Chapter 6: Terminated

They marched through the snow, following Hades as their only guide. The landscape was devoid of any identifiable landmarks, completely flat in every direction, but the arid planet shone night and day. It almost looked like a harvest moon back on Earth, sharing the rusty hues, but shrouded in the blue haze of its atmosphere. He felt as if he could reach out and brush the planet with his fingertips. Salvation was so near by stellar terms, but so out of reach by human metrics.

His arm was secure beneath its cast, and the cocktail of drugs that were coursing through his system had taken the edge off the pain and his hunger. Lorza seemed to be doing a little better, too. He doubted whether the nutrient pills had had much of an effect on her, but at least the pair had worked through some of their stress and resentment. As dangerous and as stupid as their fight in the cave had been, it was a strange kind of therapy.

As they mounted another 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?” he asked.

“Hush...”

They crept up to the top of the drift, keeping low to the snow, Boyd peeking over its lip to see an expanse of exposed ice stretching out before them. Sitting out in the open, basking in the sunlight, was something alive. It was hard to make out what it was at first, but as Boyd watched it through his tinted visor, he started to get an idea of its shape.

It was some kind of scaleless fish, its body covered in a layer of slick, shining skin that was a deep brown in color that bordered on black. In many ways, it looked like the hide of the squid creature, oily and glistening. Its body plan was very different, however. It was elongated, with a large head that tapered into a streamlined body, ending in a tail with a very understated fin. It had four flippers that were splayed out on the ice, which it almost seemed to be using as legs to push itself along on its belly, like some kind of transitional form. It had no eyes that he could see, but the red, fleshy gills that ran down its flanks were bubbling as they exchanged gasses with the environment. It was resting close to a hole in the ice – presumably where it had breached.

“Looks like a giant mudskipper,” Boyd whispered.

“I knew it!” Lorza hissed, ducking a little to keep out of sight. “This is why that creature hunts us! This... land-fish must be its usual prey, and because we walk above the ice, its simple mind mistakes us for a meal.”

“Just like a shark attacking a surfboard,” Boyd replied with a nod. “That thing looks to be about the size of a seal. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he added, grinning behind his mask as he glanced over at her.

“I have always been partial to fish,” she replied, returning a toothy smile. “The question is – how do we catch it? We have no weapons, nothing to throw, not even a branch at hand to carve into a spear. Have you anything that we can use?”

“Sorry, I must have forgotten to pack my harpoon,” he replied sarcastically.

“Then, we will have to hunt in the old way,” Lorza continued as she turned her gaze back to their prey. “With tooth and claw.”

“You’re gonna run out there and grab it?” Boyd asked, chuckling for a moment before realizing that she was being serious. “Not to pick at old wounds, but you’re not exactly spry. Are you fast enough to catch that thing?”

“I have not seen it move,” she replied with a shrug. “It could be fast, it could be slow. In my experience, any watergoing creature that beaches itself willingly is not spry, as you would put it.”

“I don’t see any eyes,” Boyd added. “Maybe you can sneak up close and get the jump on it before it notices you – put those hooked claws to use.”

“The Elysians love their bare-handed fishing,” she replied, flexing her talons. “Stay here. I can move more quietly than you can.”

“So I’ve noticed,” he muttered, watching as she slowly scaled the drift.

She began to climb down the other side, keeping as low as someone of her size was able, leaving wide paw prints in the snow. Her quarry was entirely alien – they had no way to know if it sensed its environment through smell, sound, or vibration. It could be totally blind while on the ice, or it could bolt at the slightest disturbance like a frightened deer. He felt his heart quicken as she narrowed the distance between her and the fish, the tension rising. They hadn’t seen anything but snow and ice since they had landed on the moon, which meant that chances like this could be few and far between. That was a whole lot of meat to let slip away.

As Lorza came within a hundred meters of the thing, it stirred, flopping onto its belly as though preparing to flee. It lay there, its strange, bulbous head turning left and right as though trying to sense something. The Polar froze like a statue, one foot still raised off the snow, Boyd’s breath catching in his throat as he watched. Had it noticed her?

