Chapter 6: Terminated

They marched through the snow, following Boyd’s compass as their only guide. The landscape was devoid of any landmarks, the horizon flat in every direction. In the day, if he looked up, Boyd could make out Hades through the atmospheric haze. It looked like a summer moon on Earth, tinted blue by the azure sky and barely visible against the sunlight. It was amazing to think that two places so wildly different in temperature and habitability were such close solar neighbors. He felt as if he could reach out and brush the planet with his fingertips, salvation was no near by stellar terms, but out of reach to a lowly human who had been stripped of his God-like ability to traverse time and space.

Lorza seemed to be doing a little better, he doubted that the high dosage of nutrient pills had given her what her body needed, but at least they had worked through some of their stress and resentment. As dangerous and stupid as their fight had been, it was a strange kind of therapy.

As they mounted another one of the endless snowdrifts, he felt Lorza’s heavy hand on his shoulder, and she whispered for him to be quiet. Her ears swiveled on top of her head like radar dishes, tracking some sound that must be beyond Boyd’s range of hearing.

“What is it?”

“Shush...”

Then he heard it, cracking ice, like something was tunneling through. He lowered his voice to a hushed whisper, his heart starting to race.

“Where the fuck is it?”

“Below us somewhere, I can’t tell.”

A hundred meters in front of them the ice broke, a black, gelatinous tentacle covered in glowing pustules breaking through as the monster dragged itself slowly up onto the surface. It seemed to be laying a trap, it looked as if it was actually trying to be stealthy this time. How smart was this creature? If it was anything like Earth’s cephalopods it might be quite intelligent indeed, it was switching up its hunting tactics in an effort to trap its more agile prey. Boyd and Lorza immediately ducked out of view behind the snowdrift.

“What the fuck, what the fuck, how is that monster ‘still’ following us?” Lorza whispered. Her eyes were wide, her massive heart pounding in her chest. “Can it hear us under the ice or something? Sense us somehow?”

Boyd banished the terror that was welling inside him and threatening to cloud his judgment, it was just a fucking animal, he had to pull himself together. He had fought and killed aliens before, this thing wasn’t any different from a bug, no smarter and no more dangerous. It was an unknown, and fear of the unknown was instinctual, but fear was an emotion that will could overcome. He concentrated on his breathing, calming himself, then looked to Lorza with a stern expression.

“I’m done with letting this thing haunting us. Let’s take the fucker down, what do you say?”

“Fight that thing? How? Didn’t you see how it...” She trailed off, averting her eyes and staring at the snow. “It ate Alexei like he was a damned Pelmeni.” She saw Boyd’s confused expression. “It’s a little dumpling filled with meat and ... it doesn’t matter. The point is that thing is dangerous, how do you hope to kill it?”

“It’s incredibly strong, but it isn’t too fast, and it looks relatively fragile if we can actually get some hits in. The thing looks like it’s made of jelly.”

“Why don’t we just go around it?” Lorza complained. “We’ve avoided up until now!”

“Barely, each time we’ve encountered it we escaped by the skin of our teeth. We can’t keep running, it’s changing up its tactics, eventually it’s going to take us by surprise and deny us the time we need to react.”

“So you have a plan, right?”

“It doesn’t know any more about us than we do about it, do you think it will go after our packs if we throw them? Its body is covered in eyes, it must have good visual acuity, perhaps it hunts by sight. That means it must be attracted to movement and light.”

“Yes, but it has to have other senses too,” Lorza mused, scratching her chin with one of her black claws. “Otherwise how would it track us from under the ice?”

“We may just have to chance it, we don’t have a lot of tools to work with.”

“Hey, what about your electric suit? Can you do that again?”

“No,” he replied, “it discharges my batteries, so the heating element would shut off. I’d die of hypothermia before we reached shelter.”

“Maybe toothpaste is toxic to it,” Lorza joked nervously, calming down a little as they talked. Boyd thought for a moment, going over what they knew about the alien and what tools they had on hand.

“Lorza, do you think you can go toe to toe with that thing? At least for a minute or two?”

She grimaced, shuddering, no doubt recalling the time it had eaten her crewmate.

“It’s strong, really strong. We Borealans are hard to bring down, but if it pulls me into its mouth and shears off my arm I’ll die just the same as a human would.”

“We have duct tape, right? How strong is it? Do you think you could tape its tentacles together?”

“God, I dunno, maybe? We don’t even know if the adhesive will stick to the tentacles, what if it’s covered in slime, or it’s too wet? I don’t know about this Boyd, it seems way too risky.”

