Chapter 7 – Escape Route
“What is this stuff?” Murissa snarled, angrily throwing her helmet to the floor before starting to strip out of her suit.
“Some new alien intent on consuming everything?” Hilde offered, shaking her gloves off and dropping them in with the rest of the ruined gear. The black rubbery stuff had splattered all over their equipment, but for the moment hadn’t spread across their weapons, scanners, or computers like it had their suits.
“Some DSM corporate secret more like,” Kaylee said with a grunt as she struggled out of her gear, careful not to get any of the stuff on her. “Some nasty surprise they’re working on to drop on the next group that dares goes against them.”
“May Erissaya’s light protect us…” Briar whispered as he started a longer prayer. He had doffed his covered glove first, the sealant or whatever it was having congealed into a mass that was growing thick over that hand. Now he gingerly used his remaining glove to pop his seals and wiggle out of the rest of the suit.
Shi kicked off her last boot, adding it to the pile of quickly moldering suits in the corridor at the base of the stairs. Her chest harness and hip holster rig were speckled with the stuff, but as she had taken them off, the black flecks of rubber flecked off, sticking to the rest of her suit or dripping to the floor. The rig was fine leather, more organic than the synthetic fibers that had composed their spacesuits and everyone else’s gear harnesses. If not the material, then…it had to be the enchantments she had placed upon the gear, to enhance its resilience and reduce wear and tear. Could the goop not consume magically enchanted items? That may have been the case, since magical fire seemed to work so well against whatever it was.
Looking at the others’ weaponry that had been set aside, Shi noted the black specks upon the guns and the streaks on Murissa’s blades. The black rubber, sealant, whatever it was, stuck to the weapons and magazines, but didn’t seem to be consuming it like the holsters, sheaths, and straps…it definitely preferred items with an organic component. Shi focused herself upon their gear, closed her eyes, and began uttering another set of power words as she worked her fingers and traced patterns in the air. The weapons and ammunition glowed as her spell finished and settled upon them. Shi wavered on her feet for a moment, feeling sweat bead on her brow at the effort she had just exerted to infuse magic into so many items at once. It seemed her experiment paid off, though, as the black sealant started to run from the weapons like water, pooling on the deck beneath them.
The thought occurred to Shi that the protective spell she had woven around them when they’d first entered the ship may have had the same effect. Perhaps the spell’s protection was what had slowed the consumption of their suits as much as it had? Or the blessing Briar had placed upon them?
Looking at everyone as they finished stripping, leaving everyone wearing only their insulated jumpsuits, black neoprene similar to what divers wore, single-piece with a zipper up the back, with short sleeves and legs ending in red bands around biceps and thighs, and a pair of calf-length socks, the only differences being the rank insignias over the left breast. Shi nodded toward the weaponry. “Okay, everyone be careful with your gear; that stuff doesn’t seem to be able to stick to anything with a magical infusion, so maybe we’ve still got a chance. Don’t take any unnecessary risks, though. We need to see if we can contact our ship. Hilde, can you access this ship’s communications array from engineering? And point us toward the next nearest airlock?”
“Should be able to, assuming all systems have restarted,” she replied, gingerly taking up her SMG and tucking a couple of spare magazines into her jumpsuit pockets. “As to the airlock…well…we’ll see if I can access some internal cameras or a schematic.”
“You thinking a touch-and-go evac?” Kaylee asked as she hefted her big gun, stuffing her sidearm awkwardly into one of her pockets, along with another magazine for her launcher.
“Probably would be the best chance we have,” Shi said, strapping on her own rig since it was apparently unaffected by the black mess. A ‘touch and go evac’ was meant for emergencies, like when a ship was going down…or if a ship was invaded by hostile rubber aliens. A rescue ship could come up directly over an airlock, get the transfer tube set and flood it with enough atmosphere to be survivable, then have the survivors blow their airlock, and get blown through the tube and into the rescue ship’s airlock. In theory, it could be done in as little as thirty seconds, but had plenty of risks, especially if explosions and flying debris were about. She was pretty sure that nobody was going to object to the idea, though.
“On it!” Hilde said, starting up the steps with Murissa following, holding her big blade in one hand, and one of her shorter ones in the other. Hilde had left her tablet behind, not wanting to risk getting any of the stuff on her.
“What about the escape pods?” Briar suggested, eyes brightening. “There were several still available a few levels up!”
“Maybe, but the crew here didn’t use them for some reason or another,” Shi said as Briar and Kaylee started after the others. “Maybe that stuff was already there waiting for them; we found none of them missing where we passed, after all.”
