Illuminae

The door shuddered wide. The hangar beyond was unlit. Black as the empty past the outer bay doors. We engaged thermal vision and stepped inside, VKs ready.

“Safeties off,” I ordered.

McNulty took point, creeping into the dark. I could see welding gear and industrial cutters scattered about the inner door, scorch marks on the titanium. The silence was total—it’d been days since they took AIDAN offline and cut the main drive, but I still wasn’t used to it. Those engines used to be a constant. A thunder you could set your back against. A heartbeat.

Gone now. And mine wasn’t loud enough to replace it.

Yet.

The bay was huge, stretching off in every direction, but I took best guess and motioned for Sigma to proceed. I could see the abandoned Copernicus shuttles in the darkness—nine bulky scarabs, a makeshift barricade welded around them, like some circled wagon train from a history VR. I thought I saw a flicker of movement in a porthole for an instant, and then it was gone.

We were on our way toward them when we found the first bodies.

I’ve seen people die. Die hard. Die messy. Job like mine, you live with the reaper every day. But if you’re unlucky, it’s not the bullets that kill you in this gig. It’s moments like these. Killing you one piece at a time.

There were twenty of them, all up. Eleven males, nine females. Children through to middle age. I’m not sure where the heads were—we never found them. They were stripped to the skin. Twisted on the floor in some kind of pattern. It wasn’t until I vaulted up onto a fuel drum and got a bird’s-eye view I realized they were arranged to form letters. Two words spelled out on the floor in cold, naked meat.

HELP US.

“Jesus Christ,” Sykes breathed.

“Not sure he’s listening, chum,” McNulty said.

“Stow it, McNulty,” I ordered.

“Knife wounds,” Sykes said, kneeling by one of the bodies. “Multiples.”

“Well, whoever did it probably wasn’t considerate enough to cut their own throat afterwards,” I said. “They’re still in here. Eyes open. Stay chill.”

I could feel McNulty’s eyes on me in the dark.

“What the hell is going on here, LT?”

Screaming.

We heard it in the distance, echoing through the Alexander’s guts. A girl. Pleading.

“Move!” I hissed, and we were running. Sweat on my skin. Finger on my trigger. I could see more bodies crumpled in the dark, not stopping long enough to inspect them. Broken skulls and opened wrists. This was no protest. This was no riot.

Shapes appearing out of the darkness ahead. Five of them. Voices babbling.

“There she is!”

“Hold her still!”

“Help me!”

“The knife! Get the knife!”

“Help!”

“UTA MARINES!” I bellowed. “FREEZE!”

I could see them. Covered in blood. Wild-eyed and pale. Three men and a woman, gathered around a little girl, no more than nine or ten years old. She was screaming, pleading. A fat man sat atop her chest, crushing the breath out of her. The other three were gathered around, iron bars and pipe wrenches in hand, slicked to the elbows in blood.

“Drop the weapons!” McNulty roared.

Sigma Squad fanned out around them, red laser sights cutting through the black.

“You bitch,” the woman spat. “Now you come?”

“You left us in here to die!” shouted another.

“Drop the weapons, step away from the girl and put your hands on your head!” I shouted.

“Miss, you don’t understand,” the fat man moaned. I realized he was crying. Tears cutting trails down bloodstained cheeks. “She’s with them. She’s with them.”

“Drop the weapon!”

The man was struggling to breathe. Fingers drumming on the bloody metal in his fist.

“Eric … ,” the woman said.

“She’s with them!”

“You stupid motherfucker, drop it!” Sykes bellowed.

“DROP IT NOW!”

I looked across the dark to that girl’s face. Big brown eyes. One hand up to shield her head. So little. So helpless. Nothing between her and the end but us.

The fat man raised his pipe wrench.

“Eric, don’t!”

“FIRE!”

Muzzled flashes lit the dark. Our VK’s roared. And when we were done, there were four new bodies on the floor, staring sightless up into the black above our heads, waiting for a God who wasn’t coming.

The girl’s wails filled the quiet. McNulty stowed his VK and ran across the carnage, picked her up from the bloody grille. He held her to his chest, those big arms wrapped around her tight. Doing all the right things. Making all the right noises.

“Hush, baby, it’s okay. You’re all right now, Uncle Jimmy’s got you.”

He’d have made a good dad, McNulty.

I don’t know where she had the shiv. Up her sleeve. In her dress. I caught a glimpse of silver, a flash of red. McNulty roared as the blade punched through his hazmat suit and the ballistics weave underneath. Those vests are built to take a knife from a charging gorilla or a point-blank burst from a heavy rifle. God knows where she got the strength.

McNulty shouted, throwing her aside and clutching his wounded arm. The girl hit the deck, twisted up into a crouch, lips peeled away from yellow teeth. She leapt at Private Henderson and put her shiv through his hazmask—punched right through the eyehole. Her stare locked on mine as his body hit the deck. Big and brown and brimming with hate. Bloody steel in one little red fist.