Boyd popped his head over the snowdrift briefly to check what the alien was doing, his blood running like ice through his veins as he realized that it was gone.

“It’s fucking moved,” he hissed, Lorza’s eyes widening with panic. “I can’t see the damned thing.”

Lorza scanned the terrain, head darting from left to right as she searched for any sign of the bast, her ears swiveling. The creature had slipped away while they were distracted.

In a flash the pair were thrown into the air, the ice below them exploding upwards and fracturing, sending them crash down a few feet away along with a torrent of frigid saltwater. The monster had come up underneath them, and now it lay on the snow beside a jagged hole, its many tentacles flailing in patterns of brilliant light as it spun and screeched. It looked to Boyd with its innumerable, beady eyes, then back to Lorza who was picking herself up. She was drenched in cold water, her fur sodden and she was obviously shocked, she was reacting too slowly.

“Watch out Lorza!”

She turned to run, but the thing was too quick, its long arms stretched out to entangle her legs and she fell on her face. She yowled like an angry cat as it began to drag her towards its maw, the ring of serrated teeth opening up in its gelatinous, formless torso like a wound. Boyd watched as she struggled against her captor, the creature strong enough to pull her even as she dug her claws into the ice like picks and her biceps bulged with the strain of it.

He could run and let it have her, but if Lorza died then he died too, their fates were one and the same if they liked it or not. Oh well, all for one and one for all.

Boyd bellowed a challenge and drew his knife, charging into the fray to slash at the creature’s exposed back. He was rewarded with a powerful blow to the chest that lifted him off his feet, the beast swiping at him with one of its tentacles and sending him crashing into a snowdrift. It knocked the breath out of him, and he rose unsteadily to his feet before closing in for another try. As he had suspected the monster’s flesh was rubbery and surprisingly fragile, it was basically a bag of goo. His cut hadn’t gone deep but it had split the inky-black hide of the thing and yellow ooze that looked like pus was leaking free.

Lorza was battling it with what strength her starving body still retained, slicing at the tentacles that bound her with her wicked claws, hacking at it like a butcher trying to split a stubborn cut of meat with a cleaver. The monster seemed conflicted now, it had not expected its prey to mount such resistance, and now it had to divide its attention between the two of them rather than dragging its catch into its mouth.

Its arms flailed like loose firehoses, the glowing bioluminescent pustules that were spaced at intervals drawing colorful trails in the air, Boyd slowing as he reached the barrier of limbs. He ducked and weaved, slicing at the tentacles where he could, but his knife was too small and the thing was strong. First thing he was doing if they survived this hellhole was putting in a request for R&D to figure out a way to fit a Bowie knife into the damned survival suits.

It screeched, flinching as Lorza succeeded in hacking off one of the tentacles that had closed around her leg, the severed appendage losing its grip and falling to the snow to flop and twitch like the tail of a lizard. The monster spun on the ice and whipped at them with its arms, more yellow ichor leaking from its wound. Boyd took advantage of its confusion to dart in and stick it in the side of its bulbous torso, scurrying backwards as it reached out to grab him.

Lorza was snarling like a tiger and clawing at the appendages that still bound her, the creature losing its hold on her with every tentacle she severed, yet it never seemed to run out of replacements. Frustrated, it shuffled closer to her and shot more of its tentacles out in an attempt to further tangle her and bind her limbs, the Borealan writhing as its arms crept around her body like so many slippery ropes.

Her fur was matted with its viscous slime, its tentacles ensnaring her arms and legs as she bucked and fought, more of them tightening around her midriff and neck. It began to choke her, dragging her closer as she fought, the flesh on her thighs and chest bulging around the thing’s tentacles as it squeezed her.

Diverting so much of its attention towards Lorza left it open to attack from Boyd, who dashed closer and sunk his blade into its back up to the hilt, dragging it sideways to open up a long and severe wound in its dark flesh. That hurt enough to really get its attention, and it loosed an unearthly wail, loosening its grip on the gasping Polar to bat him away. As he landed on his back, he saw that Lorza was slicing at her bonds again, the creature having freed one of her arms in its attempt to ward him off.

They couldn’t win this battle through death by a thousand cuts, they were wearing it down but not quickly enough. It would overcome them unless they thought of something, and fast. Lorza neared its mouth, the beast gnashing its rows of sharp teeth, snapping at her legs as she struggled to pull away.

“Help me Boyd!”

