Frue, the smarmy weasel, had forsaken him, his juvenile taunts enough to make him want to jump up and break his bones. Regers recalled thrusting his aching body forward to try to take out the wretch in spite of his pain. He saw the ploy now; the little freak had only goaded him, knowing his only chance to save his ass was to have Regers’ gun on his side. Frue had abandoned him and stayed well out of reach, taunting him from a distance. When the heat had finally come, Frue had blundered forward like a madman, emboldened into gunning down the first wave of Zikri that came gliding out of the gloom like phantoms. More out of blind fear and adrenaline rush than skill, Frue had gone kamikaze. That said, the Zikri that had stumbled upon them had bled and died in as much agony as his own blaster could have dished out.
Nonetheless, Frue’s little moment had given him time to limp away down a murky side corridor while the chitters and gasps of horror raged on, of Zikri and human alike. Eight had emerged, and he’d blasted them head-on, a lethal enough squad to have taken out Frue in a flash had he not been there to protect him. Frue’s gasps and heaves were music to his ears. Where Frue was now, alive or dead, he had no idea, nor did he care. What was for sure, the little weasel had left him isolated here to die, at most hoping that he would be bait for Zikri coming from the rear or side.
The walls around him seemed to waver. They shimmered and blurred. Like a man influenced by acid, Regers stumbled on. Despite the gas mixture entering his blood stream and easing his pain, he pined for the Devirol caps in his waist belt pouch. When Choko and Biggs forced him to take the drug, given him his first taste for it, he’d gotten hooked on that daydreamy shit and now it was out of control. Couldn’t think straight. Things were stretched and blurred at the edges. As if this life-and-death situation were no more than a kids’ cartoon dream.
The ship’s low, hypnotic throb penetrated the layers of his waking consciousness...just within audible range and possibly below, almost subliminal. Black, squid-like figures sculpted like bas-reliefs into the metal plates littered the walls. To his drug-hazed mind, they had the semblance of the inner nest of some creepy-crawling creature. All seemed to swell in the glow of a slightly sepia tint. Regers shook his head, struggling to dispel the illusions.
His fingers reached out and touched the squidly engravings and the rib-like and coral-like formations. His lips writhed in a grunt. Hard cold metal. Just a ship. Only a ship, Regers, don’t jizz your pants over it. What could a freaky, hypnotic thrum do—
He blinked, the wooziness taking over again. He shook out the hallucinations. This weird ship was getting to him. It was only a ship, but full of grotesque shapes and images that sent his brain reeling. The plant creature they had brought aboard had inconvenienced the Zikri, no denying, but if he had his choice he’d have shredded the alien things and stolen Mathias’s ship.
Fuck Mathias. He’d have killed the sod, then nuked the others of his team too if they didn’t agree to his ‘mutiny’ to steal command of Albatross. Maybe those mutant ferns had infected his blood with some toxin? Well, it was the least of his concern now. Where was that bastard Yul anyway? He’d been thrown to the other side of the cave-in. He and Frue had fled down the companionway into endless murk. Frue’d turned chickenshit at the last minute. The weasel’d taken out the first wave, true, but then he saw him scrambling back, beetling into a cross corridor with squids on his tail. Hopefully the coward got mauled by them. He’d blasted most of the freaks after that, given both of them an avenue of escape, at serious risk to his own life, but Frue had initially left him there to die. Then again, would he not have done the same?
Regers gave an unpleasant frown. This was a rat’s maze of corridors. No chance of easily gaining an escape route. His earpiece communicator was dead. He rapped his helmet with a gloved hand, muting its crackling noise. Onwards, where else to go?
Regers paused to collect his wits. That last Zikri had almost torn his head off. The thing had followed him like a hungry spider, some straggler from the pack creeping from the hold. But in the end it had received its just desserts, a faceful of fire, courtesy of his blaster. Ha ha. Fucked up thing. What a horrid species, these Zikri. If he were a god, would he have created such cosmic deformities? Hell no! Another reason to be assured there was no god in this universe. Just a random, cruel universe, screwed up in every aspect, with alien things and powers-to-be ready to mess up everybody and everything.
Calm down, Regers. You’re a ranting pessimist. This is not a domestic debate. We are in survival mode here, so get a grip.
He slapped his hand hard again against his helmet, rattling his skull. He could surely blame his cruddy
