack. As it moved, it did its best to subtly clean the miasma of terrible odors from its pedipalps. It hated the smell. It hated everything about being on thrice damned putrid ship: its constant undulating, the dark, the oppressive silence. But most of all, it hated ktonshi.
Even though it was one.
NO! It thought to itself adamantly in the deep recesses of its mind, I am not one of these filth. I am human! No matter what they’ve done to me, I am human!
All it needed to do was keep its head down, watch, and learn. It was unfortunate that the others, the ones that had been given the zhterha saw him, as well as any who contracted their vile contagion without the benefit of that awful, putrescent jelly, as lesser among them. They were relegated to the menial tasks such as what it was doing. Some would even become food if the food sacks ran out before they could perform another harvest.
And currently, the harvests consisted mainly of the vermin - no! People! - from the Terran Commonwealth. Low yield harvests from the outer fringe of their weakling empire. They required more if their number was to grow and spread, but they were so few right now that they needed to be careful. Already one of their ships had been lost while attempting to penetrate one of the stations of the light-damned Keeper’s stations. They needed to be cautious in their harvest until there were more of them.
They were already on their way to a system where another hsitchka- a spawn of the infected - would erupt from their chrysalis and join their number.
It wanted so badly to be able to sabotage the effort, to seize control of this ship and use it to subjugate the other. With the two, it could seek out the one who might find a way to reverse the contagion and make it human again - I AM HUMAN! YOU CANNOT TAKE THAT FROM ME!
As it stepped up to another of the food sacks in order to tend to it, there was a disturbance in the air currents that sent a tickle through the hairs of its bulging abdomen. It froze, the fear that gripped it mixed with a tainted primal instinct that made it want to rip its own brain asunder.
Another was behind it, one of the true ktonshi, those born or given the zhterha during their chrysallis. And as it stood frozen in place, there was soon the delicate tracing of the creature’s front legs caressing its body.
No! I will not go out like this! It - no he - screamed inside his dementedly reshaped head. You can’t have me!
Driven by the rage bubbling up inside him, the ten spider-like legs that were still on the ground flung him across the chamber, flipping him in mid-air so that he would land with agile readiness, his front four legs lifted and ready to defend himself.
Sure enough, the other was already sailing through the air towards him, legs flung wide, mouth stretched to its maximum to reveal the grasping pedipalps and terrible glistening chelicerae. Noxious green liquid dripped from its mouth as its flight brought it towards pinning him against the wall.
But he was ready.
The instincts of decades hanging out on seedy bars where the scrappers, dockworkers and salvagers spent their off hours, along with the genetic memories programmed into him with the infection told him what to do in that moment. He brought his four front legs in, pulling them close like springs flexed to their absolute limits. When the Other was close enough, he let all that tension release, throwing the legs out like spears, the lower two legs aimed for its cephalothorax, the upper two for its face.
Its eyes widened in that split second when it saw those spear-like legs ready for it, and desperately tried to wriggle in mid air to alter its course, spraying web from its spinnerettes to help. But it was too late for it to completely avoid injury.
While it was able to alter its course just enough to avoid the legs shooting out towards its head, one of the others managed to hit the base of one leg, tearing it off completely. The other pierced deep into the very center of its cephalothorax, causing it to let out a terrible screech of pain, shattering the horrible silence inside the creature-ship.
Pulling on the web it had shot out with its back legs, it pulled itself free from his leg and limped backwards, black ichor dripping from its wounds. Unlifted scrot! It screeched into his mind. How dare you refuse! You are only slightly better than the vermin! I was only going to take a leg or two, but now…now I want more.
He growled within his mind, every hair on his body bristling violently enough to send an eerie shushing sound vibrating through the chamber. I don’t lay down and take it from anyone you demented, dollfaced freak, He sent snarling to the Other as he climbed down off the wall, prowling towards it. Jonathan Barstol always comes back swinging!
What? How do you…
Die you ugly motherfucker. Barstol leapt at the Other, though it was larger, and far more likely to kill him, even in its weakened state, he would rather die on his terms than kowtow to one of these alien scum.
The Other once again managed to dodge, with a lightning fast thrust of one of its legs it snagged one of the food pods and pulled itself just out of reach. Another leg reached back to its spinnerettes, pulling a line of web out with it. When Barstol landed, it sent that leg shooting out towards him. Not even a scrot! Still vermin! Human vermin!
The blow only managed to graze him, but the thread of webbing caught on his abdomen, and in the next instant, the void-spawned demon yanked hard, pulling him off his feet. But far from sending him helplessly sprawling into the Other’s clutches, doomed to be a meal for the greater ktonshi, the move only gave him an opportunity.
