Outpost U-819 Must Die! by Newton Webb

A Sci-fi Body Horror Novella: Isambelle, a disgraced alcoholic scientist on a desolate ice planet, must team up with Dot, a stoic security chief, to survive the deadly threat buried beneath Rokus IV.

Contents

1. Reader Survey

2. Horror Story Compilations

3. Download Outpost U-819 Must Die!

4. Read Online

---

Reader Survey

I’m running a quick one-question poll to better understand my readers and help me reach more people who enjoy my books.

---

FREE Horror Story Compilations

If you want more nightmares, you can also find my work, and others’, here:

Summertime Terrors: 35 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Road Revenant’, ‘The Spinster’ and ‘Gomorrah’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 54 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

---

---

Download ePub / PDF

The ePub file should work on Kindle and most other e-readers. The PDF is there if you prefer reading on a tablet, computer, or phone.

For Kindle, you can send the ePub to your device here:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/sendtokindle
US: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

---

Outpost U-819 Must Die!

By Newton Webb

Chapter One

Professor Isambelle Hawke

“A bio-suit, Roger? Really?” Professor Isambelle sneered, her harsh nasal tones cutting the air. “We’ve been dredging dirt on this rock for nearly four years now and found nothing more hazardous than your breath.”

She sat up in bed, instantly regretting the action. Isambelle rubbed her forehead to ward off the lingering remnants of her hangover. Her hips ached, more from early onset arthritis aggravated by the recycled air than from Roger’s exertions last night. She looked at him lumbering around the bedroom, looking for his suit with all the grace and style of a peasant gardener. His papery white skin stretched over a frame of gawky bones.

The smile faded.

Ah!

Her hands found it. Injecting her homemade cocktail of pain suppressants and stimulants into her neck, she breathed a sigh of relief as they entered her system.

“You should drink less. You are a mean drunk,” Roger said. He moved over to the mirror and adjusted his uniform. “The work we do here is important for humanity.”

Isambelle levelled her gaze at him, her ice blue eyes radiating contempt. “Quite. I can see why I, a multi award winning scientist, am needed to catalogue the meagre scrapings of vegetation spread across this dust bowl.” She rummaged for her flask. Gin. She needed gin. With a contented sigh, she took a deep gulp.

Roger shuffled over to look at her. “We found a new one yesterday.”

“Was it lichen? I bet it was lichen. They are all lichen.” Isambelle sat up and threw the sheets off.

“If it wasn’t important, then the military wouldn’t have funded it, would they?” He talked over Isambelle’s contemptuous retort. “I won’t talk to you when you are like this. Sometimes, I don’t even know why I put up with you. This. Us.” Roger shambled over, finding his bio-suit and crowing in triumph.

“There are four scientists on this base, including us. Two of them are a combination of married and old, so they’d never let you into their bed.” Isambelle stuck out a stick like leg to test the air temperature. Satisfied, she tossed back the sheets, stood up with a groan, cracked her back, and moved to the mirror. “And I am the third.”

Isambelle squinted at the mirror, teasing her fingers through her raven black bob cut, ignoring the streaks of grey. She could dye them black, pretend that she wasn’t getting old like Roger did with his ridiculous abdominal implants. That would mean caring, though. The only maintenance she performed was enough to keep her mind and, she took another swig of gin, her liver functioning at peak performance. Isambelle’s body was just a flesh suit for her brain.

“I’ve had enough,” Roger muttered. “This is over. We are over.”

“Oh no, our daily break-up. I’m devastated. Don’t forget your bio-suit, Roger. God forbid something interesting happens to you outside.” Isambelle chuckled, looking at the man with disdain. “I’ll be seeing you back in a minute, then!”

“Some of us have a work ethic, Izzy,” Roger called out as the door closed behind him.

“And some of us have read that there is a category four snowstorm in effect, blunderbrain.” Isambelle tapped at her wrist comp. Stepping into the hygiene unit, she started a cleanse cycle and let her mind wander as the water played over her body.

Three months. Just three months until she was off this rock and could start looking for something to rebuild her career.

Isambelle stepped out, the scent of sour sweat scoured from her body. She found a vaguely clean ship suit and got dressed. Turning on her computer, she found a hundred and thirty eight unread emails. “This is why I drink,” she muttered. She marked them all as read and then wandered towards the canteen to find some food.

Breakfast was the most interesting event on Rokus IV.

As she shook her head to clear the last of the cobwebs from her mind, she felt, more than saw, the ox like form of Dot jog by.

Dot got angry whenever someone asked her about her parentage, but she was clearly lab grown. Six foot six and with muscles upon muscles, she was a giant. Her iron grey hair was permanently bound into a bun and her coal black eyes could turn water to ice. Isambelle kept meaning to test some of her genetic material, to find out what exactly they had edited her with. But she was always distracted, sometimes by Roger, mostly by gin.

She had wanted a chef unit in her room, but these far out colonial bases encouraged centralised eating to combat cabin fever. So, with her requests denied, she had to traipse to the “social dome” to meet the idiots who flailed incomprehensibly at their tedious data streams.

Forcing a woman of Isambelle’s position to eat with the chattel of the station was demeaning. Thankfully, checking her implant, she saw that the rest of the scientists were performing their duties.

An empty canteen.

Marvellous.

What good little drones they were.

As she stood in front of the chef unit, it flickered into life. Mr Chef, was a small animated chef with an oversized hat and a comedy moustache. “Bon Appetit.”

“Sod off,” she snarled.

“Unknown recipe. Would you like me to surprise you?” the ebullient chef mused.

“No, I want a two egg omelette with spring onions, wilted spinach, and two slices of buttered granary toast. Black coffee, triple shot.”

A picture of her requested meal appeared on the screen, along with a five second countdown to give her the opportunity to change her mind. She waited impatiently while the machine whirred. The very suggestion that someone of her intellect would make the wrong choice was not even laughable. It was downright insulting.

The slot opened and a plate appeared with her steaming food. “About time.”

“You are welcome,” Mr Chef trilled happily.

“I said, ‘About time’, not ‘Thank you’, you utter imbecile.”

“You are welcome,” Mr Chef repeated. His enthusiasm remained undimmed.

“This isn’t over,” Isambelle muttered. She looked at the animated character with malice gleaming in her eyes.

Maybe I could reprogramme it without the base commander noticing?

Walking to a table, she forked the food into her mouth. She topped her coffee up with her flask. She didn’t bother asking Mr Chef for alcohol. No alcohol until sixteen hundred hours colony time was the rule. She didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of denying her. It always looked so smug about it.

The Kowalski couple entered to her disappointment. They sat whispering over matching dippy eggs and grapefruit. Occasionally, they would glance her way.

She loathed them.

Isambelle had won the Venusian Botany Prize by the age of fourteen. They had appointed her chief biochemist to Haylans Pharmaceutical by twenty one. They had appointed her Royal Botanist to the British Science Council before she was even in her mid twenties.

They were each nearing two hundred years old, age extended by gene splicing and spite. With all that time, they had achieved nothing in their miserable lives. Yet they dared to look down on her, to judge her as if they were her peers.

I hope they drown in their dippy eggs.

She finished her drink. The gin had a bitter aftertaste today. The sooner her penance was over and she fled this rock, the better. She missed basking in the limelight to which she was rightfully entitled.

Academia in United Earth was full of either entitled nobles or overly cautious academics, she’d gone corporate to try and avoid them.

In the corporations, greed is God.

And God is everywhere.

Chapter Two

Doctor Roger Griffith

Roger marched down the connecting tube towards the hangar. The floor was smoothed rockcrete. The outpost had only existed for five years, and already it was showing its age.

You’d think the military would have accounted for the harsh conditions and built something sturdier.

The hangar was deserted, apart from the two Mule shuttles waiting on the deck. A category four snowstorm flashed amber across the warning display.

Roger sucked on his teeth, then making a snap decision, he hopped into the closest Mule, Shuttle Two, and powered up the engines, feeling the ageing vessel shudder underneath him. He plotted a course for the next site on his rota. Having examined the closer sites, he was getting more travel time, which suited him just fine as they moved further out.

The pre mission checklist came up with the usual nanny state questions. “Do you have your bio-suit and has it been correctly sealed?”, “Do you have a minimum of two crew?”, “Have you logged your flight plan with the central server?”

He’d been on the barely habitable rock for over two years. He logged the flight plan, but he was damned if he was going to start a fight by telling them that Isambelle was refusing to do fieldwork. So, he ticked ‘Yes’ to all the options.

Flicking through the playlist, he selected some smooth Arkellian jazz. As the shuttle left the bay, he gave the autopilot its destination and, getting a cup of tea from Mr Chef unit, started a game of chess. Scrolling through a list of avatars, he chose an AI representation of his opponent and sat back in his seat, blowing on his hot drink.