Something caught his eye, and he glanced to the ice beyond the drift, where the white powder gave way to its blue sheen. It was thin enough that he could see beneath it, a mass that was even darker than the murky water surrounding it floating along in eerie silence, as still as a piece of driftwood. Behind it, he could make out the vague outline of trailing tentacles, the colorful points of light that they emitted bleeding up through the ice.

Just like Lorza, he found himself paralyzed, but for very different reasons. He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he cry out? Wave his arms? Run down to help her? If only she’d had a damned radio. Remembering how sensitive her ears were, he decided on the former, raising his voice as loud as he dared.

“Lorza!” he hissed. When she didn’t react, he raised his voice a little higher, and one of her fuzzy ears swiveled in his direction. “Lorza! Don’t move! It’s coming!”

He didn’t need to elaborate further, her head turning to face the ice as she searched for the creature. She couldn’t run away now – it was too close, and they had both seen how fast it could move. The fish, on the other hand, was flopping clumsily across the ice as it made for the safety of its hole. Whether it was fleeing from Lorza or it had somehow sensed the approach of the creature, it was impossible to say, but it was moving as fast as its four flippers would allow. Boyd watched – powerless – as the black shape drifted beneath the Polar. In the blink of an eye, it could breach the ice and swallow her whole, just as it had Alexei.

To his relief, it passed beneath her, more interested in the flopping fish that was struggling along ahead of her. It covered the distance rapidly, and when it was beneath its prey, those trailing arms fanned out into a spiral. Mesmerizing lights swirled and danced, the fish stopping in its tracks, tilting its head to watch. It must have eyes after all, or perhaps some analogous light-sensing organ. With a sudden flurry of motion, the squid launched itself upward, exploding through the thin sheet like a torpedo. It sent a shower of shattered ice and dark water spraying in all directions, throwing the fish into the air like an Orca tossing a seal. The poor creature flopped down nearby, stunned by the blow, the squid’s many tentacles snaking out to engulf it. It was dragged, thrashing, into the yawning maw of the monster. That ring of serrated teeth turned it to chum like a saw, and then, the beast was gone. It slipped back beneath the ice, then sank from view, its colorful bioluminescence fading into the darkness below.

Only now did Lorza bolt, wheeling around to race back towards the snowdrift, moving remarkably quickly on her long legs. Boyd waved her on as if the snow presented any kind of safety, but where else could they go? She hauled herself up the drift and back to his side, skidding to a stop in the powder, breathing hard.

“Fuck!” Boyd exclaimed, glancing over the lip again to make sure she wasn’t being followed. “Are you alright?”

“Physically, yes,” she replied as she looked back at him with wide eyes. “Emotionally, you will be selling that fancy suit to pay for my therapy when we get back home.”

“Damn it!” he growled, burying his fist in the snow. “That fish thing couldn’t have outrun you. It would have been trivial to catch, and we could have eaten our fill of flame-roasted meat. We could have gone to sleep with full bellies if it wasn’t that loathsome fucking squid!”

“How is it still pursuing us?” Lorza demanded, throwing up her arms in frustration. “Does it sense us through the ice? Can it track our footfalls?”

“It wasn’t interested in you,” Boyd mused, peering out at the jagged hole that it had left in the ice sheet. “When you stood still, it passed right by you and went for the fish. Maybe it’s attracted to sound, movement, vibrations? It doesn’t go for us when we’re on the snow, only when we step onto the ice.”

“We cannot cross this,” Lorza added, gesturing to the expanse that lay before them. “Unless you propose that we go around? I see nothing but ice in all directions save for behind us. We are short on time as it is.”

“I’m not proposing that we go around it,” Boyd replied, his stern expression giving her pause. “I’m proposing that we kill the fucking thing. I’m done with letting this thing haunt us, and stealing a meal right from our plates is the last straw. What do you say? Let’s take it down.”

“Were it so easy!” she scoffed. “In case you had forgotten, we have no weapons, and it is both stronger and faster than we are. Did you not see how it...” She trailed off, averting her eyes. “It ate Alexei like he was a damned pelmeni. It is a little dumpling filled with meat,” she added, seeing Boyd’s confused expression. “It does not matter. My point is that the beast is dangerous. How do you hope to best it?”

