Fragment - Paul G Swanson (best android ereader .TXT) 📗

there lay things that are invisible?" She glanced at him with a curious expression. "Yeah, and they are only visible when they pass through certain wavelengths of light. The longest kind." He smiled because he thought he had her hooked.
"Space crabs." She told him.
"No, not crabs, they are more like worms. Worms and bats." He corrected as quickly as he could.
"No, space crabs, look." She pointed at something the size of a dinner plate. It swam toward the ship until it smacked into the glass. It bounced off the dome and he watched its six legs wiggle wildly. "Spatium Cratere."
She patted him on the back consolingly and started down the steps again. "Better luck next time, Mr. Romantic." She told him as she vanished down the stairwell.
Well, that didn't go as well as planned. Better luck next time, huh? Yeah we'll see. How long was this trip going to take, he wondered.
Psylix briefly thought about the encounters they had with the three enhanced humans. What had they wanted? No, he knew what it was. They wanted Tio. They wanted him bad enough to kill everyone on the way.
He was barely able to survive. What disturbed him even more was what Haschel might have told his leader, his boss, or whatever it was. Eventually, he supposed, they'd find out, regardless of whether or not they wanted to.
Psylix marveled at how much faster the Orion was than the Farsight. It took only four hours to reach the colony Omega. Back where it all began, end of the line.

* * *

Moumoru docked in on one of the external ports, he didn't want to zigzag between traffic again. That was overly dangerous, and he had almost crashed it in the process. But he managed it with only a few inches of clearance.
As he brought it into the dock and felt the latches lock in place, he felt something was terribly wrong. It tingled in the back of his mind. It was the same kind of tingle that he felt when they had been standing in the old ship moments before it exploded.
Don't be ridiculous, you're just giving yourself the willies. The monitor in front of him told him that the pressure between the two hallways was now equal. The door was ready to be opened. The sense of impending doom plagued him, but he cast into the back of his mind.
Don't do it! his thoughts nagged him.
He pressed the button anyway and the ship's door slid open. See, nothing happened.
Yet he heard in the back of his head.

Tio waited at the door ever so patiently. The shock of the latches locking into place shook the floor ever so slightly. "Come on, come on!" He said to the door. The light above the door blinked on indicating the pressure was now equal between the two cabins.
"Come on! Open the damn door!" He yelled as if Moumoru could hear him.
It opened into a see-through floor. A railing guided passengers from one side to the other. He followed it to another door. This one was open already, no more waiting.
He stepped through it and dropped his suitcase in utter surprise. Psylix and Sarah came up behind him and asked in there was something wrong. When he gave no answer they just followed his gave and found themselves equally surprised.
Twenty feet in the bodies started. Each with a trio of holes in the torso's. Just beyond the first few bodies they saw some type of lizard. It was dead and had curled up into a ball, it looked like a dog balled up trying to sleep. In the distance they heard squealing tires and automatic gunfire growing ever closer.