It shouldn’t, but as he mulled over his next move, he noted that the angry sounds of the snowstorm complemented the jazz quite well. His smile dropped as the shuttle was suddenly buffeted when the engines fought to compensate for a strong gust, then he settled back into his game as it stabilised.

Roger looked forward to his brief moments of sanity, eight hours of joyous isolation before returning to the cramped living quarters back in U-819.

The shuttle bucked hard enough to spill tea across Roger’s console. “Fiddlesticks.” He reached for a tissue to absorb the mess. Isambelle had picked a perfect day to refuse to go out on an expedition.

I should have stayed back and done admin.

He pursed his lips and tapped his finger on the console frame.

But that means going back to Isambelle.

He envisioned her smug, superior face and shuddered. Closing his eyes, he asked himself once more why he put up with her.

Am I in love with her?

He prayed that he wasn’t.

It’s fine.

The autopilot was trying to land.

It’s not fine.

The stupid computer had decided that waiting out the storm was safer than continuing on its route. If it did that, the shuttle would be buried in snow and he’d have to endure the ignominy of being dug out by another team, delaying the whole expedition.

Roger swore and told it to continue flying, then when it refused, he seized the controls, switching them to manual. A red light had lit up on the main board, and a siren was interrupting the drum solo on his music.

It had been over thirty years since Roger had passed his pilot’s licence and, in a galaxy where autopilot was everywhere, his skills had atrophied.

The maps had identified a cave complex nearby. He steered the small craft towards the rocky outcrop. He could wait out the storm there.

Damn you, Isambelle.

He wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t goaded him. His relaxed flight was forgotten. Another red light appeared on the console as one of the baffle plates on the port thrusters was sheared off.

His breathing increased as he realised that the previously inconvenient snowstorm had risen in intensity to category five and he could be in real danger.

“This is Doctor Roger Griffith in Shuttle Two. Reporting engine failure. Performing a controlled...” He increased the speed as the port engine started to stutter. “Very controlled landing. Require engineering... Oh villainy!”

The port engine died. Thrusters whined as they attempted to compensate, but the shuttle was losing altitude. Rocks loomed up ahead. He was going too fast, but too slow would mean getting buried. He increased power to the starboard engine and redlined the port thrusters. He was so close.

Too close.

As he tried to slow the shuttle, one of the forward thrusters malfunctioned and he found himself approaching the rock face too fast. He set the air brakes to maximum. The inertial dampeners turned the deceleration thick and sluggish.

He’d made it to the outcrop.

The shuttle smashed into the cave entrance, wedging itself tight. Roger was thrown against his harness. He felt two of his ribs pop, despite the suit and the dampeners. A warm feeling spread through his body as his suit automatically released painkillers.

Isambelle is going to love this.

With that thought, he blacked out.

The mingled sound of jazz trumpets and alert sirens brought him round. Wincing, he blinked slowly before looking at the crumpled forward section of the shuttle.

Darnations.

Yes, he’d crashed a shuttle. He looked down at the console. He still had power and the cockpit was warm, at least. He gingerly poked his ribs. Pain lanced through him, but as long as he didn’t breathe in too much and left them alone, the painkillers were doing their job.

There was an amber icon on the dashboard.

Of course.

He ran diagnostics on the communications. The rig must have been damaged in the storm. The older models of the Mule class from his navy days were far more resilient.

He checked the doors. The side hatch was buckled, but the rear access hatch opened smoothly. Flicking on his helmet lights, he took a look at the Mule.

It might be fixable?

Not by him, though. The engineers would need to tow it back to base and do a complete refurb. It was a mess.

Commander Tolworth was going to tear him a new one.

He walked around the exterior. The rock face had been broken, and debris covered the mid section of the shuttle.

Roger checked the time on his wrist comp. Base would soon send out the other shuttle to investigate. Until then, he should sit tight.

I recognise this cave.

He’d investigated it before. It was one of the closer locations of interest to the base. That would speed up the rescue efforts.

The inviting sound of jazz wafted out from the shuttle, but something had caught Roger’s eye. Something shiny. He walked over to the side of the shuttle. Where the rock face had broken under the impact, there was something... yes, definitely metal. He ran his glove over the smooth surface. It was warm to the touch.

Something’s buried here. Could it be powered?

His stomach tightened, his ribs protesting, as his abdominal muscles swelled with excitement.

This could be the making of me.

Retrieving his tool kit from the shuttle, he looked at the metal. Levering away the snow, ice, and loose scree, he was able to uncover about a metre of it. It didn’t look like anything from the expedition.

He and Isambelle had missed this. It had been buried underneath the rock the whole time while they messed around cataloguing lichen.

He grinned.

Isambelle will be livid.

But first, he had to make sure it wasn’t just a buried crate or lost piece of metal.

Tempted as he was to laser through the metal and see what was under it, he doggedly worked on removing the rocks from around it with a crowbar and his trowel. As he cleared another section, he found some glyphs, text from a language he didn’t recognise. He ran it through his wrist computer, but it still returned nothing.

Scratching at his helmet, he looked at it. Maybe it was a logo instead of text. Something surrealist.

He rammed his crowbar into the rock to clear more of it and shoved at it, wincing as his ribs protested. The rock slid slowly from under the scree and he could see a few more symbols as, finally, it rolled free.

His glee was short lived as the rocks above crumbled and collapsed down. He jerked back, dropping his crowbar, but not before his glove was trapped, pinched in the debris.

Hissing, he yanked at his glove. Thankfully, the material had stiffened on impact to protect his fingers.

Looking up, his breath hitched. The rockfall had exposed a large section of metal. Whatever was hidden under the rock was big. It could be some kind of structure. There were loads of glyphs revealed. Hopefully enough for the computer to begin work on translation.

Roger looked around for the crowbar to free his hand. Leaning back, it was just out of reach. He strained, but his hand was stubbornly held fast. Looking back up at the text and his wrist comp, he gritted his teeth with frustration.

He wanted this to be his discovery. The others were no doubt on their way to rescue Roger and laugh at his screw up. The expedition had found nothing on this planet of note, nothing in five years to justify the bio-suits except the freezing cold.

No, I’m not sharing the credit for this. I found it. Not Isambelle.

With his other hand, he disabled the locks on his trapped glove and pulled his hand clear. He immediately felt the icy cold on his exposed skin, but it was tolerable in the short term. The arm of his suit shrank around his wrist to compensate, sealing the rest of his body. It was definitely powered. Several of the glyphs glowed as he watched them.

Eagerly, he scanned the text, taking photos and annotating it. Using his tool kit, he took all the readings he could. His trapped glove serving as a warning, he couldn’t risk excavating any more, in case more rock was dislodged. But he saved his initial findings and sent them to the message buffer.

Done it.

He was officially the first person to report on this artefact.

Touch it.

He blinked.

Touch it.

Behind him, he heard the whine of a shuttle making a perfect landing. He narrowed his eyes as he prepared himself for a lecture about flying during a snowstorm.

He looked back at the metal.

A previous expedition? Debris from a crashed exploration drone? A dropped shipping crate?

It looked old. Despite the shine from the exposed metal, the rock around it looked mature.

Touch it.

He reached out with his hand and stroked the warm metal. It felt comforting to his touch. A sharp prick caused him to jerk back his hand. He couldn’t see a cut. It must have been static electricity or a micro fissure of some kind.

The ice holding everything together was starting to melt. There was even lichen growing on the rock over it. That hadn’t grown overnight.

A decade old?

A hundred years old?

Either way, Roger had found it. That meant he got a percentage of the salvage rights.

And Isambelle had refused to come and join the expedition.

It was a good day.

Chapter Three

Dot

That’s a write-off.

The shuttle settled onto the ice with a hydraulic groan. Through the cockpit glass, Dot saw Griffith waving his bare hand like an imbecile. Contamination protocol meant nothing to scientists until their skin started sloughing off.

Flicking on the speakers, she boomed, “Get into the cargo hold.”

Her voice, honed from years as a sergeant in the Royal Marines, caused the neurotic man to jump. He started pointing at the wrecked shuttle.

She pressed the button again. “Get into the cargo hold.”

He stood glaring at the shuttle. She returned his look until he complied, shaking his head. He walked up to the cockpit. She didn’t open the bridge hatch, instead pointing again back to the cargo hold.

Scientists.

Protecting them, even on a planet with very few natural threats, sometimes felt like herding cats.

Watching the security cameras, she saw him clamber into the hold and take a seat, rubbing his exposed hand as it acclimatised to the internal heating.

Idiot.

Dot had sent out a warning to all base members that a storm was approaching. That should have been enough. Now they only had one shuttle, which meant no flights unless there was an emergency. No expeditions could be launched without a backup shuttle for rescue purposes, just like the one she’d just had to embark.