“It might be strong and fast, but it doesn’t look very resilient,” Boyd replied. “Its body looks soft, gelatinous, like Earth’s cephalopods. Poke it with something sharp, and it’ll probably pop like a balloon full of offal.”

“We cannot stake our lives on probably,” Lorza grumbled. “I take it you have a plan to propose?”

“It seems to go after anything on the surface – anything that moves,” he began. “We know that it has far too many eyes, and that it isn’t picky about what it makes a meal of. Maybe we can ... toss one of our packs to distract it? Take it from behind?”

“And then what?” Lorza asked, tilting her head sarcastically. “Should I wrestle it into submission? My claws might best a fish, but not that creature. If only we had a stick,” she sighed, sinking down into the snow to lie on her side. “I would trade all of my belongings back home to have a simple branch right now...”

“Well, let’s think,” he continued. “What tools do we have at hand?”

“Tape, foam grenades, medical implements,” she said as she counted them off on her four-fingered hand. “Maybe toothpaste is toxic to it,” she joked, eliciting a chuckle from Boyd. “What of your suit? Can you do that ... electric thing again?”

“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I’d have to discharge the batteries, which would shut off the heating element. I’d die of hypothermia before we could reach shelter. That’s assuming I even have enough juice to hurt the thing.”

“Yes, it did not fare so well against me,” Lorza added with a smirk.

“Could you go toe to toe with it?” Boyd asked, her smile fading. “Even for a minute or two? Perhaps we could do something with the tape. Tie up its tentacles, maybe?”

“It tore Alexei from my very hands,” she replied, her grimace suggesting that she was reliving the terrible memory. “It was far stronger than I am, I could not hold it at bay. Besides, who knows if the adhesive would even stick to its skin? What if it is too wet or covered in slime?”

“It was a dumb suggestion anyway,” Boyd sighed, looking out over the ice again. “Who knows where the thing has gone now? Its last... meal didn’t keep it satisfied for long, so I don’t know how long the fish will tide it over until it’s hungry again.”

“What of the grenades?” Lorza asked, her ears pricking up.

“Those are foam grenades,” Boyd replied. “Unless the squid sets one of us on fire, I don’t see how that helps us.”

“When we crashed, the foam grenade that you told me to set off saved my life,” she explained. “It also hardened enough that even I struggled to dig my way out.”

“I see what you’re getting at,” Boyd said, a little of his optimism returning. “We lure it onto the surface, then we toss a foam grenade at it. With any luck, it might set fast enough to trap the thing.”

“Perhaps it can breathe on land, but for how long?” Lorza replied with an affirmative nod. “It seems to retreat back beneath the ice quickly.”

“I think it’s the best shot we have,” Boyd said, shrugging off his pack. He reached inside, finding the two grenades, handing one off to Lorza. “We only have two, so make it count. You ever thrown a grenade before?”

“Do I look like I have ever so much as seen a grenade?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Prime it and throw it, same as you did when we crashed,” he replied as he gestured to the red button on the metallic casing. “Just make sure it lands near the thing. You know what – let me go first.”

“What do we do?” she continued. “Just walk out there and see what happens?”

“There’s nothing else we can do,” he said, starting to empty his pack. “We can’t wait for it – don’t have the time. We walk straight across, and when we see that shadow beneath the ice, we stay still and we throw my pack. With any luck, it’ll go for that instead of us.”

Once all of the useful items had been passed off to Lorza, he began to fill it with snow.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Gotta make sure it’s heavy enough to draw some attention,” he explained.

“You are bad at making plans,” she grumbled, but she made no further protests. She knew that it was the best they could come up with. They made their way carefully down the drift and stepped onto the ice, their eyes firmly fixed on their feet as they began to walk.

“I see the other side!” Lorza said, Boyd lifting his gaze to see the ice give way to more snow a few hundred meters ahead of them. They had almost crossed the ice sheet, and there had been no sign of the creature so far.

“Maybe our number one fan really did eat its fill,” Boyd said, glancing at the ground warily.

