Augur

Marus is now more confused than ever since having left the hangar, that shouldn’t have been present, behind. He’s ventured maybe five metres from the threshold of that area and found nothing but an amalgamation of four separate sections. All of them are areas the Pillars of Frenzy shouldn’t have. Still, there continues to be no sign of any crew. The soldier is starting to seriously consider that there never was one to begin with. He knows that’s impossible and yet what other option does he have? After all, this starship has a hangar, cannon battery, botanical garden, science lab, fighter bay and mineral sifting section that cannot, no matter the scale of any refit, physically fit inside the vessel he saw when he’d been aboard The Renegade. The Frenzy simply isn’t big enough for one of those in addition to its cargo hold, engineering, living quarters and bridge, let alone all of them.

“Pull yourself together and get moving.” Marus demands of himself. His voice is barely more than a mumble as his hands tighten around the burst rifle that is now in his hands. He’d felt the need to swap after another volley of noise had assaulted his ears. This one had been completely indecipherable and seemed to consist of a mixture of guttural calls, a short string from some kind of musical tune and the occasional word in a tongue the Janus Order operative has never heard previously. In fact, if he was to be honest it didn’t even truly sound like language. At least not any form he’s familiar with. That had been the most concerning to him.

A minute passes and Marus is still yet to make any directional progress.

“There’s a gap. I can get through. And I have to keep moving if I want to have any hope of getting answers to what the holy…” Marus is cut off as a burst of static and then frantic fearful screams fill his ears. He winces and shakes his head. Something touches his arm, he recoils in terror. His eyelids unfurl and stab around at the space he is currently frequenting. It takes him only seconds to discover that what touched his arm is a now viciously rotating spanner. He laughs, to himself, appalled by his overreaction.

“At least the screams are gone.” He mutters while desperately sucking down air in hopes of bringing his ragged breathing under control. The declaration isn’t as soothing as he had hoped it would be and so he again tries to sever the IBLS connection. Once more he is met with a failure to execute emblazoned across the bottom left hand corner of his HUD. Marus sighs. He expected as much and yet is disappointed all the same.

“Stop delaying. No more reason to. Let’s get going.” This time his words have the desired effect.

Marus takes two steps forward toward the narrow gap ahead and then is forced to turn. He shimmies through the gap with his burst rifle in one hand. If anything leaps out at him now he’ll never be able to fire. He shoves the thought aside labelling it unhelpful but continues on.

All of a sudden there is a turn, ninety degrees to his left. Because of it he is incapable of manoeuvring to get a glimpse of what may lay around the turn prior to him making it. That doesn’t sit well with Marus, yet he forges ahead, turns the corner and finds… nothing. Except for more corridor and that is not what he’d come to expect after all the random additions that he has glimpsed thus far.

For the first time he considers that he must have been aboard this vessel for hours. It strikes him that maybe he should rest. No. He has no intention of that. He wants to get off this ship. Then why didn’t you turn back? He doesn’t know. Something about duty he thinks. Or maybe that’s not it. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Yeah, that seems right. But what might that be? He considers it as he edges deeper into the narrow space. His burst rifle is back in both his hands now. If anything jumps him he’ll be ready to put it down. They might not be hostile is the thought that suddenly enters his head. He offers no reply in response. After what he’s seen and heard he doesn’t feel he needs to. It’s obvious to him that if he is not alone then whatever is here with him must be hostile. Just as he is about to return to his previous considerations as to why he didn’t turn back when he could have, he feels something squelch beneath his boot. His top lip curls in disgust and then he looks down. A mass of black…goop he’d call it, sits in a pool all around the one boot. It’s thick and revolting. Marus imagines it smells putrid. He has no way of knowing even as he picks up his foot to see thick numerous strings of it elongate. The sight turns his stomach when suddenly something brushes against his arm. It feels like it is touching his skin. That’s impossible and yet he cannot deny that that is how it felt. So he turns only to find a half dozen stalks topped with furry pinecone shaped protrusions around him. He is sure they hadn’t been present before, mere seconds ago. He would have seen them. Surely?

Marus gulps and feels the now familiar scuttle across his back. He’s lost count of how many times it’s occurred. This time however it is twinned with a sensation akin to someone having their fingers through his skull massaging his brain. It isn’t comfortable. It’s eerie, creepy, terrifying and Marus wants it to stop. He runs another scan on his Tera-3. Still, everything reads that all systems are nominal.

“Progress…is made.” The words come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Marus recoils with a start. Without question they were spoken by two separate voices.

“Who’s there?” Marus demands to know following almost a full minute of waiting in silence with baited breath and his boot still raised up and out of the goop. The longer he considers it the more he would relate the goop to puss. He remembers the smell of puss, the stench. You can’t not when you’ve been in battle, and it always makes him gag. Somehow he resists the urge with great difficulty on this occasion. Perhaps that is because there is no smell due in part to the Tera-3’s filtration systems.