Her eyes flashed to the camera. Doctor Griffith was looking at his hand.

So he should. That exposed hand had just won him twenty-four hours in quarantine and a hefty cocktail of antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral medicine.

The communicator chirped. Dot answered, “Dot, Shuttle One.”

“Have you berated him yet?” Isambelle’s nasal tones filtered through the commlink.

“Isambelle, this channel is for mission-specific comms only.”

“I can’t think of anything more mission-specific than sassing the idiot responsible for—“

Dot closed the communication, then rejected the next three calls from Isambelle.

Scientists.

Tapping on her wrist comp, she logged the infraction as a misuse of mission comms.

The commlink trilled again, and she was on the verge of rejecting it when she saw the handle of Commander Tolworth and accepted it. “Dot, Shuttle One.”

“Dot, is Shuttle Two salvageable?”

Dot narrowed her eyes. “Unlikely. That is a question for the engineers.”

“We received Roger’s last communications about an artefact of some kind. Can you forward your sensor logs so we can take a better look?”

“Sending logs.” Dot closed the connection. She knew he was going to ask her to retrieve the black box from Shuttle Two, but that would have to be done via utility vehicle. The shuttle would need to be reserved until a replacement arrived.

She flicked on her computer. The next resupply was in three weeks. Commander Tolworth wouldn’t be happy. She clenched her jaw. Dot would have to remind the commander of the protocol. As security officer, base security fell under her authority, not Tolworth’s.

The last time she’d allowed a lieutenant to ignore protocol, it had cost half her squad their lives, her career as a Royal Marine, and her ability to sleep through a whole night.

Chapter Four

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Isambelle stared at the console.

It had taken hours for the storm to break enough for Dot to fly the idiot back to base, and another hour of agonizing decontamination protocols before Roger was finally locked in the medbay.

How dare he!

She gnawed on her lower lip. Roger had only gone and made the most significant discovery since Darwin.

Her expression hardened. That imbecile had stolen her glory out of spite. She should have been on that shuttle with him. She might even have given him credit. Minor credit. A fetch-and-carry role. Shuttle pilot, perhaps.

She looked at the sensor data package, with its signature, his signature: RGRIFFITH-9182.

Picking up her martini glass, she hurled it against the wall. It shattered, the liquor dripping down.

She stalked up and down her quarters.

Now, how can I turn this to my advantage?

She turned back to her console, reached for the now shattered glass, and, finding it gone, took a swig from the gin bottle.

Watching Roger on the med bay monitors, she tapped the commlink. “Call Minion One.”

It replied, “Calling Doctor Roger Griffith.”

“Izzy! You have to get me out of here.” She saw Roger sit bolt upright on his cot. “I’ve been showered, disinfected, and injected with a whole battery of decontamination meds. If you could speak to them, get me clearance, then together we...”

“I’m going to stop you right there, Roger dear.” Isambelle took another swig of gin. “I’m afraid, my darling, that due to the seriousness of your potential contamination breach, I am going to have to concur with Doctor Albright, he is the base medic after all, and recommend that you spend twenty four hours in quarantine.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. I only need temporary access to your notes. I’ll type them up for you. It’s the least I can do.”

“Don’t you take this away from me, Izzy!” Roger was standing now, yelling into his commlink. “This is my discovery. My find.”

Isambelle smirked. “I’m only thinking of the safety of the outpost. Who knows what perfidious lichen you might have touched? It could contain some kind of...”

“Isambelle!”

“Rest up, Roger dear. I must go.”

“Isambelle! Don’t!”

“Toodlepip.” She tapped end call. Her commlink immediately lit up with him calling her back, and she twirled her finger over the console before hitting mute.

Isambelle sped through the results, hissing as she did so. Isotopic analysis of mineral accretions around the metal suggested it had been buried for over four hundred thousand years. It was older than humanity, and certainly older than humanity’s journey into space, which could only mean one thing.

Her hand found the bottle before the thought finished forming.

Alien life.

Her tablet computer vibrated as she built up a summary of the findings, eliminating those not worthy of her attention and consolidating the others. The base computer was supposed to do this for the scientists, but Isambelle didn’t trust it. It always missed something, some vital salient fact.

When her commlink chirped, she considered ignoring it, but it was the commander. He who pays the bills must be spared a moment of her precious time.

“Yes?”

“Professor, I need you to drop your investigation of the local flora...”

Done.

“...and focus on establishing if we can release Doctor Griffith from quarantine. He is your top priority.”

The hell he is.

Isambelle took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I am very busy here, you see...”

“You have your orders.” Then the commander signed off, leaving an aghast Isambelle staring at her commlink, fizzing with rage.

She messaged the commander. “Preliminary concern regarding Griffith’s exposed hand. Full contamination assessment required. Recommend quarantine for the full twenty four hours. Will advise if extension becomes necessary.”

That’s Roger dear locked up for now.

She followed it up with a second message. “I would like to advise the commander to prioritise the retrieval of the shuttle’s black box. It may have extra data that could be of use.”

Waiting to see if he replied, she stared at her wrist comm for a few seconds, then returned to her terminal. The second she looked away from the wrist comm, it chirped.

“Kowalski is to lead the glyph analysis. You are to focus on Roger first, then support Kowalski by researching historical ship movements that might be related.”

For a second, she forgot to breathe. Isambelle bit her tongue, glaring with hatred at the screen.

Historical ship movements?

The commander genuinely thinks that somehow human tech ended up buried in rock that hadn’t moved in four hundred thousand years?

She refused to reply to the message. She would rather the entire base died of disease than support Kowalski getting recognition for the greatest find in human history.

They didn’t know she had Roger’s records, and she had no intention of telling them that she had secured herself full admin access to the base computer a long time ago.

Although? Displacement technology, perhaps. Spatial transfer. Some kind of matter-phase event.

She continued to pore over the data before returning to the unknown symbols. There wasn’t enough commonality in the glyphs yet to establish a dictionary. She needed more.

Leaning back in her chair, she contemplated messaging Dot, encouraging her to retrieve the black box, but instead decided on a softer approach. She used the base computer to find her and accessed Dot’s wrist comm history.

Dot was dragging her heels, refusing to take the shuttle out to get the black box, instead going out on a utility vehicle. Wheeled!

It would be days until she returned.

Growling to herself, Isambelle pushed the gin to one side. She was getting through it too quickly and didn’t want to dull her intellect.

Time for a soft drink.

She retrieved a bottle of wine and filled herself a beaker. As she ran the glyphs she did have through her custom cryptography software, she analysed the rest of the results. The metal had heat signatures, but no EM signature of any discernible kind. Either there was no local power source, or it was heavily shielded.

She needed to go and visit it, excavate it fully. There wasn’t enough data. Somehow, she had to figure out why Commander Tolworth had come to the idiotic conclusion that she was the wrong person to head up the investigation and then correct him. Eventually, she was going to run out of hard data to process.

The translation software froze. She struck the side of the console with her palm.

TOUCH IT.

She blinked. The words vanished, the progress bar remaining at four percent.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Chapter Five

Doctor Roger Griffith

Roger sat on the bio-bed, seething. They were taking his discovery from him. It wasn’t enough that Isambelle had been lauded for her scientific achievements for decades. She had to rob him of the one major achievement he’d made in his career.

For the sixth time, he loaded up the chess app on his wrist comp. Then, after three moves, he closed it down.

He paced up and down the medical room. His mind kept yelling at him to get out, to take back his discovery, but he couldn’t see a way out. Roger pounded the wall with his fist.

“Roger?”

He took a breath and turned slowly to see the Kowalskis outside his door.

“Yes?”

They looked at each other and then, putting on expressions of false sympathy, leaned closer to the glass.

“We were so sorry,” Professor Mary Kowalski started.

“So very sorry,” Professor Ivan Kowalski reiterated.

“To hear that you had to be quarantined. Especially as your bio signs look so healthy.” Ivan frowned as he regarded the console by the door. “Well, apart from a slightly elevated temperature and heart rate.”

“That’s called stress, Ivan. It is what happens when your dearly beloved steals your life.” Roger stopped pacing and faced them with his arms crossed. “Actually, it’s anger, not stress. I am livid.”

“Spot of good news there.” Mary looked at Ivan for encouragement. “We have been put in charge of analysing your data by Commander Tolworth. Not Professor Isambelle.”

Roger snorted.

“The problem is, your data is encrypted and we don’t want to wait for Dot to drive back with the black box. That’ll take a couple of days.” They looked at Roger expectantly. “So it would be really useful if you could decrypt your data, please.”

Roger regarded them. “Right now, Isambelle will have decrypted the data and will be all over it.”

“No, she has actually been told not to,” Mary interrupted.

