Zombies in Space chapter one: The Mission

Chapter 1

I sit on a crate of ammunition in the drop pod bay. The battleship around me shakes as it enters the atmosphere. Everything appears smoky, like the world is subdued and waiting for rain.

Alice cleans her gun with a nonchalant expression, though I can see the glint in her eyes. Action, to her, is a release. She’s never been scared before a drop.

I place my gun on the crate and wipe a tiny smudge off of its surface. Bord looks at me and makes a slight nod. Yep, I know. This is the planet that his family lives on—though they are on the other side from where we’re dropping.

That damn Zola virus took over this planet too fast for the first responders. We haven’t even dropped in yet and we’re the last line of defense.

The metal shell of the drop pod pings as little pieces of debris strike its outer exterior. My seat shakes.

The ship’s gravity compensates for a sudden slowing, and I lean to the side to match.

The five of us in this bay make up squad nine. Me, Alice, Bord, Tenma, and Richard. Richard is the specialist, and the rest of us are dorks.

Though I can handle a plasma grenade like a pro.

Richard stands in the center of the bay, holding onto a rail from above. “We’re going in this not to drop zooks,” he says, “But to get samples from the Core.” He looks at each of us in turn. “I know your buddies are fighting on the ground. We’re not with them. This mission is of utmost importance to the war effort.”

“Damn whitecoat,” says Tenma, under his breath.

Richard shoots Tenma an exasperated glare. “I’m not the one who selected the team,” he says. “If it were up to me you lot would be my last picks.”

Alice spits without saying anything.

Richard sighs. “Once we drop, it’s down Kikitani Main straight towards the Core.”

“A suicide mission,” says Bord. He makes no attempt to hide it.

Richard grimaces. “We’ll make it through,” he says. “I’ll keep you all alive.”

I test my combat suit. Sealed. Putting my helmet on, I turn on my heads up display and select the settings I’m used to.

“We’re dropping in sixty!” says Alice, standing up from her seat. She walks to her drop pod, embedded in the wall of the bay. The pod opens its doors and she steps in.

Before the doors close, she salutes, a slight maniacal grin on her face.

Well. She always did love combat.

Bord and Tenma step into their respective pods. I’m the last one in, just after Richard.

Richard is still a trained dropper, after all.

The tubes hiss, and my pod drops out of the bottom of the cruiser. We’re at the highest layer of atmosphere. Fifty thousand feet until we hit the ground. The familiar feeling of falling surrounds me as I tune my instruments to keep my pod on course.

“Looking good, Blake,” says my in-house AI.

“J.A.M.E.S,” I say.

“Great to be dropping with you again. I’ve noted that your vitals are a bit stressed compared to usual.”

“Well,” I say, “This is anything but usual. We have a damn whitecoat to baby. And this is no place for babying.”

“He’s a dropper too,” says James.

“I know,” I say. “He just doesn’t feel like it.”

My pod rumbles. A streak of fleshy appendages sear by my observation port.

“Looks like they’ve broken out the welcome!” I say.

“Type twelve interceptor beasts,” says James. “Not too much to deal with. Alarius is under level one infection, after all.”

“That’s what makes me nervous,” I say, as the clouds break and I catch a glimpse at the Economopoulos underneath. Everything down there is on fire. Lots of fire, and little tiny dots running around. Both zooks and civilians, plus the local planetary guard. “They’re not advanced enough.”

James is silent for a moment. Then he speaks. “Well, nothing in my database indicates you’re in for a particularly hard time.”

“And your database is always right,” I say.

James pauses. “I am not very good at detecting sarcasm,” he says.

I say nothing, only adjust my course to align with my squad members.

“Approaching ten thousand feet,” he says. “Five thousand. One thousand. Deploying stabilizers.”

A jerk strikes me. The whole world blurs for a moment. Then my pod strikes the ground, sending up a wave of asphalt and concrete.

I kick out the door using the open mechanism and leap onto the street, training my gun on my surroundings.

Nothing. Nobody. Only the distant sounds of conflict.

“Are we off course?” I ask James.

“We’re exactly where we should be according to my data,” says James.

The other pods arrive a second later in a blast of debris. I shield my face from the dust.

Richard is the first to emerge. He is holding a standard issue blazer-rifle, pointing at the ground.

I approach him. “Are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be?” I ask.

Richard tilts his head. “Of course. The data is never wrong.”

Alice steps out of her pod next. Covered in her battle suit, she looks like a black specter coming out of an egg.

Bord and Tenma also step out of their pods in unison. We all look at each other for a moment. Then Richard motions down the street.

“That way,” he says.

“Sure,” I say. He’s not a superior officer, but he is the leader of this squad at the moment. His science brain should know something that I don’t.

We walk through the deserted street, passing cars that are abandoned and blown out. A couple of papers flutter between the sides of the road. Nobody. Nothing.

A single zook stumbles out of an empty doorway. Its mouth has been blown off, and its jaw hangs by a thread of skin. Its body is covered in a dirty workman’s outfit, coated with blood. Its eyes lock onto us.