As they approached the relative safety of the snow, Lorza extended an arm to stop him, her head turning as she tracked something behind them. Boyd soon saw it too – a dark shape drifting towards them beneath the ice. It was slow, motionless, save for the way that its trailing tentacles floated in the water behind it.

“It’ll fan out its tentacles before it strikes,” Boyd warned, trying to keep as still as he could while sliding off his pack. “Here – you can throw further than I can.”

He passed it off to Lorza, and she swung it by the straps, sending the snow-filled rucksack sailing through the air. It landed a good twenty meters away, slamming down onto the ice. Boyd watched, only his eyes moving as he tracked the creature, its course changing. With a lazy push from its tentacles, it began to drift towards the pack, no longer heading straight for them. He swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to stave off the primal fear that was commanding him to flee.

“Do not move a muscle,” Lorza hissed. “It seems more interested in the bait than us.”

Perhaps seeing the shadow of the rucksack from beneath the ice, the creature stopped beneath it, starting to fan out its octopus-like arms into a mesmerizing spiral of pulsing colors. It was the prelude to an attack, and just as Boyd had anticipated, the creature propelled itself up through the water with a powerful thrust from its tentacles. The sound of cracking ice echoed across the flat terrain as the beast smashed through, an explosion of murky seawater and frozen fragments showering the surrounding area, close enough that Boyd and Lorza had to raise their arms reflexively to shield themselves. The nightmarish creature flailed its mass of black tentacles, flopping onto the surface, its gelatinous body undulating as it reached for the pack. It dragged the bag towards its maw, tearing into the fabric with its rows of razor teeth, reducing it to fluttering shreds in seconds.

The two onlookers were already moving, trying to put some distance between themselves and the furious creature, running in the opposite direction. It quickly abandoned the tattered remnants of the pack, turning its ring of expressionless, black eyes and its gaping maw in their direction. Like an octopus dragging itself across the sand, it gave chase, its ink-black hide glistening in the pale light of the moon’s star.

“What are you waiting for!?” Lorza yelled.

Boyd spun around to face it, seeing a mass of teeth and tentacles the size of a small car bearing down on him. He reached into one of the pockets of his suit, pulling out the grenade, his thumb pressing down on the primer. Like he was lawn bowling, he rolled it across the ice, the round device sliding directly beneath the charging alien. There was no explosion, no flash of light or loud bang, merely a sound like escaping gas as the grenade began to disgorge its contents. It was designed to quickly fill rooms and choke out fires, expanding in every direction, the off-white foam taking on the qualities of a cloud as it engulfed the monster. The creature halted in its tracks, disappearing into the mass of foam, its squirming tentacles vanishing from view. As the substance lost the consistency of shaving foam and began to harden, it started to droop, draping itself over the squid. Tentacles writhed, spraying flecks of the foam that glued themselves to the ice, the creature seeming disoriented as it twisted and struggled. The foam was forming a mound now, like a pile of melted plastic, encasing it.

“It’s working!” Boyd exclaimed, allowing himself a moment of relief. “I think-”

The beast burst free, sending fragments of semi-hardened foam scattering across the ice with a violent flail of its powerful arms, its jet-black hide coated with gluey clumps. Far from being trapped, their ploy only seemed to have made it angrier, the thing lurching towards them as it spied its quarry.

“Run!” Lorza shouted, Boyd wheeling around to follow her.

The beast went for the larger target, gaining quickly, remarkably fast in spite of its clumsy gait. One of its tentacles whipped out to entangle the Polar’s legs, and she fell on her face, the grenade that she had been holding bouncing out of her hand. She yowled like an angry cat as it wound its tentacle around her limb, more of the snaking appendages reaching for her, her violent kicking doing nothing to dissuade them. It gripped her legs firmly, starting to drag her towards the gelatinous mass of its body, its mouth splitting open like a wound full of serrated teeth. Lorza dug her claws into the ice like picks in a bid to slow herself, her biceps bulging, but even her strength was no match for the beast. She let out a wail of fear that stopped Boyd dead in his tracks.

He could run and let it take her, but if Lorza died, then he would die soon after. Their fates were intertwined. More than that – he couldn’t watch it tear her apart like it had Alexei, even if it meant putting her life before the mission. All for one, and one for all...