“It was certainly waiting for us; didn’t want us going through that door,” Kaylee said, shaking her head. “And it ate our suits, too, like they knew what you had planned.”
“Maybe, but it could just be how the creatures react to matter with any organic components. Briar, did your scanner pick up anything at all different during that attack?” Shi asked.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” Briar said shakily. “I don’t understand it; all I got was the same composition of rubber compounds. I’m not even able to see any magic at work with them either now, so I don’t think they’re some kind of arcane constructs.”
Something lingered on the edge of Shi’s memory at the suggestion of an arcane construct, but then it was gone. She hadn’t spotted any magical auras upon them either as they’d been chased out of the corridor, only on some of the inanimate pools of the stuff, before they had come alive with the ship. Magic certainly worked on them, though, so they didn’t outright negate it; perhaps they were just protected from arcane detection? If you were targeting the arcane research and development division of DSM, making something that’s invisible to magical sight would make sense, right? So many questions and no time to ponder them.
Hilde was already hammering at one of the consoles as Shi topped the stairs. It looked like much of the sealant had vanished from the main engineering area, likely pulled from there to block them in the corridor below. “Where is the next airlock?”
“Just a minute, commander; I’m trying to get access to the schematics…” Hilde said as she pounded the keys. “It’s password protected…I need to go the back way…”
“We might not have a minute,” Murissa growled, her fur and hair bristling as she stalked around the room, looking like she was trying to watch all access points at once. Her ears were constantly twitching, shifting in one direction or another.
Briar clasped his hands around his holy symbol, a faint glow slipping through as he stood with head bowed in quiet prayer. “I…still can’t sense any life from them…they must be some kind of artificial constructs…though somewhere else…maybe in the direction of the cargo areas…yes, there are flickers of life there!”
“Lot of good that does us,” Kaylee muttered. “We need to save ourselves first.”
“But it means they might have a way to keep these things away!” Briar said, always looking on the bright side.
“Fucking DSM assholes…just had to install that security patch like good corpo drones, didn’t you?” Hilde spat, hitting a few keys even harder as she blinked away sweat.
Shi’s own ears shifted, and she looked around the engineering chamber. She could hear movement just out of sight. A liquidy sound, flowing along through vents and access ways, following wiring channels. “Hurry, HIlde…we can’t stay here long.”
“I know, I know! Just a little more…this patch added another half dozen steps to something that used to be simple…” Hilde started muttering to herself as she focused on her task.
Shi heard a vent shift somewhere very close, as if a great weight moved through it. Everyone must have heard it, because everything, even Hilde’s typing and muttering ceased. Then Hilde was hammering away faster, windows flashing open and closed more rapidly as she switched between them.
“Okay, I’m in…pulling ship schematics and status… Power levels are approaching normal operating ranges,” Hilde said after a few more moments, wiping sweat from her face. “Nav system looks like it’s locked in with some jump coordinates…TK-drive is charging up. Shit, this thing’s going to enter hyperspace in like thirty minutes! Here, here, nearest airlock! Two decks up, far end, toward the bow cargo containers!”
“Alright, everyone, let’s go, on the double!” Shi said. Murissa was already jogging toward the doors, Kaylee right behind her.
“Wait, commander, there’’s…this doesn’t make sense, it’s like the-”
Shi had turned to Hilde as Briar started out the door to see what the techie was talking about when a floor panel next to Hilde tore free, a black mass of writhing tentacles surging out. HIlde barely had time to scream before the first of the tentacles wrapped around her. Shi raised her hand and let loose with a quick spell, sending a cloud of small, blue-white magical missiles into the rubber monster.
The rubber tentacles writhed and recoiled, but maintained their grip on Hilde. More panels ripped free, and Shi saw several streams of the black rubber pouring from the ceiling, forming more of the shamblers the moment they had started to congeal on the floor.
Hilde screamed again and fell out of her chair, kicking and trying with everything she had to pull away from the thick tentacles that had wrapped themselves around her legs and one arm. Shi fired her revolver at two of the shamblers nearest to herself, uttering another spell to send a gout of flame at the mass holding Hilde.
Shi dove to the side in the next instant, cutting her spellcasting short as another shambler whipped a tentacle at her. As she came to a stop, another shambler swelled out from a wall panel directly in front of her.
Hilde’s scream choked off suddenly.