“Right, so as stated, she will have decrypted the data.” He stood up straight. “However, if you let me out, I’ll decrypt the data and we can co-author the paper, the three of us. It will have to note that I discovered the artefact first, though.”

“Roger, that isn’t how this works. You do have to help us. Commander Tolworth gave the order himself.”

Roger turned away from them.

“Roger, please, we can’t let you out,” Mary said. “You are in quarantine.”

He stood motionless, waiting. When they didn’t capitulate, he exhaled. “Fine.” Roger sounded deflated. “You win. Pass me your terminal and I’ll give you my access codes.”

Mary exhaled. “That’s more sensible. Thank you. We really appreciate this.”

She pulled on a surgical glove, unlocked the service hatch, and passed through the tablet.

Roger took it and added his user account to it. He held it out to the service hatch.

Mary reached through to grasp it. It was just out of reach, so she leaned forward.

As she gripped the tablet, Roger reached past the glove and gripped her exposed

wrist. “Promise me that you’ll share the credit.”

Mary cried out, “Roger, let go!”

Ivan hovered, powerless to do anything.

Roger released her. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. This should be the greatest moment of my career, but instead I’m stuck here.”

They both scowled at him.

“We understand. But Roger, lashing out won’t achieve anything.” Mary shook her head as Ivan sprayed her wrist with cleanser.

“As I said, I’m really sorry.” He stepped back from the door. “I hope this doesn’t change anything.”

“We’re professionals, aren’t we, Ivan?” Mary looked to her husband, who nodded. “We promise that you will get credit with us.”

As they left, Roger lay down on the bed, his forehead beading with sweat.

He smiled.

Chapter Six

Dot

Dot drove the utility vehicle across the frozen escarpment as the storm weakened to category one. Its wheels crunched across wind-scoured ice, its suspension shuddering whenever hidden ridges caught them beneath the snow. The HUD showed the most efficient, and safest path across the escarpment.

Every now and then the snow would stop falling and the dead, white landscape would open up in front of her.

Her commlink bleeped. “Dot.”

“Dot.” Commander Tolworth sounded stressed. “Command is breathing down my neck, Dot. I think you should come back and take the shuttle. The UES Hummingbird has been reprioritised and is heading to resupply us. We’ll have a new shuttle in under three days.”

“Negative, not unless there is risk of loss of life. If something happens to the second shuttle, then we are without aerial transport.”

“Well, that—“

Dot’s eyes narrowed. “Why is a military frigate this far out? We are nearly a hundred light years away from the closest colony.”

“I’m not privy to the Admiralty’s motives when it comes to fleet deployment and neither are you.” Tolworth paused. He sounded tired. “But, given the significance of the discovery, the faster we obtain the black box, the better.”

“I’m nine hours’ drive from the drop site. If I turn back, it’ll take me four hours.” She gritted her teeth. “No. It is my assessment that the security situation doesn’t warrant breaching protocol.”

“Your obsession with protocol is strangling the investigation. This is a scientific outpost, not a military installation.”

“False.” Dot ended the call.

She had seven messages on her wrist comp. She read the summaries of six of them, archiving them. However, she scrolled through Albright’s message. He was extending quarantine for Roger after noting a mild inflammatory response and a slight fever. She frowned. Infectious illness outbreaks were almost unheard of this far from civilisation.

Decades of military experience told her she was missing something.

She accessed the civilian transponder net, looking for the Hummingbird. It had been routinely pinging its location at Cygnus III until an hour ago, when it had gone dark. She ran a few calculations.

Either it was closer than reported, or it was red lining its engines to get to their location in time.

Why would a naval frigate burn fuel and engine life at full speed for a routine resupply?

And why would it turn off its transponder during peacetime? Fleet vessels didn’t disable their transponders without authorisation from Naval Intelligence.

Dot gunned the utility vehicle’s engines and coaxed extra speed out of it. The rear wheels fishtailed as the vehicle surged forward. She overrode the route planner and cut across less stable terrain. The onboard computer protested immediately, but she’d driven in far worse conditions.

Her grip tightened on the wheel.

Something’s very wrong.

Chapter Seven

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Needs more data.

Isambelle hummed as she took a stimulant. It had been twelve hours now, and she was furious at her lack of progress. They needed a full expedition to the target site. She’d exhausted the data from Roger’s miserable little field notes. As thorough as he’d been, he had still been limited by the tools he’d carried with him.

For all she knew, the glyphs were an alien serial number. Or graffiti. Though being physically engraved into the metal implied they meant something.

There were too many glyphs for a serial number and too few repetitions for a useful linguistic model.

Roger will be out soon.

She gnawed her lip in frustration, feeling the discovery slipping away from her.

Flicking one of her screens to the medbay, she saw Roger lying asleep. Checking his medical results, she saw he’d been sleeping for over ten hours now.

Isambelle couldn’t remember the last time she’d had eight hours’ sleep, let alone ten.

His temperature and blood pressure had lowered. In fact, his resting heart rate and blood pressure were better than they’d ever been recorded.

Her eyes narrowed.

This was not the behaviour of a man who was trying to steal Isambelle’s discovery. This was a man in the kind of harmonious peace that would fill a Buddhist monk with envy.

He knows something.

She left his camera on the screen while she returned to the glyphs. The gin bottle was left half drunk, abandoned, as she focused entirely on solving the problem in front of her.

TOUCH IT.

Isambelle’s eyebrow rose.

Where did that come from?

That was the second time she had seen or thought that phrase. Was someone messing with her?

She played back the recording of her display to check for subliminal messages, then ran the audio recording from her room through her computer to check for audio influences.

Nothing.

If it had been anyone else, she would have put it down to mental instability, or the subconscious. But Isambelle was the smartest woman alive. She growled. An outside influence was trying to manipulate her. Her.

Did Roger put something into her meds? She took a sample of each of her pharmaceutical cocktails and ran them through the sequencer.

Flawless.

She leaned back.

Her commlink chirped. It was Dot. She answered, “Yes?”

“Isambelle, I’ve retrieved the black box and am on my way back, but something has happened to the area here. The ice has melted away...”

“Show me!” Isambelle’s breath hitched.

There was a pause as she waited for the muscle-bound buffoon to operate her wrist comm and stream footage of the metal.

“That’s unlikely,” Isambelle hissed.

“It’s not unlikely. I am watching it now. There must be some sort of heat source that has been activated.”

Isambelle shook her head. “No, you boob. The glyphs. They have changed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t question me, you ox.” Isambelle feverishly forwarded the updated glyphs through her algorithms. “Those glyphs were engraved.”

“And?”

“Engraved things don’t rearrange themselves.”

“It could be a different section of metal.”

The metal looked wet for a moment. Then the glyphs shifted.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

The phrase multiplied across the exposed surface until every line said the same thing.

“Isambelle…”

“Yes, yes. I see it too.” Isambelle scratched her temple. “That’s mighty quick to learn our language.”

“Could it be responding to us?”

“Stop it. Just stop trying to contribute.” Isambelle tapped at her keyboard, then blew out her breath. “Maybe, if it is psychic, but it would be the first registered genuine case.”

Chapter Eight

Mary Kowalski

Mary scowled at the screen. The glyphs made no sense to her. “If we don’t translate these before Isambelle, she’ll never let us hear the end of it.” She rubbed at her forehead. It was burning hot.

Sweat dripped down into her eyes.

“Whatever bug Roger has, I must have picked it up at the same time.” She went over to the refrigeration unit and took out an antiviral shot. “I could use a break anyway.”

She pressed the autoinjector to her shoulder, flexing the stiffening tissue.

“Ivan?”

He lurched upright with a snort.

“Ivan! You fell asleep?”

Ivan had the decency to look sheepish. “I’m sorry, my love, we’ve been working on this for nearly fourteen hours now. My eyes are losing focus and I’m pretty sure I’m hearing voices.”

“Come on, my sweet, you’re just tired. Alien life, Ivan. Not moss. Not lichen. Not another tedious protein chain. Alien life. We can retire on this.“ She sighed. “If we don’t solve this, who knows how many other expeditions we’ll be allowed on before we are put out to pasture.”

Ivan came over and hugged her. “We have achieved so much in our lives. Don’t speak like that, my love.”

“Nothing like this though, Ivan. I guess I’m just feeling the pressure.” She gave him a wan smile, then kissed his cheek. “You feel hot too. Perhaps you should give yourself a shot?”

“I’ll make us a pot of tea. Everything feels better after tea.” Ivan put a flask of water onto a burner unit. “Then I’ll give myself a shot, we’ll solve the problem, and celebrate with a little vodka.”

Mary snorted. “When was the last time we drank vodka? You can keep the vodka to yourself. I’m happy with tea.” The break had clearly done her some good. As she looked at the glyphs, they started to make sense in her mind. “Ivan…”

“I see it, Mary.” He started scribbling on a notepad. “Does your translation match mine?”