“Contact,” says Bord. We raise our weapons.

“No,” says Richard. He steps in front of us. “I need to get a sample first.”

“Sample?” says Alice. “We weren’t told we had to babysit a damn zook!”

“I just have to get close enough to extract some fluid. And it has to be alive.”

“Alive?” says Alice. “It’s dead already.”

“You know what I mean,” says Richard. He takes out a complicated-looking apparatus with a gigantic needle at one end.

Tenma whistles. “Where did you pull that out of?” he says.

“It’s spatially collapsible,” says Richard. He then walks towards the zook.

The zook stumbles towards Richard, oblivious to what Richard is holding.

“Hold him down for me!” says Richard, to me.

I shoot the zook once in each foot. It collapses to the ground.

“That works,” says Richard. He approaches the prone monster and injects it with the needle. Black fluid files through the neck of the device. Richard then pulls the needle out and ends the zook with a shot to the head with his rifle. He looks at the fluid and smiles.

“I’ll be analyzing this. Guard the perimeter for ten minutes.”

The rest of the squad look around, then at me. I shrug. “We’re not in any hurry, and there’s no immediate danger,” I say.

Alice sits down and puts her rifle between her legs. “Well, if you see an army of zooks bearing down on us, call me.” Then she blanks out her helmet. Probably playing a hacked time waster game. Alice has always had that core of steel that allows her to play video games in a combat zone. And Bord facilitates her by downloading them to her suit software in the first place.

I sigh, and turn to Richard. He’s playing with the analysis device he brought with him, and I can see the black fluid moving between clear tubes.

“Just as I thought,” says Richard, after a long while. “This is a level three infection fluid.”

“It looked like level one from orbit,” says Tenma. “Have you ever even seen a level three planet?”

Richard looks at me quizzically. “No. There have only been two on record to reach level three.”

“I’ve seen one,” says Alice, shutting down her game. “This doesn’t look it. There’s not even the smallest amount of Z-glaze.”

“Cities like this have undercities,” says Richard. “Have we even seen what’s going on down there?”

Alice turns away. “It’s not our job to fight down there. There are specialists for that.”

“Anyways,” says Richard, looking at all of us, “I have reason to believe that the hivemind in this city is hiding its grasp for some reason.”

“We’ll be going there anyways,” says Alice. “Let’s kick its ass and ask it what’s going on.”

“Pretty hard for the five of us,” says Tenma. “It takes an army to bring down even a level one hivemind. This one might be level three.”

Alice scoffs. “We can handle it.”

“You grossly overestimate your own ability,” says Richard. “We’re not going there directly. There are other places where I can get my sample.”

“Sample this, sample that,” says Alice. “If it weren’t for my orders I would be with the real fighters.”

Richard shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that. It’s classified. Just know that this mission is crucial to the war effort.”

Alice turns away. “Then let’s get to it. I signed up to bean zooks, so let’s go bean some zooks.”

Richard’s lips curl up into a slight smile. “I can accept that.”

Alice begins walking down the street. She turns around, facing us. “So, are we going to get there, or what?”

The other three and I look at each other, and then follow Alice down the street. We reach an intersection with several layers of street topped by a four-way pedestrian bridge. The whole affair reminds me of my home planet, which was also covered in city.

We go up a couple of stairs and survey our route. There are a number of signs of Z-glaze creeping out of the cracks in the ground caused by an explosion of some sort. About a dozen zooks wander around the open street.

The rest of the droppers in our ship landed about two miles to the east. We’re alone, and it’s eerily quiet. I don’t know where a city’s worth of zooks has gone.

“We’ll take 101^st street south until we reach the undercity terminal,” says Richard. “After that we’ll take an underpath to where we need to go.”

“You have suspicions that there’s a level three infection down there,” says Alice, “And you’re bringing us?”

Richard shakes his head. “It’s not confirmed. The data I picked up could be an anomaly.”

Alice grunts, tapping the side of her blazer rifle. “I’ve never been called a coward. Let’s do this.”

I exchange a look with Bord, and we both nod. Whatever the situation, we’re going to follow orders.

Richard leads us down 101^st street until we reach an undercity portal. The entrance looks like a gigantic subway station. Where there used to be guards and soldiers, there are now empty kiosks and sparking, broken electronics.

Richard holds up his hand. “Just a moment.” He takes out a suitcase and opens it. Inside is a drone, about the size of a cat. Richard places it on the floor and it zips into the undercity portal.

We wait for about five minutes before Richard nods. “Looks clear.” He pauses. “No, wait. I’ve lost contact.”

An ominous echo reverberates through the underground chambers beyond the entrance. I flip my rifle off of safety, aiming it towards the darkness. A shadow flickers against the wall. Red mist seeps out of the cracks in the walls.

A rumble shakes the concrete. Claws skitter with the weight of a truck.

A monster bursts out of the entrance. Perverse, covered in tentacles, with white sharp fangs hanging at odd angles, it lunges at Richard.