Alien Days Anthology by P P Corcoran

Author:P P Corcoran [Corcoran, P P]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Castrum Press
Published: 2019-05-14T22:00:00+00:00

Phobosteus

by Dennis Mombauer

- ACT I -

The curtain rose, and the first act began.

Falb stood in one of the claustrophobic hallways of the cruiser, surrounded by other soldiers. The projection screens in the walls had come alive and commanded everyone’s attention. Falb took a deep breath and clenched his teeth. Until a moment ago, the screens had only shown star-speckled emptiness and the yellow glow of the colony world: now, there was something else.

Sensor domes protruded from it like bone spurs and superstructures covered the immense hull like fins as it plowed through space toward them. Radiant stripes of light illuminated an endless mass of dark metal, its prow the closed jaws of a horrific sea creature. This was an Apparition ship, a Phobosteus, named after a species of armorfish that only went extinct because there had been no more prey left.

The enormous vessel had charted a direct collision course with the cruiser however, something was wrong with it. Falb allowed himself the briefest of smiles. The protective plating and parts of the engine had burst open like flower buds, and cold brightness leaked out into the vacuum. The damages were greater than the furrows of small rocks and interstellar plankton the Phobosteus must have dived through. They were combat wounds.

Falb had seen all he needed to see and began moving toward the staging area. “Put on your costumes,” he shouted. “Curtain’s calling.”

Falb and his brother trekked through the trees of a dark forest. They treaded on the soft soil without noise and followed the well-traveled path. Danger inhabited these woods, but the brothers felt no fear, for they had crossed them many times before.

Soldiers streamed through the hallways toward the cruiser’s staging area, their steps accompanied by warning sirens and announcements. Falb strode into the high-ceilinged staging area and toward the boarding shells, where men and women changed into combat gear. Falb already wore the thermal underlay and plating of his own effigy suit, and hundreds of tiny needles painlessly sunk into his flesh, preparing to pump drugs and stimulants as needed.

The room jerked as gravity tightened and pressed the soldiers against the floor. Their cruiser maneuvered against the Phobosteus, and Falb needed to assemble his unit.

The forest grew darker, and wind rustled above the treetops, imbuing their leaves with a choir of whispers. Old waystones rose by the road, overgrown with moss and lichen, but the brothers knew them by heart.

“There you are,” Deuteros called. She was Falb’s second-in-command, a career soldier and veteran who shouldered her rifle and stuffed extra magazines into her pockets.

“Here I am.” Falb marched right by her. “Get Tritos, Tetartos, and Pemptos. I’ll find the new guy and meet you at the shell.”

The artificial gravity shifted as the cruiser turned to the side, and the projection screens along the bulkheads showed the Phobosteus simultaneously changing its course. Falb glimpsed the planet below with a dark shape hanging in lower orbit, a converted corporate freighter almost as big as the cruiser. The colony world’s evacuation was progressing, but it would be hours before they had ferried up half the population.

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