Shadows from the Badlands

"I don't know everything," the marine began, "but I know that some of the officers knew what was goin on."

"Do tell," was Michael's only reply. He was keeping the shuttle a few kilometers from the ship, and was watching the creatures drift in the void, only half paying attention.

"A little after you left, people started disapearin, not showin up for shifts, stuff like that, the ship started stinkin, like something was rotten in the vents, and we searched the ship." The marine shivered, reliving the events on the bunker hill, "The team sent down to deck six didn't return, lost all contact with them 'cept for a bit of static."

Michael waited for the marine to continue, and thought back to what he knew of the ships design. It only had seven main decks, and then a large number of crawl spaces and maintenance tubes. Deck six had cargo bays in it, and parts of life support, which explained the oddities with that system that had been seen on the ship.

"We sent two more teams down to deck six, marines this time, full combat and bio-chem gear. I wasn't on the team, I was stationed at one of the access points, makin sure nothin came out or went in. I heard the gunfire, and smelt the smoke. Never did find out how those bugs took out marines, but only one man came back up. And he was infected I guess, we thought it was shock."

Parasites then, Michael thought to himself, living and controlling their hosts. But what about the big ones, where'd they come from.
"The docs and lab techs were the next to go, the marine held them at gun point while the bugs crawled out of the color of his armor, before they had even tried getting it off him to check it out. He was still alive I think, maybe. I heard through the grapevine that they captain called the things zerg or somethin like that, classified stuff from the sounds of it. The bugs came swarming out from the lower decks then took maybe 15, 20 minutes to over run the ship. I holed up in one of the forward brigs, no vent access, easy to defend. They dragged the corpse that piled up away and gave up eventually."

Michael could easily see the shaking of the marine through the combat armor. They were both still fully armored, the shuttle was still without atmosphere after their hasty escape. He activated the controls, and through the armor he heard the air vents whistling, refilling the cabin. The marine seemed to appreciate it and quickly unsealed his helmet, and began stripping his gear off, desperate to get free from the confining armor. The man was covered in sweat, having been through hell in the last 24 hours. Michael was a realist, and kept his own armor on and was using the marines distraction to look for any telling signs that would indicate infection. He saw no bleeding or unnatural lumps or bulges, and the cloths that had been on were soaked through with sweat, and if it weren't for the situation that they were in, stranded and alone, he would have admired the muscles underneath the flimsy cloth.

As it was, once he determined to the best of his abilities that the man was not infected, he turned his view back to the stars outside, letting the marine distress while he tried to figure out what to do next. It would would be unwise to dock again with the ship, and the only other communication gear with the range to summon help was down on the planet where this had all started. Without having the ability to enter warp space, which the small shuttle was surely not able to, they had no method of leaving or calling for help. The food situation also didn't look good. He had a good number of rations on board, enough to last the two of them for a month, but as far as he knew, they were far enough from another inhabited system that even if a rescue ship left now, they would have starved before help could arrive.

He glanced back over at the marine, who had gone silent. He had stopped shivering, and appeared calmer. He was checking over the armor and weapons he had just stripped off, apparently falling back on training to escape from the stress. Michael desperately wished for his own method of escaping reality, but doubted that he would be able to strip the rest of the cloths from the marine.

"Foxworth, I'm out of ideas,"he said softly, "We can't send a distress signal, and we don't have enough food on board to last long enough for a ship to come check on us. Is there any chance you have some magic trick hidden away?"

The marine smiled wistfully, but shook his head. Still intent of cleaning the buildup from the muzzle of one of his flamethrowers. "Sorry bud, I got nothing. The captain might have gotten a distress signal off, but your right, nearest base is over a month out, guessin we don't have the food to last us that long?"

"No, with rationing, we have a month at the longest."

"Well, got a deck of cards or somethin? Maybe we'll get lucky and there's someone closer."

Michael laughed, the thought of playing poker for the next month until they starved seemed funnier then it would normally. He was spared from disappointing the marine by a signal from the computer. Turning to check what it was alerting him to he smiled broadly, there was a warp event occurring, less the a million kilometers out, somehow, luck seemed to be smiling on them, a ship had arrived.

"No need for cards, Foxworth, picking up a ship dropping out of warp, looks like the cavalry has arrived."

They both looked intently at the screen, waiting for whatever ship was arriving through warp space to appear so they could signal it. They would need to get it to destroy the Bunker Hill, hopefully they would without too many questions, since somehow the zerg seamed to easily pass through even strict quarantines. The seconds ticked by, and when the warp field faded, and sensors could once again see the area where it had occurred, they were stumped. Nothing was there, the warp field had seemingly formed and dissipated with divulging a ship, something that should not be possible.

Michael keyed the com, hoping that maybe it was damaged sensors or some new stealth ship that they couldn't detect from this far out. "This is Bunker Hill shuttle Zero Eight to the ship that just dropped out of warp, we are in need of assistance, our mother ship has been over run by hostile parasites, and needs to be destroyed to enforce the system wide quarantine."

No response was given, even with the time lag of light speed communication, they should have been heard within seconds.

He was about to signal again when space flared only 50 kilometers away, and two missiles could be seen tracking in on the Bunker Hill. They struck true, the warhead flaring and tearing out chunks from the hull. Michael activated the small ships engines, with a quiet curse he kicked the engines for everything they were worth, at this short of range, if the ships fusion plant went critical the explosion would tear the shuttle apart. He stabbed the com gear as two more missiles darted towards the over run ship "Fucking hell, give us some warning next time to get clear."

His fear was founded, for as the missiles struck the fusion plant went critical, sending a wave of plasma out. Michael curse again as the ship was rocked and buffeted, having not gotten far enough away to escape the destruction, and he saw with horror that the other ship had not judged it's distance well enough and was also hit. His own course away from the fireball would put him into stable orbit if his engines went out, but the other ship was not so lucky. It's own engines appeared to be out, along with whatever form of stealth it had, and it was on a descending course towards the planet below.

As the plasma faded, and the little shuttle stabilized, he banked sharply turning towards the planet, if the ship crashed there may be survivors, and they might last long enough on the surface for the shuttle to pick them up, after all, Michael had been down to the surface twice with no issue. "Hang on Foxworth, that jackass is going in, and if their ship survives the crash we need to pick up survivors, and maybe get some supplies."

Behind him the marine ignored him, instead of strapping himself into one of the seats he began reattaching his armor, "Dunno if you noticed, Carson, but that wasn't no human ship."

Michael looked to the sensors again, and cursed.