Boyd drew his push blade, bellowing a challenge as he charged into the fray. The creature seemed to hesitate, its attention split between two targets now, leaving Lorza helplessly tangled in its tentacles as it turned its ring of glistening eyes on the newcomer. One of those ropy appendages shot out towards him, dripping with strands of slime, the blister-like orbs of bioluminescent light that ran down its length throbbing angrily. He ducked under the first swipe, hearing its whistle over his head, then slashed at the thing’s oil-slick-colored hide with his blade. The sharp edge cut through its skin easily – just as he had imagined – its flesh soft and rubbery. Yellow fluids seeped from the cut, but the creature was undeterred.

Its arms flailed like loose firehoses, the glowing spots that ran along their length drawing colorful trails in the air. Boyd ducked and weaved, slicing at them wherever he could, his suit showered in flecks of its yellow blood. His blade wasn’t large enough to give it much more than paper cuts. 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. His distraction was helping give Lorza more time to free herself, if nothing else.

The Polar was battling with all of the strength that her starving body had left, slicing at the tentacles that bound her with her wicked claws, hacking them apart like a butcher trying to portion up a stubborn cut of meat. They were far more effective than his knife, her white fur and her blue coveralls soaked with yellow stains and viscous slime, each new cut exposing dark flesh and muscle. The monster seemed conflicted now, perhaps having never encountered prey that put up so much of a fight.

It lurched suddenly, flinching away as Lorza succeeded in severing one of the tentacles that was wrapped around her waist, holding it still with her claws as she ripped it apart with her sharp teeth. Strands of wet meat tore as she savaged it, the dismembered limb falling to the ice, where it flopped and twitched like a tail dropped from a frightened lizard. It wasn’t enough to dissuade the creature, its grip around her midriff and thighs tightening like a noose, her soft fat bulging around its tentacles as she gritted her teeth against the pain.

The distraction created enough of an opening for Boyd to get closer, dodging through its tentacles to reach its bulbous body. He hilted his knife in its wet flesh, dragging the blade across its flank, splattering the ice beneath with its oozing fluids as he opened a gaping wound. It was just as dark on the inside as the outside, as though its very cells had been saturated with black paint. That hurt enough to warrant a response, the thing wheeling around to face him, whipping a heavy tentacle into his torso. He was lifted off his feet, landing flat on his back a few meters away, the impact driving the air from his lungs to leave him dazed for a few moments.

When he regained his composure, he saw that Lorza was being dragged towards its mouth, so close now that she could touch the creature. With another frenzied wail, she braced her hands against what passed for its face, straining to hold it back as its jaws snapped at her. It had been large enough to swallow Alexei whole, and Lorza wouldn’t make much more than two or three mouthfuls. In a last act of desperation, she began to claw at its eyes, popping them like blisters with her sharp claws. It recoiled, throwing her to the ground, but it didn’t relinquish its tight hold on her. She bought herself a few more seconds, but it was soon dragging her closer again, wrapping more of its limbs around its struggling quarry to immobilize her.

“Boyd!” she cried, the terror in her voice freezing his heart in his chest. He struggled to his feet, then spotted a metallic glint nearby. It was the last foam grenade – the one that Lorza had dropped. Ignoring the fresh pain that radiated through him, he began to run, ducking low to snatch the softball-sized device off the ice. He sprinted straight towards the squid, ducking under another furious tentacle swipe, putting himself between Lorza and its flashing teeth.

“What are you doing!?” Lorza wailed as he drew back his arm, the grenade in hand. “Boyd, no!”

He plunged his right arm into its mouth, and its jaws snapped shut like a bear trap, Lorza letting out another cry of dismay as she watched his limb vanish into its maw. Something was wrong, however. The creature bit down again in confusion, its teeth meeting resistance. Boyd’s mesh cast had weathered the blow – the protective casing as hard as concrete – and he dropped the grenade that he had been holding into its gullet. The thing paused, then began to tremble violently, pushing itself across the ice in an attempt to get away from him. It tossed Lorza aside, flinging Boyd away with another swipe, rolling onto its side as its many limbs writhed like beached eels.