He darted close again and harried it with slashes and jabs from his knife, painting the snow with its oozing, yellow fluids. Its insides were as dark as its rubbery hide, as if it had been coated inside and out in black paint. It bellowed in pain suddenly and recoiled, dropping Lorza who had caught some of its eyes with the claws on her paw-like feet, gouging them and popping them like blisters.

Enraged, it slapped its tentacles against the snow and screamed, an ear-splitting noise that sounded unnervingly human. It went for Lorza again who had gained some distance on it, tripping her and starting the whole process over. Despite its wounds it seemed intent on eating her, it was unrelenting, exhibiting a ravenous hunger that made Lorza look modest in comparison.

Boyd flung his pack from his shoulders, planting it on the ground and rummaging frantically as the alien regained its hold on his companion. She seemed exhausted, she had spent what little energy her body could muster and her fighting had become less ardent. She bit at the rubbery appendages with her sharp teeth, ripping at them with her claws, but it was no use.

He charged around the thing, dodging between the tentacles, trying to put himself between Lorza and its snapping teeth. It caught him in its arms and tried to drag him closer, hastening his approach as it split its maw wide open, preparing to swallow him.

“What are you doing?!” Lorza wailed. “Boyd, no!”

He plunged his right arm into its mouth, and its jaws snapped closed like a bear trap, Lorza screaming as his forearm vanished into its maw. Something was wrong though, and the monster bit down again, confused as its teeth met resistance. Boyd’s mesh cast had weathered the blow, the protective casing as hard as concrete, and he dropped the grenade he had been holding into its gullet. The creature paused, then began to shake violently, releasing Lorza from its tentacles and flinging Boyd away as it began to writhe. They watched as it rolled on the ground, like some kind of beached deep-sea horror, its many tentacles flailing without purpose as its screeching was muffled.

Flame retardant foam poured from its mouth, solidifying as it dripped to the snow, the thing’s bulbous body convulsing and bloating as its insides filled with hardening froth. Its many limbs tensed, the creature loosing one last, sputtering gurgle before it collapsed to lie motionless on the ground.

Lorza picked herself up off the snow, shivering, perhaps from fear or cold, or maybe both.

“You ok? You injured?” Boyd asked.

“No ... no I’m ok.” She took a moment to catch her breath, rubbing her neck with her hand where the alien had choked her. “You used the fire suppressant grenade, clever.” Boyd walked over to the creature, its massive body now limp and sagging, giving it a good kick in the side to be sure that it was out of commission.

“Yep, this thing is fucking dead,” he called back to Lorza. He spat on it, giving it another hard kick to its spongy body. His blood was still coursing with adrenaline, the euphoria that followed a fight overcoming him, he was more proud of the kill than would be professional to admit. This wretched thing had haunted them for days, and now it was dead, bested. “I’m not afraid of you,” he muttered to himself, crouching to examine it. It had a dozen tentacles, a handful damaged or severed by Lorza, the eyes down one side of its ‘face’ gouged by her clawed feet. Its mouth was packed with foam, the grenade must have released the expanding suppressant all the way through its digestive system, rupturing all of its organs. He checked his arm brace, the rigid material was scratched where its teeth had found their mark, but it wasn’t damaged. It had been strong enough to resist whatever bite pressure this alien could muster.

Boyd leapt out the way as Lorza descended on their kill, not wasting a second as she tore into one of the tentacles with her claws and began to strip off a hunk of meat. He tried to pull her away by the shoulder without much luck.

“Hey, hey! Wait a minute! You don’t know if it’s edible or not, at least let me scan it first!”

Her forearms already sodden with its yellow blood, she turned her head to look at him.

“You can do that?”

“Yes! I have a food scanner, hang on, it will literally take a few seconds.”

Lorza relented, watching curiously as he retrieved his medkit from its pocket in his suit and set it on the ground. He cut off a tissue sample from one of the tentacles with his knife, placing the sliver of rubbery meat carefully into a glass vial and then inserting it into the same recess that had analyzed Lorza’s blood. He plugged the cable from the kit into his oh-bis, and after a moment they got the results, Boyd reading them off to Lorza as she waited impatiently.

“Mercury content is a little higher than I’d like, but overall it’s edible, we should be able to-”

He watched with a mixture of awe and disgust as Lorza carefully cut away a foot-long, three inch thick strip of meat from the tentacle using her hooked claws, opening her jaws as wide as they would go and dropping it into her mouth. She wolfed it down, barely chewing, like some giant strand of black spaghetti.

“What the hell Lorza!? At least cook it first!”