“Yes, yes.” She wrote a summary of the translation to Commander Tolworth. “Oh, Ivan, Isambelle will be livid.” She chuckled. “Peer review?”

He held up his notepad and grinned at her. “Word for word. We’ve done it. We’ve translated it.”

She hit send as she rubbed at her temple. “I hate antiviral shots. Sometimes I think the side effects are worse than the virus.”

Ivan retrieved two mugs from the cupboard and made two mugs of tea, the long-life milk was an acceptable compromise compared to a trip to the canteen. “Here you are, my dear.” He handed her a painkiller, which she washed down with a glug of milky tea.

“I feel like I should go to Roger.” She stood up, cracking her back. “He is the person responsible for this after all. He needs to know.”

“They all do, dear.” Ivan smiled. “You should see Doctor Albright at the same time.” Ivan passed her a wrench. “While you do that, I’ll go to the command centre and see the Commander.”

“Thank you, darling. That is a great idea.” She passed him an autoinjector. “I’ll see you soon.”

---

Mary walked down the corridor, wiping the sweat from her forehead as she did. The colours seemed unusually bright, especially given the dismal nature of Outpost U-819.

The medical centre’s doors hissed open.

Doctor Albright was looking weary. They were all looking weary on the base.

“Mary, you arrive with flawless timing. I’ve just been looking at Roger’s results and they’re fascinating. I swear I hadn’t seen anything in his bloodwork until now, but look at—Mary?”

The wrench came down on the side of his head with a metallic clunk. He slumped down onto his desk.

Mary checked his pulse. It was weak but steady. “Now, where did you keep the utility tape, dear?”

She rummaged through the cabinets until finding it with a whoop.

Securing his wrists and ankles, she looked down at him, confirming that he was secure. Then, leaning in, she licked his face from his chin up to his eye.

Chapter Nine

Ivan Kowalski

The corridor was especially vibrant today. Ivan winced at the bright lights as he walked, with a spring in his step, towards the command centre. His shirt clung damply to his back.

He nodded along to the music in his head. He couldn’t recognise the song, but it had a lilting rhythm that reminded him a little bit of Mozart.

The doors hissed open.

Commander Tolworth stood over the main console, the outpost map glowing behind him. Dot’s vehicle was parked by the artefact. Above it, the UES Hummingbird’s projected arrival time was counting down.

“What’s the meaning of this drivel, Ivan?” Commander Tolworth pointed at one of the terminals. Ivan came over and peered at his screen.

“Ah, the translation. We’ve finished it.”

“Finished it?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, sir.” He smiled. “Which part has you confused?”

Tolworth’s face darkened. “Don’t take that tone with me.” He pointed at the screen. The translation window was filled with the same two words, repeated line after line.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

He stabbed Ivan in the chest with his finger. “I gave this to you because you were supposed to be the sensible option. Isambelle would have killed for access, and you send me this?”

Ivan reached up to cup Tolworth’s cheek with his sweaty palm before being shoved back.

“What is wrong with you?” Tolworth smeared the sweat from his face onto the cuffs of his naval issue blazer. Moving to the side of the command centre, he pumped antibacterial gel and tried to clean his face.

“You don’t look well. I am ordering you to sickbay for a full physical and psych eval.”

Ivan looked concerned. “Well, I can’t do that, I’m afraid, sir. I’m far too busy.”

“Yes, well, we’ll see about that.” Tolworth took Ivan by the arm and escorted him towards the exit.

Ivan’s free hand pressed the autoinjector against Tolworth’s sleeve. Mary’s little gift hissed through the fabric.

Tolworth grunted and looked down before slumping onto his knees. He tapped his wrist comp and started to slur before Ivan tapped end call.

“No, no. Don’t be silly now. You need more time, but hopefully not too much.” He patted Tolworth on the head as he collapsed. Tolworth’s hand made it halfway to his pulse pistol before his face hit the carpeted floor and he passed out.

Ivan picked up the pistol. “We have so much to do and so little time.”

Chapter Ten

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Isambelle watched the security feed in silence as Mary’s tongue dragged up Dr Albright’s face. The tension made her forget to blink.

“You kinky trollop.” Her voice was subdued. “Dot, you need to get back here.”

“I’m driving as fast as I can.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, you gigantic pill.” Isambelle’s heart beat rapidly in her chest. “But Mary has lost it and assaulted Dr Albright.” She clicked a few buttons, then saw the medical bay.

The bio-bed was empty.

“And Dot. Roger’s gone.”

Before she could forward the video to Dot, her lab door sealed and the base went into lockdown.

That’s great, Dot. Trap me in a building full of infected people.

Isambelle grabbed the gin and was disgusted to find there were only a few gulps left. She threw the useless bottle at the wall to join the fate of her martini glass.

Dot’s voice boomed over the station speakers. “Outpost U-819 has been sealed due to an ongoing security situation. All employees are instructed to remain where they are until otherwise authorised.”

Isambelle saw an incoming call from Dot. “Download all the medical data you can from the server. I have attempted to send a message to the UES Hummingbird, but they are unresponsive.” Dot ended the call before Isambelle could respond.

And I’m the rude one…

Rewinding the footage of the medbay, she watched Roger being half carried out by Mary. His face mottled with black veins.

He’d been infected. It had to be the metallic object.

Isambelle reopened the channel while she decrypted and downloaded Roger’s medical files. “You didn’t touch the metal artefact, did you?”

“I’m not an idiot, Isambelle.”

She laughed, the nervous tension exaggerating it. “Ah, thank you, Dot. I think we both needed that. That was healing.” She ran through the latest scans. “This isn’t good. The microfractures in Roger’s ribs showed early osteogenic activity.” She paused. “That means he’s healing faster than expected. So why did he need help walking out? And why didn’t the sensors pick up on the bloodwork before? It’s behaving like a fungal infection. Roger’s bloodwork showed hyphal structures threaded through the plasma.”

When Mary had entered the room, she’d been scanned by the medbay computers. Isambelle smirked as she checked the readings. “Well, it’s not all bad news. Mary is infected as well. I dare say we’ll find her dear husband infected too.”

“Can you cure them?” Dot ignored Isambelle’s snide remarks.

“Cure them? Roger was treated with the most potent antifungal medicine known to man. I…” She browsed through the lichen data in her organics library. The native lichen had survived beside the buried metal for centuries. If anything on Rokus IV had adapted to suppress the organism, it would be there. Perhaps both the cause and the solution to her problems were on this ice ball of a world. “Roger? No. Not if these neurological markers are accurate.”

Isambelle checked Mary’s scan. “Mary neither. I might be able to flush any recently infected patients, or prevent infection for a limited period. I have some ideas.”

“Do it. I’m heading back to...” The communication cut off.

“What? Are whole sentences beyond you?” Isambelle looked at her commlink. Its connection had been severed.

She was alone.

Turning to the security monitors, she ran a search until she found Ivan Kowalski locked in the command centre. Commander Tolworth was slumped in his chair. The comms array console had been opened and stripped, cable bundles exposed and hanging from it.

Isambelle was running low on allies. The engineers, Ginger Joe and Kim, were secured in their apartments. They were safe for now, at least.

She went back to reviewing the command centre. Ivan was now dragging Tolworth towards the botanical library.

Temperature and humidity controlled. A perfect breeding ground for fungal organisms.

And where she needed to go.

Isambelle looked over at the door. It was sealed by the security lockdown, but she would be able to override it.

A stab of fear ran through her gut.

Perhaps she should hide out until Dot arrived at the base. Then together they could retrieve the lichen samples and Isambelle could manufacture a cure, or at least an antifungal agent to prevent infection.

No. If the Kowalskis were loose in the base, it wouldn’t be hard for them to find weapons, or tools to get through the door, and Dot was hours away.

Ivan was already dragging Tolworth into the botanical library. If she waited, the samples would be contaminated, destroyed, or worse, used.

She looked around for any weapons.

Then, looking at her equipment cabinet, she smiled.

She would have to make some.

---

There were two things that Isambelle hated. Bio suits and physical exercise. So, lurching through the base corridors while trying to avoid homicidal colleagues, she was having a decidedly unpleasant time.

It wasn’t far to the botanical library, but the twisted corridors and the confines of her suit inhibited her visibility and hearing.

Worse, by opening her quarters, she had broken the seal and exposed the room to the base air. If the infection was airborne, it meant her personal sanctuary was now compromised.

Her wrist comp had a list of the prospective lichen samples that she had previously mapped out as having antifungal properties. She’d intended to sell them on when her tenure had ended, but now had a more immediate need for them.

She lurched to a stop in front of the botanical library.

