Jupiter's Halo Book One: The Lies

Chapter Twenty "The Second Step"

Lelo came out into the main corridor behind the first of his marines to breach the loading bay doors. It was dark, just as the bay had been, but he could see sporadic flashes of light further along to their left. Indicators in his visor flashed to show the rise in temperature. It was still cold, but his armour’s sensors registered the survivable atmosphere in contrast to the frozen exposure that had been the open bay.

One hundred metres to his right along the passage, Lanad and her squads emerged at the same time. The marines took up firing positions, covering the long curve that lay to either side of them.

Lelo had the station schematic loaded in his comm-link and over-laid with flashing icons to denote the First Company forces. He knew his orders; sweep the main section levels and head to the bridge, returning any survivors they found along the way to the loading bay to await evac by Peregrine.

The station was quiet. Not silent. Silence was something Lelo was used to. The silence of the void with its complete absence of sound. This wasn't the same.

There was a low susurration of background noise. His sensors picked up the sounds, delivering them to his protected ears; the occasional drip, drip from an unknown source, the spitting of sparks from open electrical conduits and in the distance, a dull, continuous thudding as if someone was knocking rhythmically against a metal door.

He was about to order his marines up into the second and first levels when a comm-link stopped him.

>“Timonny, look at the walls.” It was Lanad, no one else would dare to drop his rank.

Lelo turned around, giving the nearest walls a cursory glance. There was nothing remarkable about them, just some staining, probably condensation formed by their proximity to the previous vacuum of the loading bay.

>“Drop your night vision and look with your light.”

He glanced up the corridor to see a number of Lanad’s marines playing their visor torches over the walls. He gave a sigh, careful to keep his exasperation from the comm-link and flicked on his light. For a moment his vision was nothing but a blinding flash of green, then he cycled from night vision and the patches he’d seen before were thrown into perspective.

Blood.

It was sprayed everywhere. Faded to reddish-brown as it dried, but unmistakable. Lelo moved his light further along the passageway and back. It was on every wall; here a smudge as if a body had been pressed against it, there a spray of lines and dots. Directly in front of him the wall was painted red and as he looked down he saw the floor was sticky where the pools had dried.

Lelo looked back to where the station’s lights flickered on and off and felt the cold tingle of hairs rising on his neck. Suddenly the gentle curve of the corridor had taken on a much darker visage. Thirty metres to his left the bend became too steep for him to see around and his imagination began to fill the unseen passage with faceless terrors.

>“Where are the bodies?” Came another comm from Lanad.

Lelo looked around again. There was blood and lots of it, but nothing else. There was no sign of weapons fire, no damage to the station behind its grisly new decoration and no sign of the bodies that had repainted it.

>“I don’t know, Captain.” He returned, feeling foolish at his lack of a real answer.

>“Continue as planned,”she directed him. >“Full sweep of primary levels and bridge. And find out where that knocking is coming from.”She added. >“Maybe there are survivors trapped somewhere.”“We’ll head directly for the substation and try to bring the power back on-line.”Lanad added. >“For Luna.”

>“For Luna.” Lelo echoed back to her as he saw her squads form up and head away into the darkness.

Lelo returned his attention to the station schematic, switching his visor back to night vision to remove the disturbing sights all around him. He shuddered. This was not what he had expected to find.

The main corridor on this level ran along the inside of the loading bay; the space taking up almost the entirety of this level. Above the schematics showed offices and the central mess hall, then the first level almost completely comprised of laboratory space.

At each end of the corridor were accesses leading up. Timonny noted the entrance to the external link stair that Lanad would be using to head down into the secondary section of the station. Without access to the central trans-shaft, there was no other way to traverse the empty section of space that separated the two compartments.

Between where he and Lanad had breached the main corridor, there was a thinner, shorter avenue that led directly to the centre of the station. It ended at the trans-terminal, a single shaft heading up to the bridge and down to the lower levels. He already knew the terminal would not be operational. The bay doors had been barred in lock-down protocols and that meant even with power running the terminal would be closed and only made operational again from the bridge.

Without issuing orders to follow, Lelo started moving slowly in the opposite direction than Lanad had taken. He switched his vision back to turn the red splatters and pools into dark green smears. He still knew what they were, but at least without the vivid colour, he could go a few steps at a time without the constant grisly reminders.

It took only a few minutes to reach the second level. Lelo took up position a hundred or so metres down the main corridor. He issued the sweep orders, sending a squad left to loop around and another right, designating areas on both this and the next level up for them to search as they went.

The Sergeants accepted their orders without comment and broke off quickly, heading away from him in both directions. That left Lelo alone in the darkness, but alone with marines on all sides. At least with the exception of the trans-terminal and the separate link stair that they would have to use to access the bridge deck.

Lights flickered briefly in the darkness, strobing his vision and making the shining patches around him shine with their still glistening wetness. The steady knocking filled his ears, taking up all of his concentration despite its lack of volume. It was too regular. Too determined. As if whoever was making the sound would happily go on making it forever. People didn’t act like that.

Lelo shivered despite the regulated temperature of his armour. A thought struck him.

>“Bolthosian, get marines to the trans-terminal to confirm its status and to the link stair. I don’t want any surprises. And someone find out what’s making that damned noise!” He cut the link before the Sergeant could respond.

Now there were marines on all sides. Lelo felt a measure of his discomfort reduce. All he had to do was wait to hear what they found. He had no compunction about sending them to investigate while he waited. He was a lieutenant, his job was to give orders, not demonstrate how they should be carried out. He wasn’t just some dull line officer or fodder. He had value.

