Third Player Read online

  ‘No Moss,’ she told him firmly. ‘I want to know what has happened to all my children. It’s my duty. I have to be there when you enter that place.’

  ‘Okay Dauphne. So be it,’ Moss shrugged. Well at least he’d tried.

  ‘So the assault ship and Flyships are currently in low orbit. Once we’ve got those survivors out of there and we’ve got our hands on one of those crustaceans, the Flyships will strafe the nest. In the subsequent confusion the assault ship will land as close to the cone we’re entering as possible. Then we haul ass on-board as fast as possible and get the hell out of there,’ Stanfield finished briefing his marines. ‘Any questions? Okay people let’s go kick shit out of them crabs!’

  The three squads of hardened marines, all veterans of the battle for Earth, picked up their multitude of weapons and in a skirmish line began the march down the hills to the alien nest.

  One, two, three, now! Moss dashed from the edge of the jungle to the base of the cone. His hand brushed against the crystalline material. At the back of his mind he registered the fact that it felt very similar to the composite structure of Excalibur. Cautiously, with his multi-function assault rifle at the ready, he slipped toward the entrance to the structure.

  The construction on this part of the site appeared to be virtually complete and the majority of the crustaceans were busy working on the central conical sphere which towered above them, reaching high into the Heligsion night sky. The constant flow of fresh creatures had paused, as it had done at regular intervals for the past hour. Either the supply of crabs was running low, or the need for new workers had diminished.

  Moss had decided to make the most of the pause to enter the satellite structure. He peered into the entrance through his night goggles and motioned for the rest of B Squad to follow. Within seconds the marines had taken up covering positions around the entrance. Seeing that the position was secure and with Jennifer at his side, Moss stepped through the entrance and into the interior of the cone.

  The walls of the cone gave out a gentle luminescence which evenly lit the interior. He flicked off the night-goggles and looked around. A wide ramp descended to a subterranean level. This was obviously where the fresh crustaceans appeared from. Galleries wound around the interior of the cone and reached up to the pinnacle of the spire some thirty or so metres above them. It was fairly impressive, though not nearly as much as the nest’s central spire. Moss couldn’t figure out what the galleries were for. Strange machines were placed at regular intervals along the galleries, but what their purpose was he couldn’t even hazard a guess.

  Jennifer wasted no time in scanning the area for life signs and indicated to where the ramp descended underground.

  ‘They’re down there somewhere,’ she thought at Moss.

  ‘Where the crabs came from?’ he asked.

  ‘Fraid so,’ she replied. ‘There are only about twenty or so life signs left and they’re coming from some subterranean level.’

  ‘Well that’s where we’ll go then,’ he told her going down the ramp, the marines close behind.

  The ramp descended gently in one direction for about forty metres, then curved around and descended again for about another forty metres. Then the ramp levelled out and disappeared under a large door covered in ornate drawings and encryptions of an alien design. Dauphne came up beside him and examined the hieroglyphics, her female marine bodyguard at her side.

  ‘What do you make of it?’ Moss asked her.

  ‘Hieroglyphics like these began to appear all over the planet as the devil creatures began to take over. Our best linguists tried to decipher the language,’ she told him.

  ‘With any success?’ he asked.

  ‘Only marginally. What we managed to decipher appeared to be religious rantings that made no sense to us,’ she told him.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh, things as “God is the universe and the universe is God. All life are his children except for the polluters, the builders. These must be removed like weeds from a garden if the flowers are to flourish.” Most of what we deciphered is in a similar vein,’ the seer quoted from memory.

  ‘The meaning of that seems pretty clear to me Dauphne,’ Moss stated, his brow creased in a frown. ‘Why didn’t you tell us any of this before?’

  ‘But it’s meaningless, rubbish. Everyone knows that humanoids were created in the image of God. We are his only children,’ the Heligsion priestess stated in a manner that broke no argument.

  Moss was about to form a reply when Jennifer privately told him. ‘I suggest you leave it dearest. This is certainly not the time, nor the place, for a theological debate.’