Shi raised her revolver, ready to fire at the one in front of her, but a golden light sparkled down upon the creature, and the others that had surrounded her, stopping them in their tracks as the magical power caused their glistening surfaces to smoke and roil as if boiling. Recognizing holy magic when she saw it, Shi scrambled backward and got to her feet, daring a glance over her shoulder. Briar was in the doorway, holy symbol glowing in his hands, flanked by Kaylee and Murissa.
Shi turned back to Hilde, but the technician was completely consumed within the wildly thrashing black mass, her body now completely coated in smooth, shiny rubber. She still struggled, but the stuff was holding her firmly in place. Could she even breathe within it? Shi raised her hand and began her spell chant again.
“Commander! No time! More coming, we have to go!” Murissa snarled.
“I can’t hold these much longer!” Briar said, his voice straining, sweat beading on his forehead. “They…they aren’t alive! It was Erisaya’s will that has held them this long!”
Another panel tore loose from the floor ten feet from Shi, between her and Hilde, more grasping tentacles whipping out toward her. Cursing silently, Shi continued her spell, backing away. She crossed through the door just as Briar’s spell failed, releasing the shamblers.
With more tentacles coming her way, Shi swept her empty hand in front of her, creating a jet of fire that roiled over everything directly ahead of her. It was enough to halt the shamblers and larger tentacle mass, but not for long; the flames died out almost immediately as Shi hadn’t managed a proper spellcast in those precious seconds, but it may have been enough to give them room to escape.
Offering a silent prayer to the gods to watch out for Hilde, Shi followed the rest of her team at a dead run. She could already hear the squeaking of rubber moving behind them, and heard more moving through the ship’s walls. “Kaylee, keep an eye on the left flank, Murissa, the right. Briar, be ready to try and form a barrier when we get to the airlock; I’ll try to work something up to help. We’re going to have a handful of minutes to suit up at best, we can’t dawdle. Hurry!”
As Shi ran, she broke open her revolver, ejected the spent rounds and replaced them with fresh ones. Ahead of them, a vent panel broke free, and a long tentacle of rubber whipped out toward them. Murissa dove over it while Kaylee skittered to a stop and fell backward, bumping into Shi and nearly knocked her down. As the tentacle whipped toward Kaylee, Briar shouted his goddess’s name in the midst of another prayer, and the tentacle crashed into a glowing shield. As the mass recoiled, Murissa swiped her long blade through it, severing a good six feet of the thing.
As the severed part hit the deck, it began to swell. Shi quickly uttered the power words and sent fire from her hand to cover it before it could pop, instead causing it to burn as the main mass regenerated, the scent of burning rubber thick in the air. She swept her hand around Kaylee and toward the vent burning the main mass, forcing it back into the vent. “Go! Don’t stop!” She punctuated the command by turning and firing off a pair of quick shots into the shamblers that had followed them, stalling them for the few seconds it would take them to reform.
They kept running, Murissa practically leaping up the stairwell in a few powerful bounds while the rest of them took the steps two at a time, even Briar. More panels broke free just behind them, and the rubber tentacles just refused to stop their pursuit.
Coming off the stairs on the second level up, Murissa slammed her fist into the door release as the others caught up to her.
“Fuck!” Kaylee spat, backing away from the pressure doors. As they separated, more of the black rubber dripped from between the doors, and more shamblers and tentacles awaited them in the corridor beyond. Murissa took a step back, and Kaylee unloaded her next round, the magically enhanced shot tearing through everything in the hall. The blast from the launcher hurt Shi’s ears, momentarily leaving her deafened. It wouldn’t stop them for long, but at least now the weapon had some effect. Would it be enough to see them to the end of the corridor, though? Probably not.
“Hold on, just a second!” Shi’s special revolver was in her free hand again; she adjusted the cylinder with the hammer at half-cock, and then thumbed the hammer all the way back. As she did, the arcane amplification matrix built into the frame beneath the barrel began to hum, growing in pitch as the rune-inscribed internal turbines began to spin up, generating extra arcane power within the stout frame of the gun. The exposed section of the turbines began to glow with a blue-white light that only intensified as the weapon charged up.
Murissa and Kaylee pulled themselves away from the door as Briar got behind Shi. Orange magical energy played over the pure mythril frame of the gun like electricity, rapidly growing more intense. Some of the energy began to form circular arcane runes floating around the revolver’s barrel, further amplifying the magic within the round loaded in the selected chamber.
As the nearest of the shamblers fully reformed, Shi squeezed the trigger.
Talk about a sticky situation! That’s some serious infestation on that ship!
As things get more desperate, Shi finally gets to charge up her big gun properly, but will she get the shot off? Will it have any effect?
Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter in one week!
Until then, Urban out!
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