He didn’t have to wait long. After a few minutes, Sergeant Bolthosian reached him through the comm-link, his mentally projected voice as deep and gruff as the words he spoke out loud.

>“Lieutenant, we have more signs of, well, I’d say a fight but it looks like whatever happened was all one-sided.”

>“Explain.”Lelo returned.

Bolthosian's reply took a moment as if he were trying to find the right words to describe what he was seeing.

>"There's a lot of damage, a lot of blood… honestly, Lieutenant, it's better if you see it for yourself."

Lelo gave an exasperated sigh. What good was a sergeant to him if he still had to do everything himself?

>“Fine,”“I’m coming around now.”

Bolthosian had taken his squad to the far side of the station, around the long bend of the main corridor on the second level. Lelo set off to follow their route.

>“No need, sir,”Bolthosian’s voice halted his stride. >“You can just come straight through the middle.”

Instinctively Lelo opened his mouth to question the Sergeant but stopped himself. He had no affection for Bolthosian, but he did respect the man as a marine and knew he wouldn’t do anything foolish or childish. If Bolthosian said he could walk through the middle of the station then Lelo could walk through the middle of the station.

He turned on his heel and headed towards the first door; an office that led to another two separate rooms according to the schematic. It was a self-contained area, all the offices on this side cut off from the mess hall on the other by an internal wall.

Lelo assumed the station plans were simply out of date. They were old, pulled from the Deorum archives prior to the officer’s briefing and it was conceivable those stationed here had made minor alterations to make their lives simpler.

The first door was open, sparks spitting from its control panel where his marines had forced entry just minutes beforehand. He stepped into the room and stopped dead.

Ahead of him, the scene was one of total chaos. Terminals had been smashed, the meagre furniture shoved aside or crushed almost flat. His night vision picked up more signs of bloodshed, but he kept it on, preferring to see the colours in shades of green than their natural reds and browns. Where the office should have opened onto its neighbours with slim doorways there were great holes torn in the walls.

Cabling hung loosely, some still issuing small showers of sparks in the jagged edges of what had been doorways. The windows between the adjoining rooms had been smashed, their edges detectable from the uneven shards stabbing up and out of what was left of their frames.

Lelo took a hesitant step and heard the crunch of broken glass beneath his armoured boots. He looked down and saw the dark swathe covering the floor. He was standing in a pool of vitae so wide it would have taken the fill of an entire body to make it. A shudder ran down his spine and he jerked his head up again. Not looking at it didn’t mean it wasn’t there, but it let him put the imagined ways it was created out of his head. He took another step, feeling the gentle sucking of the liquid. He tried to put it out of his mind.

Looking through the rent in the wall Lelo could see the bodies of his marines further on. It was as if they stood in a tunnel, one made by something massive taking an unstoppable charge through the station's architecture, ripping through the walls and crushing everything in its path.

He saw Bolthosian, his grey helmet a pale green in night vision, beckon with a wave of his hand.

>“What did this, Sergeant?” He asked as he stepped through the broken wall and into the mess.

>“Damned if I know, sir.”

Bolthosian didn’t move to approach him, he simply stayed in place, a semi-circle of marines kneeling around, facing outward, their rifles trained on the darkness, ready to fire.

Broken remains of tables and chairs littered the wide floor. To his left, Lelo could see the provision dispensers, their fronts brutally crushed as if a ship had impacted right there in the hall. Before them pools of sludgy liquid formed from their destroyed apertures. In night vision it looked little different from the blood. Lelo swallowed hard and turned his eyes back to Bolthosian.

He reached the tableau and stepped past to stand at Bolthosian’s side. The Sergeant turned to face him as he approached. Behind him stood several marines in a cordon, shielding Lelo’s eyes from whatever they’d found. Lelo instinctively glanced down and saw the same darkness covering the floor. It stretched out from behind Bolthosian, a pool wide enough to encompass every one of the standing and kneeling marines. The knocking sound was louder here, reverberating from the wide metal walls and seeming to surround them. Lelo could see how it was putting the marines on edge. He knew exactly how they felt.

>“What have you found?” He tried to keep his voice crisp as if the strangeness of the situation was having no effect on him. He wanted that damn noise to stop.

>“It's bad, sir,"Bolthosian replied and Lelo was shocked by his shaking tone. Bolthosian was a hardened soldier, veteran of a hundred missions. >“It’s… it’s something else… ”“You don’t have to look, sir.”He said with a hint of warning. >“I know I said you should see, but… ”

Lelo snorted inside his helmet, the sound coming out of its speakers as a metallic cough and pushed harder.

“Move, Sergeant, that’s an order!” He spoke the words, his annoyance at this behaviour overriding his control. Bolthosian bowed his head and stepped aside to let Lelo see past him.

His eyes followed the Sergeant as he moved back, then turned to look at what he had been obscuring. He looked down and swallowed hard as the sight sent freezing chills coursing through his body.

He still didn’t know exactly what had happened to the station’s crew, but he could see very clearly what had happened to their bodies and why the mess floor was awash with their blood.

He felt like he was looking through the eyes of a madman; the sight before him as disgusting as it was abhorrently intriguing. Someone had taken their time over this. Someone had gone to great lengths and with great care to make sure what he looked on was dragged from the lowest depths of depravity and displayed with something like pride.

Lelo opened his mouth to speak, but choked on the words. His eyes ranged over the bodies again and he vomited into his helmet.