NIGHTFALL PREVIEW VII

The Madness Out There

THE MADNESS OUT THERE

By PETE NEALEN

The astrogators insist that nothing has changed; that it’s always been this way. I don’t believe them. I see and hear the lies as clearly as I can see and hear the fear every time they get ready for a Shift.

If hyperspace had always been like this, I don’t think mankind would ever have reached the stars from whatever long lost world it was we came from. Without cryo and the astrogators’ Meditations, those ships would have just vanished until no more were sent.

There was something wrong about the derelict. That was to be expected, Onaeros thought, given that it had come out of hyperspace with no signals, apparently dead, and appeared to be nearly a century old.

That knowledge was far from comforting.

The hull plating was dark, despite the brilliant spotlights trained on it from the Guardian LXXVII. It looked like it had once shone a bright silver, but now it was dark, warped, and seemed almost to twist and crawl under the lights as he looked out the portholes at it.

He turned away, blinking, trying to expunge the nauseating sight. It wasn’t something that he could just force away, though. It stuck in his head like a virus.

Looking away from the porthole, he examined his companions. A gaggle of technicians, a full medicae team, his squads, and a small group of towering figures in storm gray power armor that made his men’s hazardous environment suits look fragile.

Perhaps it is a good sign that they only sent six Paladins. They must not think this is that serious.

Given the stories about fighting in the nearby Eudoros systems, there might not be many Paladins available in this region.

Technika Goroh was peering out through the porthole, seemingly unbothered by the strangeness of the hull outside. “I do not recognize the script.” What might have been the ship’s name had come into view, in pitted, flaked sigils on the hull, under the Guardian LXXVII’s floodlights.

“It appears to be some variation on Hindevic.” Technikos Ahrosoh was barely able to stand on his own in a gravity well, and despite his augmetics and treatments, he still looked ancient enough to be nearly a walking corpse. Only his depth of knowledge had seen him approved to come out here on this intercept.

“I’ve never heard of Hindevic, either.” Goroh turned from the porthole, a frown on her face. Compared to Ahrosoh, her features were nearly porcelain smooth.

“Few in this region of space would,” Ahrosoh replied. “In fact, few would, regardless. The Hindevic Brahminate was wiped out long, long ago, even before the Eternal—Blessings Be Upon His Name—founded the Empire. And it was far, far from here. Nearly on the other side of the entire Empire.”

That was a distance that may as well be meaningless, Onaeros thought. Was there truly a limit to the Empire’s extent? To say there was another “side” of the Empire seemed… wrong.

The Paladins, faceless in their glowering helms, did not react, so perhaps there was nothing amiss with what the aged Technikos had said.

“Stand by. Docking in twelve.”

There was little more to say, while Onaeros was sure that Ahrosoh would be more than happy to continue to expound on ancient galactic legends. The whole investigatory unit fell silent as they neared the ancient hulk.

It was far larger, Onaeros realized, than he’d first thought. Soon that disturbingly textured hull plating was blotting out the sky beyond it, long before the final thump reverberated through the ship, announcing a hard dock.

“Come with us.” The lead Paladin was only recognizable from the small kite shield affixed to the front of his pauldron.

The Paladins led out, while Onaeros signaled for his squad to fall in behind them, making sure their suit seals were intact. If that hulk had been lost in hyperspace as long as it looked, there was no telling what hazards they might find. He hardly expected there to be any breathable atmosphere aboard, not that time worked the same way in hyperspace as it did in the real universe.

The great hatches of the boarding bay creaked open, and the air stirred around them, though not with the hurricane rush as if the vessel on the other side was in vacuum. Darkness gaped on the other side as if they faced the open maw of a great beast.

It is only a derelict. The darkening of the hull is probably only radiation exposure. Somehow, though, Onaeros could not quite convince himself.

With the Paladins in the lead, the investigatory team moved into the docking bay. The bay was a cavernous chamber that seemed empty as lights played around the structure, though at least a couple of times Onaeros was sure that he saw something there, that wasn’t there when the lights crossed the same position.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and then regretted it, snapping them open and scanning his surroundings, looking for the nightmare that had just presented itself behind his eyelids. Bodies hanging from chains, swinging from the overhead, others nailed to the bulkheads, viscera torn out and suspended in nauseating patterns. When he opened his eyes again, though, the bay was as empty as ever.

“Section Bravata.” The impossibly deep voice blared from a gray helm’s external grill. “With me.”

Onaeros shook himself, and signaled his squad to fall in behind the hulking Paladin, a stubby coilgun in the demigod’s gauntleted hands. The Paladin—they had not given names, and the orbital defense troops had not dared to ask—led the way toward a connecting passage off the side of the docking bay.

As Onaeros looked up, and the lights played across the bulkhead above the portal, he thought for a moment that he saw something darting down toward them. But when he snapped his weapon up, there was nothing there.

He looked down and around, embarrassed, wondering if anyone else had seen that. The Paladin, despite not having turned around, paused, looking up. “Did you see something, Sergeant Onaeros?”

He glanced back up for a moment. It had looked like a shadowy version of one of the hanging corpses he’d seen in the momentary vision—or simple imagination—when he’d closed his eyes. But now he saw nothing.

With a gulp, he replied, “Nothing, Lord.”

“Then come.” The Paladin began to turn back toward the passageway, then stopped. “Trust nothing you see or hear. Hyperspace does strange things, especially when a vessel is trapped there for a long period of time. That is why we ride in cryo through it. Mind what I do, and follow me.”

He did not wait for acknowledgement from the lesser humans following him, but forged forward into the dark. Onaeros made sure his troopers were spread out on either side of the corridor, as he stepped forward, swallowing down his unease, to walk just behind the Paladin.