  Knowing she was right, Moss took a deep breath and joined in the search for a way to open the large door. One of the marines placed a digit in an orifice built into the ornate frame and with a slight hiss, the door disappeared into the ceiling. Lieutenant Miller, the company commander, gave the marine a dirty look for causing the door to open before they were prepared.

  ‘Sorry!’ the big Russian marine mumbled.

  The group once more pushed ahead, weapons at the ready. The corridor split three ways in front of them and Jennifer checked her scanner before nodding to the left passage. They set off in the indicated direction. After a few minutes they came to another ornate door, but this time they were prepared when one of the marines placed his digit in the orifice. Once more the door hissed open.

  They stepped through into the room beyond, amazed at what they found. Lined up on each side of a central walkway were huge transparent tanks full of a thick liquid that constantly changed in colour from pink to green and back again. Each tank was mounted on some sort of apparatus which created streams of bubbles that floated to the surface like some massive experiment in electrolysis. Doc Patterson walked up to one of the tanks and examined its contents. Floating in the thick fluid was one of the alien crustaceans its jaws and mandibles thrashing gently.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ he exclaimed.

  Jennifer walked up to the tank and examined the creature mindlessly snapping away. She knelt down and looked at the apparatus underneath the tank then said, ‘It’s an accelerated growth tank. I’ve seen similar kit left behind by Dyason scientists back home on Earth. Nothing as sophisticated as this, of course, but essentially the same thing. ‘

  ‘Well I guess that explains the never ending supply of laborers. They’ve been growing their own workforce!’ Moss said walking down the aisle looking at the other growth tanks.

  ‘You mean they’ve been cloning their workers to create an army?’ the doctor asked, finally picking up the courage to move back toward the

  growth tank.

  ‘Certainly looks that way Doc.’

  ‘Where are my children. What about the survivors?’ Dauphne asked, keen to push on.

  Jennifer checked the readings on her scanner once more. ‘According to these scans they’re somewhere here in this chamber with us. The nearest is only twelve metres away,’ she looked up from her instrument and looked around a sense of foreboding growing inside her. ‘But I don’t see anybody…’

  Moss immediately caught the meaning of what she said and began rapidly to search the area about him, looking for some sign of the Heligsion survivors. ‘Miller get your people to spread out and start looking. They’ve got to be around here somewhere,’ he ordered.

  The marines spread throughout the chamber searching for some sign of the people Jennifer’s instruments told them were there somewhere. They looked behind the growth tanks, they searched the walls of the chamber, looking for another entrance, but after a few minutes it was Doc Patterson who finally found what they were looking for.

  ‘I think you’d better come and take a look at this Moss,’ he said in a quiet doom-laden voice.

  Moss quickly stepped up to where Patterson stood beside another growth tank on the far side of the chamber.

  ‘What is it Doc?’ he asked.

  Patterson said nothing, he just nodded in the direction of the th
ick fluid in the tank beside him. Moss turned, looked at the contents of the apparatus and wished he hadn’t—his stomach somersaulted and bile rose up his throat. He’d seen a lot of horrific things in his young life, but nothing he’d come across before was quite as…alien as this.

  There, floating in the tank was a young woman of maybe twenty or so years. It was hard to tell exactly. The reason it was hard to tell her age was because she was undergoing a slow and obviously painful metamorphosis. As Moss and Patterson watched, her hands were slowly transforming into huge pincers, her back was extending and her skin was changing into the hard shell of a crustacean. Her sightless eyes roamed wild in their sockets and her mouth opened and closed wordlessly. There was no doubt about it, the young woman was being changed into one of the ‘devil creatures’.

  ‘Oh Christ!’ he muttered, unable to take his eyes away from the monstrosity.

  Jennifer came up behind him, quickly followed by Dauphne and her escort. They stood huddled together, staring at the horrific apparition as the young woman continued to metamorphose. The seer sobbed loudly and collapsed to her knees, hands covering her face. Jennifer was the first to react. She fired a short burst from her assault rifle into the base of the apparatus and a shower of sparks erupted from the machinery.