The soldier gets no reply in the following two minutes and with his leg growing weary from being held aloft he finally puts it down. The magnet doesn’t engage. Marus’ brow furrows and then his other foot slips while still in place. Immediately he drops his gaze and chin down to survey what is going on. The black goop, the puss, whatever you might want to call it, has grown. “Is it seeping?” He feels inclined to ask himself, only to soon scrunch up his nose as he tastes a fowl taste at the back of his throat. That taste suggests he can smell something. As soon as he reaches such a conclusion the notion vanishes. He counts himself lucky, or a version of it. Seconds after he notes that the stalks tipped with pinecones are bristling as if they are being hit by a breeze. That’s impossible and yet there they are doing it.

“I need to get out of here.” He tells himself and urges his legs into action. They obey and permit Marus to cover another two metres before another kink in the passage forces him to not only turn but duck under a section of bulkhead that is at a ninety degree horizontal angle that it should not be at. Marus shrugs. After all, the oddity is one of the least curious things he’s come across on this jaunt of his.

However, once through the half height gap Marus manages only two steps before the ground beneath his feet disappears. His shock is immediate and is followed by confusion as he wonders how it is that he is falling when there is no gravity on the Frenzy. He casts that consideration aside and rather focuses on reorienting himself while continuing to slide down a long steeply angled ramp. Light flits by which Marus ignores even once he is correctly orientated.

Several seconds later he barrels out of the confines of the ramp tunnel only to be hurled at some decking below. Marus tucks, rolls and then plants his feet to stop his momentum through the use of his magnetic boots. It does the trick and stops him dead in his tracks. He smiles, pleased at the success. It feels like the first in a long while. Its short lived however once Marus grasps what is before him as he stands on the bridge of a starship.

His first thought is that this bridge cannot be that of the Frenzy’s mainly because the space around him is twice the size of what would be possible for that class of vessel. Though, that isn’t what has banished the smile from his face. No. The cause for that is the mass of black goop puss that is formed into jutting stalagmites and stalactites scattered about the otherwise deserted bridge.

If that were the sum of it Marus might not feel so uneasy but at the dead centre of the formations of jutting goop puss there lies a field, as he would describe it, of the stalk topped pinecones. They are a myriad of colours from purples to greens to blues to oranges and they’re dancing, swaying as if alive. Marus knows that should be impossible and yet it is the sight he is faced with.

The stalks sprout from tufts in the goop puss like weeds. Marus gulps and raises his burst rifle. As he does there is a burst of static and then a sound which can only be described as a layered scream. It grates so heavily on the man that he feels compelled beyond reason to turn partially away. So he does exactly that and remains turned away until the scream ends. Returning to the sight his jaw drops for there is a new addition to what stands before him. It certainly hadn’t been present before. He would term it a shell, but truth be told it is the remains, withered and destitute, of an organic lifeform. It looks sort of human, he thinks. The stalks are weaved through sections that in life would naturally bear no such orifices so make it difficult to be sure.

Marus is sickened by the sight but edges forward because he feels drawn to it. His rifle is raised and ready to be unleashed. If anything moves he’ll fire. Of that there is no doubt in his mind.

The soldier manages nine steps, three quarters of the way, when the sound of gusting air fills Marus’ ears. He frowns and then feels a presence nearby which claims all his attention. Unfortunately, Marus can’t pinpoint it. In fact, it feels like it’s whirling around him, permanently mobile. Due to that Marus isn’t sure which way to turn. If it continues to flit then whatever he does he will continue to have to play catch up, he knows that. However, just as he concludes such he feels the presence stop, abruptly. Marus gulps afraid. Seconds pass and become a minute. In that time no words are exchanged or movement is performed. Finally, Marus turns. He saw little other choice. Though, as soon as he catches sight of the mass of black, he wouldn’t call it a shadow though it is featureless just like one, it leaps at him. He screams in fright and fires several frantic volleys from his rifle. They do nothing. Rather, the mass wraps itself around Marus’ helmet. It wraps around other section too but the soldier is only aware of its presence around his head. Marus gathers it wishes to get inside the suit. He can’t be sure as to how he has reached that conclusion, though he is in no way inclined to refute or permit it. So attempts to fight it off. Grunts of effort escape his lips as he and the formless mass tussle. Marus, writhing about feels great resistance to his efforts to combat whatever it is that is attacking him. It’s very strong. Then suddenly he hears and sees his helmet seal release, a warning blares about suffocation due to lack of atmosphere beyond the confines of his Tera-3 and then a tiny sliver of a crack appears. Marus manages only a single short stifled gasp.