He watched her choke it down, the thick strip of meat bulging her throat before vanishing into her stomach. She immediately started on a second, stripping more rubbery flesh from the tentacle, using the claw on her index finger like a scalpel. Boyd set about cutting some smaller strips for himself, genuinely worried that she might not leave any for him, despite the size of the beast.

“Well I’m going to cook mine, how are we going to store it?”

She swallowed her second strip before answering, already having eaten enough meat to last a human for two or three days.

“Why do you need to store it? Just eat it now, then you won’t have to carry it.”

He gave her a shocked look.

“What do you mean, ‘eat it now’? Oh lord, is that what you’re doing? You’re going to eat as much as you can in one sitting?”

“Yeah, why are you looking at me that way? I know humans don’t eat as much as we do, but you can’t stock up on food in an emergency?”

“No! Why would you ever assume that? Humans can’t do that! We need to eat every day, we can’t just eat two hundred pounds of food in one meal. Surely that can’t be healthy?”

“Just drag it then, the snow is pure and clean, nothing lives on the surface. At home, we store meat out on raised platforms in the winter so the scavengers can’t get at it, the weather is too cold for it to spoil.”

As he watched she started to strip away a third piece, how much could she possibly eat in one sitting? He retrieved his pack and rummaged through it, finding the zip ties, maybe he could fashion something using those. Yeah, if he cut the straps on the rucksack and tied them together, he could drag the meat along the ground behind him and secure it with the zip ties. That way it wouldn’t be near the small aura of heat that his suit gave off and so it wouldn’t thaw and go bad. He could transfer the contents of his pack into Lorza’s, they didn’t need two of them to carry toothpaste and tape.

“Hey Lorza, when you ate the MREs you kept the flammable gel packets, right? And the little metal cooking stands?”

She turned her head to him and nodded, a massive strip of meat lodged half-way down her throat. She swallowed with some difficulty, her muscles really working hard to drag the flesh down into her belly, and gestured to her rucksack.

“In my pack, the big pocket.”

“Good, I’ll need them later. We can bring some food for you too, you know. You don’t have to eat this much in one...” She ignored his suggestion, setting upon a fresh tentacle. “Never mind then.”

Over the next half hour, Boyd cut away enough meat to last him for the next few days, as much as he could reasonably carry. He cut off the shoulder straps on his pack and tied them together, using a zip tie to attach them to the back of his belt, leaving a makeshift rope a few feet long that he could use to pull his haul behind him like a sled. He packed the meat up into a rough block using the zip ties, securing it at the end of the line, and was ready to set off.

Lorza had eaten so much meat that her belly was actually distended, it looked as if she had swallowed a couple of beach balls, she was relaxing on the snow beside the dead monster with a hand on her stomach She looked about ready to pass out.

“You good to go?” Boyd asked, and she opened her eyes sluggishly.

“Yeah, let’s find shelter soon, I need to sleep this meal off.”

“That wasn’t a meal, you gorged yourself, I’d be surprised if we can even find a cave that you’ll fit in now.”

“It’s efficient, this food will last me for days.”

“It’s disgusting, and it wasn’t necessary. You’re not having any of mine by the way, you can bring your own if you want to eat with me.”

She just grinned, exposing her carnivore teeth, and rose to her feet with some difficulty.

“Mush, Balto.”

He scowled at her, knowing that she would try to pressure him into sharing his meat when she got hungry again, but if she passed up the opportunity to store some of the food for later then she could go hungry for all he cared.

She followed after him as he checked his compass, then set off over a snow drift, dragging his haul behind him. She looked almost pregnant, it was obscene, and she smirked at him as she caught his disapproving look.

“What’s the matter? Worried you’ll end up in here too if we can’t get off this moon?”

“Y-You wouldn’t do it!”

She just grinned at him, she was probably joking, but he couldn’t be sure. He decided to turn his attention forward instead, pulling his makeshift meat sled off into the snow.

As the sun began to set they came across another one of the caves that dotted the planet, the mouth of this one just large enough to allow the grossly distended Polar to squeeze through. This one had a short tunnel that led to an expansive ice cave, large enough for Lorza to stand erect without her furry ears brushing the ceiling. She set about unfolding her sleeping bag and laying it out on the floor as Boyd dragged his meat over into a corner and set it on the ice. Their body heat would never warm this space enough to thaw it, it would be fine here. He selected a steak-sized portion and cut away the zip-tie with his knife, bringing it back over to the sleeping bag where Lorza was already getting comfortable.