  The young woman thrashed wildly in the green and pink fluid, her one unchanged hand clawing at the crystalline glass. Her sight became focused, she stared at Moss and the group before her, eyes pleading, full of agony. The almost complete pincer opened and closed uselessly and she stared at it in horror. Then her whole body convulsed violently, causing some of the fluid to spill out of the tank and onto the chamber floor. Her mouth opened once more in a final silent scream then mercifully, she died. Her deformed body lay motionless, suspended in the thick fluid.

  Realisation swept through Moss, the truth almost too horrific to comprehend. At first he’d thought these…creatures, were cloned—all made from the same DNA. He’d naturally presumed the alien invasion had succeeded simply because the enemy was in a position to clone as many troops as it wanted and effectively swamp the opposition.

  Now, however, he realised why the invasion had taken such a long time to gather momentum. Why there wasn’t a huge fleet of invading starships and no bodies, or prisoners. The enemy had been diabolically clever!

  They’d started with a handful of these growth tanks and a few captured humanoids. Then they’d changed the DNA structure of their still-live prisoners in these tanks, and created the mindlessly obedient crustaceans. Before long, they had an army made up of metamorphosed humanoids, that swept across the planet, killing or changing every single person. It was a simple, horrific and brilliant plan, that had wiped out a whole race.

  The survivors had been herded here to build this temple to an alien god. Moss realised now, that the reason the steady stream of crab-workers leaving these chambers had trickled to almost a standstill, was because this was the last batch of surviving Heligsion. Once the transformation of these few remainders was complete, there would be no humanoids left.

  A thought struck Moss like a blow to the stomach—if the process of change was nearly complete in the tanks nearest the entrance, and the tanks at this end contained only half-changed humanoids, there was a chance that one of them contained a person where the process had yet to begin!

  He began running from tank to tank peering at the grotesque contents desperately searching for a still unchanged body. ‘Quickly!’ he called to the others, ‘There may still be somebody still unchanged! Everybody start looking! Check every tank, no matter how terrible they may be!’

  They all began moving from growth tank to tank, except for Dauphne who knelt on the floor sobbing uncontrollably and Jennifer who knelt beside her, a comforting arm over the pale seer’s shoulder.

  It was Moss who found the little girl. He ran from tank to tank, his heart sinking lower and lower as he discovered each one contained the gruesome contents of a man, woman, or child, half changed into a crustacean. This was the reason Jennifer’s equipment was reading fewer and fewer survivors. As each person’s DNA was restructured in the accelerated growth tanks they stopped being humanoids and so failed to register on the instruments! He was on the point of despair, the overwhelming horror of what he saw affecting him more than he could believe, when he came to the very last tank. There he found a little girl of about eight years old, apparently still unchanged.

  Doc Patterson ran up behind him. ‘You’ve found one?’ he demanded peering into the alien soup. ‘Thank God! Quickly man! Get her out of there before the new DNA can take effect!’

  Moss didn’t need to be told twice. He powered up the laser on his assault rifle and aimed it at the corner of the crystalline tank. He fired once and it shattered, spewing the disgusting fluid all over the chamber floor. The body of the small child was washed out of its prison and ended up against the base of another tank, gasping like a landed fish.

  Patterson dashed over, rolled the little girl onto her front and began pushing upwards from the base of the spine. Fluid poured from her mouth as her lungs emptied. ‘Miller! Take over from me here!’ the doctor yelled at the marine lieutenant who had arrived on the scene. The tall black marine officer dropped to his knees and carried on massaging the child’s back, emptying more fluid from her lungs.

  Patterson reached into his medi-sack and pulled out a hypo-syringe of adrenaline, which he pushed against the little girl’s buttock. The injection had the desired effect as the child convulsed and began to choke. This was what the doctor was after. He lifted the child into the recovery position as with a racking splutter, she began to breathe the air once more.

  Dauphne dashed up, her arms outstretched to embrace the little girl. ‘She’s alive?’ the seer shouted mentally.

  ‘Yes Dauphne. We’ve managed to save at least one of your children,’ Moss replied gently, stopping her from taking the girl out of Patterson’s medical care.