His bar brawl honed reflexes once again saved him; when he found himself tumbling sideways, he kicked out with the legs on one side furthest from the other. The battle rage that fueled him gave those legs extra strength, and he ended up sailing into the air, up over his opponent, and giving him the perfect angle to shoot out a line of silken web onto its back.
Using the tension on that thread, he stopped his tumbling spin before he hit the ground, allowing him to once again land on his feet for the barest of moments before he leapt again. This time, however, he had that thread anchored to his opponent’s back. And though it once again attempted to dodge out of the way, Barstol pulled hard on the thread.
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He landed square on the thing’s back, front legs piercing through its thorax up to the second joint. He bent those legs to keep himself attached to its back and give him leverage to drive two pairs of his rear-most legs into its huge, bulbous abdomen.
Oily black ichor sprayed through the air, and the thing once again let out a shriek of pain, But Barstol ignored it, another sound had caught his attention. There were others coming down the corridor to investigate the sounds. Shrieks were not abnormal to hear within the creature-ship, but those mostly came after the harvests. Apart from that, they’d only hear the isolated cry as one of larger ones decided to prey on the lesser scrots.
He needed to end this quickly. He wasn’t sure how they’d react when they saw him tearing holes in one of their greater numbers. So as his opponent - now his prey as its legs started to weaken with every spray of foul black ichor - helplessly thrashed in an effort to dislodge him, he leaned forward and caught its head in his pedipalps.
It shrieked again, this time in terror as it renewed its struggles. But all that seemed to do was cause the spray of ichor from its abdomen to fly further from them as its heart beat furiously in its panic.
Holding the thing’s head firmly in his pedipalps to keep it from avoiding what came next, he lunged forward and brought his chelicerae closed on it with the horrible wet crunch not unlike crushing a watermelon. An instant later, he felt the throbbing of his mouth parts as they injected poison into the skull of his defeated opponent. It may have been overkill at that point - the fountains of ichor from its abdomen had slowed to a mere trickle - but instinct was instinct.
That same instinct spun him around after feeling the final pulse of poison into the thing's head, he opened his chelicerae wide, and - biting down on its abdomen - tore off a large hunk of its flesh. When the others found him, he’d already torn free his opponent's heart and was enthusiastically eating it.
Charles Benson was sitting at his desk as usual, monitoring his employer's business, as well as filling the role of gatekeeper. Normally, the latter part of the duty would be much less part of his day, since security in their old offices would have kept any undesirables from getting anywhere close to their office suite. But since they’d been forced to flee the Research headquarters of Enigma Osiris, that role had become somewhat more to the forefront.
Take today, for example. He’d been quietly working on ensuring all of Mr. Fisch’s private resources had not been infiltrated by CommFleet Security, or had any agents loyal to Enigma Osiris within them. Mr. Fisch had put everyone of these people through an intense vetting process, but intelligence agencies always seemed to find ways to bypass those. The work they were embarking on could not be jeopardized any farther than it had been already.
This work had been disturbed when a trio of research specialists had stepped into the small reception area he occupied.
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Fisch is quite busy today.” he’d said, hardly giving them much notice. “Unless you have an appointment - and I know for a fact his schedule is completely clear this afternoon - or you are here to see my unimportant self - perhaps to make an appointment? - I suggest you take your issue up with your department supervisor.”
A minute passed as he went back to skimming a report from an agent embedded within FleetSec on a pilot who had been thought dead, but turned out to be quite alive and working as an agent of their dear friend Admiral LeBeau. There had been no sound of ship boots on the deck plating, not of the hatch closing behind them. A glance up showed them - two men and a rather fit young woman - still standing there stubbornly.
“Yes? Did you want to set up an appointment?” Charles feigned a sigh, “I can certainly do that for you, I was just trying to save you the disappointment. Mr. Fisch’s schedule is quite full for the foreseeable future. The current mission is keeping him quite occu-”
“Yeah, see…” one of the men interrupted, “That’s what we wanted to talk about. See, we’ve heard some rumors about what happened to the Gladstone and the derelict it hauled back from uncharted space. Not to mention what happened to the EO fleet Mr. Fisch sent to pursue it when it ran... “
Raising an eyebrow, Charles subtly tapped a switch on the floor under his desk. “Really now? A rumor? I thought men - and women, my apologies miss - were above listening to rumors.” He stood up and stepped around his desk, holding his hands behind his back, careful to look non-threatening. “Please tell me what these rumors entailed.”