The passage led forward, curving inward toward the spine of the ship. At least, it seemed that way to Onaeros. The walls seemed to flex and bulge oddly whenever he wasn’t looking at them directly.

He wondered how much was real and how much was his imagination.

It was hard to gauge distance in the dark. The gravity seemed to fluctuate as much as everything else, and that was causing difficulties. The Paladin alone seemed unbothered, while most of Onaeros’s squad was getting increasingly jumpy, whirling around with weapons pointed at the slightest perceived movement.

So, he didn’t know for sure how deeply they had penetrated the ship when they came across the first bloodstains.

Strangely, they seemed fresh, as if spilled only recently, though there was no sign of the bodies. The Paladin simply noted them and continued on, while the regular troopers faltered and began to bunch up. They hadn’t expected this.

Onaeros hadn’t, either, no matter what nightmares his spooked subconscious had summoned forth from the void. Fresh bloodstains didn’t belong here, not on a derelict this old.

“Do not touch them, but do not falter.” The Paladin had now proceeded well ahead of them. Onaeros chivvied his troopers to catch up, turning back to make sure that the technicians weren’t falling behind. If anything, they were even more unnerved, clumped together like flock animals, staring at the bloodstains. Onaeros signaled to Vorkosa to keep them moving, then turned to follow the Paladin.

The power armored warrior seemed to have some idea where he was going, which was far more than Onaeros had. As he looked back at the technicians, he could see he was not alone. He realized that his sense of direction was completely lost, and he suddenly wasn’t sure if he was facing forward or back toward the docking bay where they’d started.

Whatever prolonged hyperspace exposure had done on this ship, it was clearly affecting the boarders.

The Paladin finally stopped some distance ahead, his coilgun lifted, just short of a closed portal. Onaeros blinked as he looked at it. It had appeared to be a normal, mechanical powered door at first, then it almost looked like stone, before switching back to metal.

Is there something really happening here, or is our fear simply manifesting itself in the gloom aboard this cursed vessel? He didn’t have an answer, and he feared to ask the Paladin, who seemed unwilling to volunteer information.

“Ready yourselves.” The Paladin’s amplified voice sounded almost hollow, distant. “Follow my lead. Fear no darkness.”

The doors slid open with a grinding rumble that sounded like either great stones moving in the depths, or else the snarl of some massive, predatory beast.

Beyond lay darkness. The Paladin stepped inside, though Onaeros noted that he didn’t simply barge into the middle of the portal. He carefully scanned inside from one edge, working his way around to where he could see most of the interior from out in the corridor before stepping through.

The Paladins must have superhuman sight, along with their other gifts. Even with the image enhancers in his helmet, Onaeros saw only shadow.

Carefully, warily, their shotguns held at the ready, the troopers followed the Paladin as the inky murk swallowed him. Passing into the dimness made matters no better. Onaeros found he could barely see his shotgun’s muzzle ahead of him.

Until the lights came on.

At least, that was what he thought, at first. Only later, when he thought back, trying to fend off the nightmares, did he realize that the red illumination seemed to come from nowhere, as inexplicable as the stygian darkness that had preceded it.

The lurid glow initially hid the horror, as the color of the blood mingled with everything else. That blessing was short-lived, however, as the scene resolved itself in Onaeros’s vision.

Bodies littered the vast compartment, many of them apparently locked in mortal combat, having torn at each other with knives, shipboard tools, bare hands, and teeth. Many of them were mutilated beyond recognition, apparently the victims of such savagery that their killers had not stopped even when they were dead.

As recognition of what they were looking at spread through the squad, two of his younger troopers suddenly ripped their visors open and vomited onto the deck.

“Seal up!” He didn’t know what might have prompted this violence, but he couldn’t discount the possibility of a toxin in the ship’s atmosphere. “You have space sickness gear! Use it!”

The command gave him a moment’s breather to get his own panic under control. No aliens had done this. The crew had done it to each other.

And from the looks of things, quite recently.

Then something moved.

He would never admit it afterward, but that movement, in the middle of an abattoir where no movement should have been, only the stillness of death, drove a spike of fear through him that rooted him, frozen, to the spot. He did not even move his weapon toward it. He could only stare in horror.

The figure that rose from the clump of bodies in the center of the room appeared to be smeared from head to toe in blood. Tattered ship’s coveralls only barely clinging to his body, the man’s head was bowed, lank, bloodied hair hanging down over his face.

The man lifted his head. Pale eyes seemed to glow behind the gore-clotted strands, and a maniacal grin stretched his face so wide that it had to have hurt.

“You have come. You must see. I tried to make them see. Could not. Could not grasp what I can grasp. Small minds. Animal minds. I took them out of sleep. Showed them. So fragile. I laughed as they broke. So shall y—”

The words were broken off by the thunderous, deafening crack of the coilgun round that blew off the top of the bloodied man’s head. Atomized blood, brains, and bone sprayed across the piles of corpses, adding some small bit of carnage to what already lay upon the scarred, defiled decking.

For a moment, it almost looked as if the thing that had once been a man would stay on its feet, impossibly living despite the catastrophic hit. But then, achingly and sickeningly slowly, his knees gave way, and he dropped to the pile of bodies.

Onaeros found himself shaking, fighting back the nausea that threatened to bring him to his knees. “What… what was that?” He could not believe that that had been any true man anymore.

The Paladin stood motionless, his coilgun still leveled. After another moment, he spoke.

“There are entities among the stars that are inimical to human life. Some can slip between our reality and hyperspace. That was one of them.” He finally lowered his coilgun. “Come. We must return to the docking bay. This ship must be cleansed from the system.”

Staggering, fearful, the troopers and technicians followed the Paladin, hoping against hope that he knew which way to go.

Behind them, the body twitched.