Standing in front of the door was Mary. Thick black veins spread across her exposed face and hands, and she held a wrench in one hand.

“Ah, Mary. Don’t suppose you fancy letting me by?”

“Take off the helmet, Professor.”

Isambelle reached for her belt. “Oh no, that doesn’t work for me.”

Her head was clear. No rogue compulsions or intrusive commands.

Gin, stimulants, pain suppressants. One of the cheekies in her bloodstream was meddling with the signal.

Isambelle started to smile, then stopped as she realised that Mary had continued to approach her. She leapt back to avoid the descending wrench. Mary overbalanced as it struck the wall where Isambelle’s head had been, denting the panel.

Her hand snapped out with a scalpel, the blade sinking deep into Mary’s throat. Isambelle pulled it free and stepped back with a wolfish grin.

“Can’t say I didn’t enjoy that.”

The grin faded as the slit in Mary’s throat puckered, black threads knitting through the blood. Mary’s free hand clamped around Isambelle’s forearm. The suit hardened under the pressure.

The hell!

Panicking, she pulled one of her improvised flasks of industrial tissue solvent from her belt, unstopped it, and hurled the contents at Mary. “In your face!”

Mary staggered, her flesh blistering and sloughing away, exposing the bone beneath. Her eyes collapsed into steaming fluid. One hand still searched silently for Isambelle’s helmet.

‘SEAL INTEGRITY: 91%’ flashed across Isambelle’s visor as vapour licked over the suit seals.

Isambelle shoved past Mary, pausing to give her a swift kick in the gut, then, feeling significantly better, ran into the main botanical library, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Warm mist rolled between the specimen racks. Glass cylinders glowed green and amber in the light. Condensation crawled down the glass like sweat. Consulting the list on her wrist comp, she quickly found the first two samples she had an interest in before grinding to a halt, her eyes widening at the sight of Roger.

Roger lay in the centre of the specimen racks, naked, black veins branching across his ribs. Fine white filaments stitched him to the floor grating. A vibrantly coloured fungal bloom had erupted from his chest and covered half of his body. His face was peaceful. Infuriatingly peaceful. She had never seen him look so content. In a way, it was almost smug.

TOUCH IT.

Her gloved hand twitched towards Roger.

Not that again.

She reached to her wrist comp, triggering her suit’s medical system, and chose one of her favourite medical pick me ups. The stimulant hit like a white flare behind her eyes. For half a second, the room fractured into colour. Then the voice vanished. Her suit warned her that her blood pressure had entered the red zone. She needed a better way to inhibit the voice.

Is Dot hearing it too? Or was distance enough?

Her gaze lingered on Roger for a while longer. He didn’t deserve this.

She clicked her tongue, shaking her head with regret, then headed back to the racks to find the remaining samples.

As she hurried to the room’s only exit, she found Dr Albright and Commander Tolworth. They stood patiently, their bodies obstructing her departure. Mary stood between them. Her blistered face had no eyes now, only fungal orbs raised on white stalks.

“Take off the helmet, Professor,” they said in unison.

“Only one more and you can be a barbershop quartet,” she squeaked. She hated that she squeaked.

Arms full of samples and outnumbered, Isambelle once again regretted not swapping places with that overmuscled protocol fetishist, Dot.

---

Isambelle stood watching them. They glowered back at her. After about two minutes, they repeated their order for her to remove her helmet.

They are waiting it out. Waiting for the drugs to wear off.

She checked her heart rate on her wrist comp. It would have been high enough with all the running, fighting and sassing, but the stimulants were raising it even higher.

New plan.

Marching to the botanical library console, she smirked. She reduced the humidity to zero and increased the heat to maximum.

She heard movement. Turning, she saw the infected station crew lumbering towards her, their earlier coordination lost. Roger was no longer still. His body fused to the plating. One leg was no longer recognisably a leg, only a rootlike column fused into the grating. He was limited to flailing his arms.

Isambelle approached them. They looked like drunkards leaving a cheap pub, their arms outstretched towards her, a silent scream in their mouths. The fungal growths seemed to darken. When they got closer, Isambelle sprinted at them. Dodging to one side, she used the racks to her advantage and slipped down the side before emerging by the exit.

I’m free! Suck on that, darlings!

She reached the four-way junction outside the botanical library, the precious samples held tight awkwardly in her arms. Heat flashed across her thigh. For one awful second, she smelled cooked polymer inside the helmet. She stumbled, almost dropping her cargo, before correcting her gait. She risked a look to see Ivan stood at the far junction, calmly holstering Tolworth’s pulse pistol.

“You fetid whelk!” She puffed, sliding round the corner of the corridor, then kept running, until she collapsed, leaning on a wall and breathing heavily. Decades of desk work had left her utterly unsuited to desperate escapes.

She continued running until she was back in her lab, locking the door behind her.

It was as she panted that she saw the flashing alert in her helmet visor.

‘SEAL INTEGRITY: 0%’

The pulse had burned through the outer seal, she felt base air whispered across her exposed skin.

Swiping her arm across her desk she sent glass instruments crashing to the floor. “No! Not me, not me!“ She glared at the empty surface of the desk, rage blotting out her ability to think.

Isambelle was infected.

Chapter Eleven

Dot

The base was quiet as Dot approached in the utility vehicle. She felt wired, as combat drugs flooded her system. Every sensation felt sharper, her jaw was clenched tight and she could feel the old rage building up within her.

It had been eight hours since she’d last communicated with anyone. Parking outside the closest entrance to Isambelle’s lab, the vehicle crunched to a halt on the icy, snow strewn rock. The exterior lights were powered down, and the automatic doors remained closed. She checked the security feed. Most of the internal cameras were down. The few that remained showed only fogged lenses and streaks of condensation. Visually, she couldn’t spot movement behind the exterior glass but the condensation running down inside of the glass made it hard to see.

Isambelle’s last message replayed in her mind.

‘Listen closely, meathead. I’ve rerouted comms to send this message, but it’s impossible to know how long I’ll be able to communicate. As far as I’m aware, everyone in the base is infected by now. Including me.’

Dot opened the armoury rack.

‘The infected rapidly become hosts to some kind of fungal organism. It controls both the body and mind. They will try to infect you by physical force or via some kind of neurological or psionic compulsion. I’m not labelling it until I have had time to research it more thoroughly.’

She took the combat shotgun first. She had replaced the crowd-suppression rounds with her own supply of tungsten shot shells. Her pulse pistol was holstered at her hip. Three stun grenades on her belt. The utility axe across her back had been with her since the academy.

‘I don’t yet know how it works, but I’ve been able to block it with some of my chemical darlings. Your best hope is to flood your system with maximum dose pain suppressors and those combat drugs you claim are for amateurs and people who skip leg day.’

Dot pumped the shotgun, loading the first shell into the chamber.

‘I think I have a suppressive agent, but it’ll take time to synthesise. I’ll need longer for an actual cure. My suit was compromised, so I’ve placed my sweet, sweet body into an emergency preservation pod until the agent is ready. You’ll need to get into my laboratory and wake me when you get back.’

Of course she’d got herself infected.

‘The pod will respond only to your security override. Do not open it unless the synthesis cycle reads complete. The second it opens, the organism will continue spreading through my system. It must not, under any circumstances, reach my superior brain.’

External communications were still down, and the Hummingbird still hadn’t responded to her previous attempts to contact it. She was having to rely on a civilian, a civilian to help her.

Dot snarled, raised her shotgun, then used her security override on the airlock. She activated her night vision and stepped into darkness.

---

The cramped corridors were warm, the rockcrete walls dripping with condensation from the humidity. Dot wished she had her old Legionnaire battle armour from the marines. Her suit was working overtime to keep her visor clear. The lights flickered. Someone was redirecting the base’s power.

Turning the corner, she ducked back as a pulse pistol blast exploded past where her head had been.

Missed.

She growled. Reaching down to her belt, she pulled out a stun grenade and tossed it down the corridor. It blew. The blast hammered the corridor. Even shielded by her suit, Dot’s ears rang.

She stepped out and fired.

The first shell removed most of Ivan’s torso. The second took his head. Next to him, Ginger Joe and Kim, the maintenance engineers, were working on the door, the plasma torch almost completely through the containment seals.

Good. They haven’t got to Isambelle yet.

Kim reached for Ivan’s pistol.

Dot’s shotgun boomed again, this time relying on a single headshot. As Kim collapsed, Ginger Joe put down the plasma torch and mindlessly reached for the pistol, joining his wife in her fate.

That’s new.

Ivan’s body was stitching itself together, black strands of fibrous material moving to replace the destroyed tissue, a giant round fungal bloom replacing his head.

Grimacing, Dot pulled her axe clear. She rubbed her thumb down the scratched and worn metal shaft before dismembering the bodies and throwing the limbs as far away from each other as she could in the cramped confines.