Flame retardant foam spewed from its mouth, solidifying as it dripped to the ground, the thing’s bulbous body convulsing and bloating as its guts filled with hardening froth. It slapped its tentacles against the ice, regurgitating another torrent of liquid foam, then its entire body seemed to stiffen. With one last wracking shudder, it collapsed. Like a deflating balloon, its gelatinous body seemed to sag, its limbs going limp.

Lorza picked herself up, rising to her feet on the ice. She was shivering – whether from the cold or the fear, Boyd couldn’t tell.

“You okay?” Boyd asked, gripping his bruised ribs as he suppressed a cough. “You injured?”

“No, no,” she muttered as she glanced down at her own blood-soaked hands. She took a moment to compose herself, rubbing her neck where one of the alien’s tentacles had choked her. “I am okay. Is it...”

Boyd walked over to the creature’s body, giving one of its tentacles a kick. The appendage was loose, unresponsive, lying still. He dared to approach a little closer, giving its rubbery corpse another tentative poke with the toe of his boot. His blood was still coursing with adrenaline, the euphoria that followed a fight washing over him. If the thing had a head, he might have been tempted to cut it off and mount it on his wall as a trophy. This wretched creature had haunted them for days, and they had finally bested it.

“Yep, this fucker is dead,” he called back to Lorza. “I’m not afraid of you,” he muttered to himself, crouching to examine the creature more closely. It had a dozen tentacles, a handful damaged or severed by Lorza’s sharp claws and teeth, its pus-like fluids still leaking from the wounds in its rubbery flesh. The eyes down one side of its face had been gouged by her talons, and its mouth was packed with foam. The grenade must have released the expanding suppressant all the way through its digestive system, rupturing its organs. He took off his glove and briefly rolled up his sleeve to check his brace, seeing that 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. There were some holes in his suit where the thing’s fangs had pierced it, so he made his way over to one of the packs, searching for the roll of tape. He began to wrap it around the breach, then tore off a section with his teeth. That should hold – it wasn’t like it needed to be pressurized.

As he turned to look back at Lorza, he saw that she had descended on their kill like a vulture, not wasting a second. She began to tear into one of its fleshy tentacles with her claws, stripping off a hunk of wet meat and bringing it to her mouth.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Boyd protested as he began to jog back over to her. “You don’t know if that’s edible or not! At least let me scan it first!”

She paused with the wobbling piece of flesh an inch from her mouth, her hands already soaked in yellow fluids, turning her head to look at him.

“You can do that?”

“I have a food analyzer,” he replied, coming to a stop beside her. “It’ll take literally fifteen seconds.”

Lorza relented, watching curiously as he cut off a tissue sample from the tentacle with his knife, placing the sliver of rubbery meat on the ice. He brought up his display, tapping at the touch panel, activating the molecular scanner that was built into the sleeve. It was the same principle as the handheld devices often used by the UNN, but integrated into his suit’s systems. He held his forearm over the morsel for a moment, then read off the results, Lorza waiting impatiently.

“The mercury content is a little higher than I’d like, but overall, it’s edible. We should be able to-”

He paused the thought, watching with a blend of awe and disgust as Lorza carefully lifted the chunk of dripping meat to her mouth, biting into it like it was a giant slice of watermelon. She wolfed it down, barely pausing to chew, its yellow blood dripping from her chin like some kind of grisly condiment.

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

Boyd grimaced as she carefully cut away a long strip of gelatinous meat from the tentacle, using the claw on her index finger like a scalpel. She pulled away a piece that must have been a foot long and a couple of inches thick, gripping the slippery skin with her talons, choking it down like a grisly strand of spaghetti. Whether it tasted good or not wasn’t a factor – meat was meat. He set about cutting off some smaller strips for himself, worried that she might not leave any for him, despite the size of their catch.

“Well, I’m going to cook mine,” he said as he used his push knife to slice off a chunk the size of a salmon steak. Its black color and greasy consistency made it less than appetizing, but it would probably be kinder on his kidneys than the emergency pills. “How are we going to store all this?”