* * *

The gutted hummer twisted to the right as they chased the Sanbe Tanago, a giant parasitic reptile, around the corner. John, an aspiring biologist, sat on the roof operating the gun turret. The barrels to the cannon flashed as an uncountable amount of bullets shot forth in a fiery display.
For the past week, they had been hunting these large reptiles. Only they knew just how dangerous these monsters were. The scientific communities had simply shrugged off the findings, and now look at what happened. The space colony was now lying in shambles, crowded with a dead populace.
Grendal brought the vehicle around the corner with a mad grin on his face. If they managed to get this one it would the tenth one that they had bagged. The beast fell back into Johns view and he let loose another barrage.
The shells ripped a jagged path into the sides of the buildings. The beast jumped into the air at the last second narrowly avoiding the pellets of death. Quickly recalculating his aim, he set a final cannonade loose.
It hit its mark. Green blood erupted from demonic creature. Grendal brought the vehicle to a screaming stop and let out a whoop of victory. "Nice shot!"
"Gee thanks. Only took me a couple hundred bullets!" John yelled agitated.
"It's all right. There's plenty more shells where that came from." Grendal yanked the key from the ignition and hopped out of his seat. "Look we've got an audience." John studied the new surroundings and found that they now stood just a few hundred feet the from the colonies spaceport.
Sure enough just as Grendal had informed him at the departures entrance stood three very surprised looking people. Two men and one woman.
The man farthest from John had shiny brown matted hair, glowing eyes and stood almost an entire head taller than his companions. The other man seemed to be in his twenties and only stood at about five-nine.
The woman was just about the prettiest thing he had ever seen and he had seen a lot. The poor womanizer was at a loss for words. She had some long legs, he noticed, and only stood a tiny bit taller then her short friend.
"What do you say Gren?" John hopped off the turret as stood beside the massive driver. Grendal was a big sturdy black man with a fake left eye. John seemed small in insignificant beside him. "Should we tell them to get lost or survey the damage?"
"What do you think?" Gren told him and slapped him heartily on the back. "Course we tell them to get lost. Don't you remember why we took up arms?" Grendal cocked his head, "Or did all that shooting fry your brains?"
"Nah, My gray matter is just fine, thank you!" John seized the moment and started towards the group, which had grown from three to four.
Now a man wearing black leather and sporting a full head of white hair stood among them. That jacket he was toting could be just about hiding anything in it. John could just picture him pulling a sub machine gun and butchering everyone were they stood.
John got within ten feet of them after stepping over several bodies in process and held out his hand. "Howdy!" When no one took his hand, he pulled it back.
"And you are?" It was the man in the leather.
"I'm just a biologist." He told them plainly.
"That's not an answer."
"He's John and I'm Grendal." Gren told them gesturing at the surroundings, "As you can see there's a bit of a mess here. Your names are?"
"Seth." The man in black told them with a grim tone.
"Tio." The short one said.
"And Sarah." She told them.
"Last but not least, it is I, Psylix." The man with the matted hair announced bowing while producing a tail that stuck up behind him. Its sharp tail caught the light and flicked a flash into John's eye. It was as if to say don't try anything odd, or else.
Moumoru had yet to leave his seat, he felt as if he moved it would condemn everyone. That terrible feeling of apprehension still lingered even after the dock. Everyone else had already disembarked.
Why did he even open the airlock? Psylix and Somie had to of felt it as well. So why didn't they say anything? What about Zeke? Where did he get off to? Suddenly he remembered that he hadn't seen him since the start of the voyage.
Tossing aside the anxiety, he got up and knew what he needed to do. Time to find Zeke. He didn't want another Haschel to happen. He charged down the railing next to the steps and landed on the bottom floor. The room looked just the same as it had an hour ago. The chairs were where they belonged, computer screens still dishing out information, but no crewmembers.
He knew where everyone but Zeke had gone. He drew his handgun and held it in his hand ready to use it if necessary. The grip was stiff; it felt good in his sweaty hands. A small comfort in a world of pain and loneliness.
He would search the entire ship, only then would he rest, and contently at that. He refused to let another Haschel happen. That traitorous monster. He deserved what he got, that death, they had to dish out. The reasons for wanting to kill everyone, he thought, could only be connected to what Tio can do. Reason told him that was the closest thing to a connection he had, so he had to trust his instincts. He had already ignored his mental voice once today, he wasn't about to do it again.
Tio doesn't even know about those things yet. They never told him. He remembered kicking down the door and seeing Tio just sitting there screaming, without a cause, and with no life in his eyes. Moreover, that needle, it had blood on it but Tio had no wound. He still did not know what to think about that immense ribbon of energy that cast him back into his memories.
He was still completely lost as to what all these events might eventually mean. Perhaps, he thought humorously, there might be a great battle rocketing toward us. He grinned apprehensibly at the thought.

* * *

Zeke knew things about both Psylix and himself. The two of them had met before, a long, long time ago. Zeke to was fortunate enough to get off the planet the same way Psylix once had.
The difference was that Zeke; he knew what happened to the planet, where Psylix was left completely in the dark about the ensuing events that led to its eventual destruction.
Psylix no doubt had his suspicions,