The door was ruined. Even with a security override, there was no way in without completing the engineers’ work with the plasma torch. Reloading her shotgun, she put it within easy reach. She picked up Ivan’s pulse pistol and attached it to her belt. Behind her, wet fibres clicked against the floor. She looked back warily as tissue started to grow from the separated limbs, then got to work. The searing scent of molten metal and medical-grade sealant stung her nose as she burnt through the final seal.

---

With the seals broken and a large rectangular hole cut through the door’s thick body, Dot kicked the centre and watched the heavy metal crash onto a workbench. She reached down, threw it to one side, and clambered through the small hole, her visor flaring warning signs as the hot edges threatened to damage her suit. The hole had been designed for a scrawny civilian, not the massive form of Dot. She cracked her back as she made her way through, looking back to see that the body parts of Ginger Joe, Kim, and Ivan had formed a giant black web of material, which was now contracting towards itself.

No head.

Dot ground her teeth. What she wouldn’t give for a thermal grenade.

Grabbing the ruined door, she leant it against the hole as a partial barricade, then, with a grunt, pushed over one of Isambelle’s workbenches to hold it in place. It wouldn’t hold for long, but would at least stop anything creeping in.

Dot looked around the laboratory for the synthesiser. It was whirring, and a series of vials had been filled. As she watched, another one clicked into the rack. Three racks were full. Two chambers were still cycling. The display showed compound chains, temperature curves, but no percentage progress bar.

She tapped her armoured boot against the floor. It was clearly still doing something, but how would she know if it had completed one or more of the suppressive agents?

Dammit Isambelle, leave a note telling me what completed looks like.

The workbench scraped behind her. There was a thump, followed by a gigantic crash as if something had smashed against it.

Hissing, she made a judgement call and tapped her security code into the preservation pod. There was a loud hum, then the lid opened, and Isambelle reached up to remove the tube from her throat. She started coughing as her throat cleared. She stumbled out, blinking in the low illumination from the emergency lights.

“Gargh,” she said in greeting to Dot, then reached out to the table next to her and grabbed a bottle, taking a long pull from it, her throat convulsing as the liquid poured straight down. Then she took a small autoinjector with six needles and pressed it down on her neck. It emptied itself into her spine, and she cooed with pleasure.

“Is that hex?” Dot picked up the spent device.

Isambelle rubbed her neck. “Sure, excellent plan. Arrest me. I had to do something, the voice in my head was deafening.”

Dot scowled at her. “We have at least three hostiles outside. I’ve destroyed their heads and dismembered them, but they don’t seem to be dying. They seem to be changing into something else.”

“I should have stayed asleep.” Isambelle went over to the synthesiser, removed several vials, and loaded them into autoinjectors. She injected herself with two of them, then handed the first vial to Dot, who looking at the barricade, hastily clicked the first one into her suit’s medical bracer. A sense of euphoria rose within her, and she resisted the urge to smile.

“That’ll suppress the infection?”

Isambelle shook her head, handing over the second one. “No. This one will.”

“So, what was in the first vial?”

“Hmmm? Oh, that was to stop you being grumpy.”

Dot reached out and grabbed Isambelle by the throat.

“Gawk.”

Dot tightened her grip.

Isambelle slapped at her wrist until Dot released her.

“Never drug me without my consent again.”

Isambelle rubbed at her bruised throat. “What I was trying to say before you rudely assaulted me was that it will also block the entity’s compulsions.” She looked up and down the furious giant. “Looks like you need a stronger dose.”

“Suppressant?” Dot grumbled, as Isambelle handed her the second vial.

Isambelle nodded.

Dot released it into her system, then spun with her shotgun raised as the workbench was smashed back into the room, she glanced at the ammunition display, eight shells left.

Chapter Twelve

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Isambelle peered into the corridor.

“Merge with us. Gain hundreds of millennia of knowledge.” Ivan’s head was raised on a stalk and wavering.

Isambelle shuddered. Fear ran down her spine. “Merge with you?“ She went to her cabinet and began pulling out components. “Why would I water down my genius with your stupidity?”

She held up a fat, ugly cylinder made from solvent canisters, magnesium ribbon, and tape. “Open the door, meathead.”

“Is that a fuse?” Swearing, Dot pulled aside the barricade.

“Yes.”

“Is it reliable?”

Isambelle lit the fuse and then hurled her creation down the corridor. “I refuse to justify that with an answer.”

Dot pushed the barricade back into place as the corridor turned white, a ferocious heat exploding from the corridor. In the back of their minds, even through the chemical haze blocking the compulsion, they heard a muted scream. “I was just thinking, a thermite grenade would do the job.”

“Claiming credit for my invention? Unbelievable.” Isambelle frantically worked on her bench. “Besides, that wasn’t a weapon. Weapons are for idiots. That was a grossly irresponsible sterilisation event.”

Lifting the barricade slightly, Dot peered into the corridor. “It’s burning out.”

“Good. By the way, you’re welcome.” Isambelle smirked at Dot.

“What?”

“Violence is supposed to be your job.”

Dot’s jaw tightened.

Isambelle moved the remaining incendiaries closer to the door. “We just have to hold out until the Hummingbird arrives. Then we can escape this ghastly place.”

Dot snorted.

“What? You don’t think you can hold off the remaining crew? I made you sterilisation devices.”

“The Hummingbird isn’t coming to save us.”

Isambelle froze.

“I said…”

“My ears work perfectly well, you wart. I am just trying to understand why exactly you think we are being abandoned.”

Dot took up position and watched down the corridor. “Standard quarantine breach protocol. Retrieve a sealed sample. Burn the site. No survivors. I’ve run extraction missions before.”

Isambelle’s heart pounded. “They want to steal my discovery?”

Dot turned to look her in the eye. “Focus on the fact that they are going to glass the site with us in it.”

“Steal my discovery!” Isambelle shook with rage. “Mine!”

“If we get to the shuttle, we might be able to escape, break line of sight behind the planet, hide in a valley, but…”

“I’ll rig the fusion reactor.” Isambelle began clawing at the barricade. “If I can’t have the credit, then I’ll make sure that nobody does.”

Dot gripped it and pulled it to one side. “You can do that? I thought the whole point of fusion reactors was that they couldn’t blow up?”

“I can make anything blow up. That’s why I’m a professor.” Isambelle grabbed one of the incendiary devices and passed a rack of the suppressant to Dot, before stomping through the ashes of the three infected crew.

“Wait. Slow down. I’ll take point.” Dot jogged past her. “This is a hostile environment.”

“Go get ’em, thug.” Isambelle followed behind her. “Lead us to the generator room. I can do it from there.”

Thin black strands stretched along the corridor walls, like mycelial webs.

“That’s too much mass to be fed by just a few infected bodies. They’ve found a new food source,” Isambelle puffed, keeping up with Dot as she checked her corners and led them at pace through the small compound.

“Wait.” Isambelle pointed down the corridor. “The threads are leading down there.”

“So? The objective is just down here.”

“That’s the primary biomass source.” Isambelle started running down towards the canteen. “I want to see it.”

Dot grabbed her. “No, you don’t.”

“It’s Mr Chef, I know it! He’s been infected.”

“Who cares? Stick to the objective.”

Isambelle elbowed Dot, bruising her elbow for no perceived effect. “The strands are converging there. If that’s their biomass source, burning it will hurt it bad.” She paused. “Also, I need to bomb that smug little machine.”

“So now it’s a bomb.” Dot released Isambelle, who brushed herself down. “Fine, but I take point.”

“Bombs are justified when dealing with judgemental computers.” Isambelle gestured for Dot to overtake. “By all means.”

---

The canteen was home to a huge, pulsing organism. Fungal ropes had climbed into the feed hoppers, pumping slurry through the chef unit’s cracked mouth. The air smelled of yeast and rotten flesh. Even through the chemical haze that fogged her mind, Isambelle heard the voice.

TOUCH IT.

Condensation dripped from the ceiling. The animated chef was still smiling despite a cracked display. Its voice sounded distorted. Moisture had got into the speakers. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

“Oh, chew on this.” Isambelle threw her device. The suit’s stiff shoulder joint ruined her aim. It skidded a few metres across the floor and stopped near the entrance, fuse spitting.

Dot ran forward, scooped it up, and threw it into the centre of the throbbing mass. “Leave the weapons to me, Professor.”

“Sterilisation devices,” Isambelle snapped, as Dot grabbed her, half carrying her as they sprinted out of the canteen and round the corner. There was a loud ‘whump’ sound, and Isambelle rubbed her temple as a shriek cut through the drugs. She tapped on her wrist comp, releasing a stimulant. Her heart rate increased, sweat breaking out across her skin, and not because of the flaming inferno behind her.