  ‘She’ll live!’ the doctor declared as the child began to bawl and sob in huge great gasps. ‘Which is more than I can say for the rest of these poor wretches!’

  ‘What about the others? Is there any hope for them?’ Jennifer asked.

  Patterson shook his head sadly. ‘The foreign DNA has already taken a hold and the transformation has begun. In those acceleration tanks they’ll have all become full-blown crusties in another half an hour.’

  Anger welled up inside Moss. What sort of creature would treat another being like this? He’d once considered the Dyason to be the epitome of evil, but this bunch were in another league all together. The diabolical way in which they had so completely wiped out a whole race was simply pure evil. Why destroy a whole civilisation? What was the purpose? The Heligsion were an ancient civilisation, living at peace with their world. Of the three humanoid races, theirs was arguably the most successful—certainly the most harmonious. What possible purpose could there be to their systematic genocide?

  Of one thing Moss was sure—he wouldn’t rest until these crusties, these aliens, had been eradicated from the universe. The thought of the aliens doing the same thing to Earth was more than he could bear. They hadn’t all fought so hard to throw off the shackles of the Imperial Dyason, just to have these creatures could come along and wipe out the human race. He simply would not let it happen!

  His comm unit hissed and came alive in his ear. ‘Moss we’ve got company out here!’ Major Stanfield called urgently, the sound of automatic weapons fire reverberating in the background. ‘Something’s really upset these guys. They’re running round like someone’s poked a stick in their nest. We’re holding them off at the moment, but there’s thousands of the buggers. It’s time to go!’

  Moss swore to himself. The growth tanks were probably centrally monitored and the destruction of two of the tanks would almost certainly be noticed. Well, they’d found what they came for, now was definitely the time to get the hell out of there.

  ‘Okay Stan,’ he answered, ‘call down the assault ship a
nd the Flyships. Get them to strafe the nest and keep the crusties away. We’re finished here and making our way back to the surface. We’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  ‘Roger that!’ the marine major confirmed.

  ‘Trouble?’ Jennifer asked, picking up the still sobbing child and passing her to the awaiting arms of the seer. Dauphne wrapped the child in a part of her robes and desperately hung on to her.

  ‘The cat’s out the bag!’ Moss told her. ‘They know we’re here, so it’s time to go. There’s nothing more we can do. Let’s move!’

  ‘What about all these poor wretches?’ Doc Patterson demanded, still fussing over the little girl. ‘We can’t just leave them like this. It’s inhumane!’

  ‘Don’t worry about that Doc,’ Moss answered ominously, a dark determined look on his face. ‘I’ll deal with that!’

  With some relief, the marines made their way out of the hellish nursery, averting their eyes from the grisly contents of the alien growth tanks. Dauphne clung tightly to the little girl, her face a picture of horror and misery. Once they’d all crossed the threshold to the corridor, Moss turned to face the grisly chamber and its numerous growth tanks.

  The anger inside him grew and grew until it became a massive palpable force. Not since his mortal combat with the original Gulag had he felt such a desire to destroy—to be rid, of such a source of evil. His mind and soul hummed with an energy that came not from within, but from without. It came from all around, from the very substance of the universe about him. It started like a whispering breeze and rapidly became a howling gale. When the build-up of energy became so great, it felt like no vessel could contain it, Moss raised his hand. Fingers outstretched, he pointed at the contents of the chamber and released his will.

  A sheet of blue flame leaped from his hand, reached out to all the growth tanks in the room and began to devour them. Like a mix of fire and lightning the mass of pure energy instantly vaporised the tanks and all their contents. The intense heat fused the diabolic machinery into unrecognisable piles of melted scrap. The fireball of energy lasted only a few seconds and completely gutted the interior of the chamber, but the others standing behind Moss never felt the incredible heat. It were as if there was an invisible barrier protecting them from the devastation beyond. When it was all over, he pulled a small round container out of his backpack. He twisted the top and the cylinder extended to twice its length and bleeped softly. Moss tossed the cylinder into the centre of the wrecked machinery, turned his back on the gutted nursery and walked away, his face pale and drained. ‘They’ll suffer no more,’ he whispered.