“Something happened to the crew of the Gladstone.” the woman chimed in, “something horrible that they encountered on that alien ship. It killed all of them and took over the ship before Fisch’s people could get on board. Killed them horribly, then took off with the alien ship. Fisch sent the 3rd EO task force after them, but none of them came back. I had friends on that task force!”
“An entire battlegroup of ships, including a battleship, was destroyed!” the other man growled out. “And now, Cold as a Fisch in there is taking us to try and capture a ship that’s been in contact with the same kind of thing that whatever the Gladstone encountered. We didn’t sign on to a suicide contract.”
Charles tilted his head and thought for a moment. In a way, their claims were justified; The rumors they’d heard were not far off the truth, and some of the scientists on board the Gordian Knot had no experience with these sorts of operations. But they had signed their contracts, and were bound to be where Mr. Fisch assigned them.
“First of all,” he said calmly, “I would advise you never to address Mr. Fisch in such disrespectful terms in the future. He is your employer, and unless you wish to leave his employ, you will pay him due respect.”
Turning, he looked the woman in the eyes, “I am sorry to hear about your friends on the missing task force. We still have no reports as to what happened to them. I imagine the Enigma Osiris board is debating on whether to classify them as Missing in Action, or A.W.O.L. The board isn’t always known for being merciful in its judgments.
“As to where we are going…” Charles shifted his gaze to look at the two men. He could hear a faint ruckus in the corridor outside, and from the way the men shifted he guessed ship security had finally arrived. “You won’t have to worry about that.”
“We’re going to see Fisch! Get out of our way!” One of the men growled, and their fist shot out towards Charles’ head.
But he had shifted sideways just enough for the blow to breeze by his head. Then, with a swift and graceful move, brought one leg up in a kick that connected solidly with the man’s chin. Then, without lowering his leg, he pivoted and caught the other man along the side of his head. Both men slumped to the floor in boneless heaps as Charles turned to the woman and gave her a simple, level, appraising look - the kind of look told someone they were simply waiting.
She stepped back, colliding with the bulkhead with a quiet thud, and raised her arms. “I wasn’t here to start a fight!” she stammered in shock, “I just don’t want to die out here with some weird creepy alien eating my brain! Please, I’m just a scientist, not a soldier!”
“I’m sorry Missus Janson,” Charles began, pausing for a moment as the woman’s eyes went wide at him recognizing her, “but it’s incredibly difficult to believe under the circumstances. I will, however, leave that up to our dear friends in security to determine. Perhaps you can convince them, perhaps you won’t. I suggest you try very hard in making your case as Mr Fisch doesn’t believe in keeping dead weight, possibly mutineers around.”
He left that hanging as a trio of security officers finally made their way into the office. “Ah, thank you good gentlemen for attending.” he smiled at them and walked back around his desk to sit down. “If you could please escort these unwelcome individuals to the brig. I’m sure Mr. Fisch will be speaking with your commander about appropriate consequences when he has a moment to spare. I assume they won’t be alone?”
“No sir.” One of them replied, “there were some - disgruntled personnel in the corridor that required some convincing to clear out.”
“As I thought,” Charles sat calmly, and began composing a report regarding what had just transpired, “Please have your commander make copies of the individuals employment contracts available for them to peruse while they await the decisions regarding their status. Perhaps have section 21, subsection 13 highlighted for them.”
The man’s eyes widened ever so slightly. The section referred to was couched in legal terms, involving the dismissal of employees for willful disobedience, or threatening violence upon their superiors. Hidden in the legalese, however, was an implication that the company would remove them from the work premises in the most expedient way.
For most companies, this clause simply meant they would be heaved out the front door with no ceremony, and any personal effects would be either shipped at the discharged’s expense, or disposed of. Or in the case of those serving on a station or ship, the offloading at the nearest available port.
For Employees of Unravelled Knot Enterprises, and in the latter circumstances… Well, there were rumors that if you were lucky the cost of a life pod would be deducted from your severance. If you were not…
The security officer swallowed nervously but nodded, turned to his team, and they hauled the unconscious duo out the door. He himself motioned to missus Janson and motioned for the hatch. “This way ma’am.”
The look of pure terror on the woman’s face did not satisfy Charles - it did not affect him at all. Instead, once they were gone he looked down at his shoes and frowned at the smear marring the mirror polish they’d had when he’d arrived that morning. They did not have shoe shine stands on board the Gordian Knot, so he would have to deal with the matter himself, which would take valuable time out of his day.
Why could those scientists simply do their job, and leave the decision making to those in charge?
The Salvager’s Plague
Ko-Fi or on