“We need to move faster.” Dot grabbed her by the shoulder and drove her towards the generator room.

Chapter Thirteen

Professor Isambelle Hawke

The generator room was no longer the industrial heart of the base. Tendrils were weaving in and out of the panels. Mary’s head was mounted on the console.

Isambelle ran to it, batting the head off the panel. “Didn’t I murder you already?”

Mary’s head lay inert until the threads worming across the floor found her skull. “Join us and become eternal.”

Dot stamped on the head. It crumpled under her boot as she took up a position next to Isambelle. “How long do you need?”

Something moved in the steam behind the coolant tanks.

“A few minutes. You can speed up the process by clearing away the threads connecting to the console. They are trying to stop me.” Isambelle was typing furiously. “I can’t just force a meltdown, or it’ll aerosolise the infection. It must be a controlled explosion.”

A crack sounded, and Dot fell against the console. She grunted, then her shotgun boomed.

“Wonderful. More pressure.” Isambelle refused to be distracted as the sounds of combat erupted behind her. Her wrist comp flashed, showing her heart rate as being in the red zone.

“Professor…” Dot said warily. The sounds of shotgun fire ended, replaced by the snap hiss of pulse pistol fire.

“I know, I know.” Isambelle continued working as the emergency lights triggered and the sirens sounded. “I did it! Now, sever the—“

Dot was on the floor. Blood spilled from two burned holes in her side. Her pistol wavered as it aimed at the entrance, where three bodies were slowly rebuilding themselves. Isambelle triggered the medical suite on Dot’s suit. The holes sealed, Isambelle hissed at the sight of the spilled blood. Dot’s pistol fell to the floor.

“You idiot. You’ve got yourself killed.” She looked up at the red lights and sirens. “And we have less than five minutes to get out of the blast zone.”

“Not dead yet,” Dot grunted.

---

She dragged a maintenance trolley over with one hand and hooked both arms under Dot’s shoulders. “Argh, you fat cow.”

“I still have a gun.” Dot’s eyes remained closed as she murmured.

Isambelle strained to lift the musclebound security chief, cursing as she levered her onto a trolley.

“She lives!”

Dot slid back into unconsciousness.

“Not for much longer, though.” Isambelle gave a worried glance at the corpses knitting back together, then back to Dot, sprawled over the trolley bed. She took the last incendiary, grabbed the handle, pushed the trolley over the bodies, then tossed the incendiary behind her and set off at a jog.

She was thrown forward by the blast. Gripping the rail, she steadied herself and then continued jogging towards the shuttle. Her vision blurred as a deadly combination of drugs and exercise wreaked havoc on her body.

Isambelle pushed herself harder as the hangar bay loomed in front of her.

I’m never doing cardio again.

Over the base speakers, she heard Roger’s voice. He sounded peaceful, serene. “Stay with us, Izzy. We offer happiness. We offer recognition.”

Isambelle pushed the trolley up the ramp to the shuttle. “Go suck on vacuum, Roger dear,” she yelled into the air.

Then she hammered at the open hatch button.

QUARANTINE LOCKOUT: LAUNCH DENIED.

“Of course it is.” She dragged Dot’s limp wrist over the console and pressed her security seal to the reader. “Don’t mind me.” The ramp slowly descended and hit the ground with a clunk.

With a last effort, she pushed Dot into the back of the Mule.

Running to the cockpit, she set up the autopilot to take them to the far side of the planet. Weather warning icons flashed at her, but she overrode the complaints and sped through the setup.

As the shuttle flew into the air, she returned to see what she could do with Dot’s injuries.

“Don’t die.” Dot’s face was pale as Isambelle sealed the burns. “I need someone to fetch and carry.”

The shuttle lurched.

Behind them, Outpost U-819 became a second sun.

Chapter Fourteen

Professor Isambelle Hawke

The shuttle dropped behind the curve of Rokus IV on autopilot.

Dot lay strapped into the rear crash couch, pale beneath the smear of blood drying across her jaw. Her suit had sealed the wounds, but the medical display was a mess of blood loss warnings, cardiac stress alerts, and internal trauma estimates.

“If you see the light, try to avoid walking towards it.” Isambelle had the shuttle’s medical kit out and was administering plasma. “I’ve had a very trying day, and I won’t let you ruin it.”

Dot did not answer.

The Mule skimmed low over a frozen valley, its engines whining as the autopilot fought the crosswinds. Behind them, where Outpost U-819 had been, the horizon glowed orange white. The explosion had punched a false dawn into the storm.

The console chirped.

ACTIVE SENSOR SWEEP DETECTED.

Isambelle froze.

“Oh, wonderful.”

Above the planet, the UES Hummingbird had arrived.

The frigate slid across the tactical display as a pale blue icon, vast, elegant, and murderous. It came in cold, running dark until the last possible moment.

Dot had been right.

That was becoming an irritating habit.

The Hummingbird passed over the remains of the outpost. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Isambelle leaned forward, watching the sensor feed, her fingers hovering uselessly over the controls.

Then the sky opened and mass driver rounds rained from orbit.

The first strike hit the crater where the outpost had been. The second obliterated the ridge where the relic waited. The rock vapourised, and ice flashed into steam. Fire rolled across the dead landscape as missiles continued to tear into the artefact site.

The Mule bucked as the shockwave caught them.

Isambelle grabbed the edge of the console, swore, and overrode the autopilot before it could climb.

“No, no, no. Stay low, you stupid little box.”

More strikes fell behind them. Every trace of the artefact. The organism. Every trace of Roger, Mary, Ivan, Albright, Tolworth, Ginger Joe, Kim, and whatever else had been born inside those walls.

Every trace of Isambelle’s greatest discovery.

She felt a sharp, irrational pang of grief.

Then rage burned it away.

A priority broadcast cut across every open channel.

The screen lit with the seal of United Earth Security Command.

A woman in naval dress uniform appeared, her face smooth, composed, and professionally sorrowful. Behind her hung the blue and white banner of United Earth.

“Citizens of United Earth, we interrupt all colonial bands for an urgent security announcement.”

Isambelle stared.

“At 04:17 colony time, Outpost U-819 on Rokus IV was destroyed in an act of treasonous sabotage. Preliminary investigation confirms that former Royal Marine Sergeant Dorothy Black, acting in concert with disgraced corporate scientist Professor Isambelle Hawke, sabotaged the outpost’s fusion core following the deaths of senior scientific and command personnel.”

Dot’s eyes flickered.

Isambelle turned slowly towards her. “Did you hear that? They called me disgraced.”

Dot’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

“They put their statement together fast. Too fast. They prepared it in advance.”

Isambelle stopped talking and listened.

“Recovered transmission fragments suggest Black and Hawke intended to sell restricted biological material to hostile corporate interests.”

Isambelle’s breathing slowed.

“I mean, obviously, I was going to sell it.”

Dot, barely conscious, muttered, “You are the worst.”

On the screen, the officer lowered her gaze with practised solemnity.

“We mourn the innocent lives lost at Outpost U-819. The brave civilian staff stationed on Rokus IV died in service to humanity’s frontier.”

Isambelle smirked. “Innocent?”

The broadcast shifted. Two images appeared beside the officer.

Dot’s service portrait and Isambelle’s academic record photo.

“Both suspects are presumed dead in the fusion core detonation. United Earth Security Command nevertheless asks citizens to report any sightings, communications, or associated materials.”

Her suit hit her with another stimulant. Dot’s eyes opened properly this time.

Isambelle glanced back at the orbital display. The Hummingbird had begun a widening bombardment pattern. It was burning the surrounding valley, the crash site, the caves, and the artefact.

Her artefact.

“Can you fly?” Dot asked.

“How hard can it be?” Isambelle snapped. “But the shuttle thinks it can, so I don’t need to.”

“Land in the valley network. They’ll be deploying a shell of sensor drones in orbit, with the Hummingbird on high alert. If they find us, they’ll destroy us.”

“Yes, thank you, Captain Corpse. I had deduced that being shot by a warship would be inconvenient.”

Isambelle’s thigh burned under the sealed patch, and she injected another dose of the suppressant.

I need a proper lab to make a full cure.

The shuttle plunged into a thermal canyon. Steam boiled across the glass.

Dot exhaled and slipped back into unconsciousness.

The shuttle landed with a thud.

For the first time in years, Isambelle had no institution, no title, no laboratory, and no career.

What she did have was one wounded marine, three vials of suppressant, and a battered shuttle.

“Right.” Her eyes narrowed. “First, I make a cure, then we utterly ruin them.”

THE END

---

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, as Kindle Unlimited, eBook, Paperback or Hardback.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss—and linger in the mind long after.

FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1-4 are intended for mature audiences.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

Visit my website