Silence weighed heavily over the cavernous unloading dock. Every couple of seconds, the silence broke like a lake's surface under a thrown stone as a monster slammed itself against the Valkyrie's hull. No words came through the intercom, leaving a quiet crowd standing, lost in collective thought. Kevin, a man of action rather than patience, shifted on his feet and sighed, energy flowing out of him as adrenaline left his system. He glanced around at everyone just standing in place, then behind him to the creature dead on the floor. It was his first real, close-up look at it. Its body was covered in a fine, though blood-matted coat of thin hair. The skin underneath appeared nearly black in pigment. Kevin could see eyelids on the right corner of each of its three eyes. They appeared able to slide sideways. It had four legs which ended in what looked like sharpened bone tips. These creatures had evolved for fighting.
“Excuse me!” Kevin's head perked up, “Pardon me. Let me through.” The crowd was shifting before his eyes, “Sorry, sorry. Didn't see your feet there.” Finally, a man popped out of the crowd. His hair was a brown mess (though everyone's hair was a mess after the last ten minutes) and his blue button-down shirt barely covered him with all the holes ripped through it. Underneath, light scratches (and a deeper one on his forearm) bled into the fabric, darkening it. As his eyes met Kevin's, they narrowed for just an instant. Kevin would have missed it if he'd blinked. The man glanced away for a second, seemingly remembering something before stepping forward.
“Hi.” Kevin said, raising a brow.
“Hello.” The man answered, keeping his distance. Every word he spoke seemed hesitant and uncomfortable, “I am Richard. Uh, Richard Lake. I saw you, up front with uh...” His eyes shifted to Kevin's hip, where a gun sat in his pocket.
“I'm Kevin Collinson. Is something wrong?” Kevin's brow remained elevated.
“No. Well, not really. I just... I want to see the body.” Richard stepped forward, but Kevin noticed it was in an awkward sidelong way, maintaining his distance.
“Yeah, sure. It's not like I'm stopping anyone. Why do you need to see it?” Kevin stepped out of the way, away from the strange man.
“I'm cut. I need to make sure it's not poisonous.” Richard said, still keeping his distance but approaching body as Kevin stepped away. Kevin's attention snapped from the strange man to the sharp bone barbs on the beast's tails. He hadn't considered that possibility.
“Hell, you're right! Do you know how many people are also cut?”
“How should I know?” Richard shot a glare at Kevin, “It's not like I took a count before getting up here. Maybe I saw a few more.” Turning back to the corpse, Richard ran a finger over the tail, poking gingerly at one of the protrusions.
“Fine.” Kevin conceded, “How will you know if it's poisonous?” He knelt beside the body as well.
“Please. I'm a biologist.” Richard muttered offhandedly, picking the tail up and pressing it against the creature's body. He compressed one of the bone points against its skin. He stared at the tip, watching for something. Kevin wasn't sure of what, but he did know this guys attitude annoyed him. He watched as the scientist finally decided to examine the bone closer and snapped it off with a loud crack that startled more than one curious onlooker. Turning it, Richard nodded, seemingly satisfied, “No channel for any kind of fluid to flow through. We're fine.” Turning away from his studying, Richard noticed Kevin, crouching and watching close by. His brow lowered and he stood quickly, stepping back, “I'll be leaving.”
“Wait.” Kevin said, standing, “What's your problem?” He watched as Richard's eyes fell on the gun at his hip again.
“Nothing. There's no problem.” Richard said, keeping his words short as he continued walking away. Kevin watched him a moment before reaching for his shoulder. His fingers barely tapped the scientist's shoulder before he whirled around, “Don't touch me!”
Kevin held his hands up, “Sorry. I don't mean to startle you-”
“You wanna know what the problem is?” Richard cut him off, “This is the problem.” His eyes shifted again to his hip, “You brought... Brought... Those.” He glared pointedly at the gun now.
“Well, actually-” Kevin started before realizing he wouldn't be able to talk. He quieted down, letting the biologist speak his mind.
“And you're dangerous. I saw you up front. You were ready for this. No one. Else. Was. You knew how to use those weapons. And why would that be? Well, I sure as hell don't know! But having those on board put everyone in danger. And I don't care that your great grandfather or whatever brought them on board before you had them! You should have turned them in!” Richard seethed.
“These guns helped save your ass, and everyone else aboard this ship.” Kevin countered. The shortness of his counter did nothing to hide its heated undertone. He could feel adrenaline working its way through him for a second time in the last hour, “I was prepared because my family always valued it, enough to sneak these past security. If that bothers you, then I'm sorry. But without them, there would have been a lot more reaching the ship for us to fend off.”
Richard growled in his throat, but turned again, “Whatever. Just... Keep them away from me. You're dangerous.” As he disappeared within the crowd again, Kevin could see some people watching Richard, confused looks on their faces. More importantly, he could see many more people looking at him, worry in their eyes. Kevin realized suddenly why he was standing alone in such a crowded room, and lowered his gaze back to the corpse, waiting for Gareth to return. He had entered the crowd to look for his family.
- - -
Up in the cockpit, Captain Riley stared out the window, defeated. Over the past 30 minutes, from when he push door-raise button to now, he had been running options through his head. Everything that came to mind was immediately shot down by the various statistics displayed on the ship's meter board.
“We could pick up and try landing elsewhere...” Riley muttered as his eyes fell on the fuel gauge. The indicator rested on the last inch of the red part of the meter. The trip was projected to only use three quarters of the ship's fuel, but oversights such as the extra weight of stowaways ensured the trip took almost exactly as much as they had.
“We could always try to wait them out.” But who knew how long that would take? This territory was most likely their home. And who knew how long food reserves would last? They had more food than fuel, mercifully, but the extra mouths of the stowaways took their tole on that, as well.
“And we'd lose too many in making the passengers fight their way out.” Riley lowered his head into his hands, fingers curling into thick black hair, “Oh, what are we going to do...” Hesitantly, he compressed the speaker button and forced the worry out of his voice. They needed him to be strong.
“Men and Women of the SpArk Valkyrie, this is your captain speaking. I sincerely hope the doors closed in time and that we didn't lose anyone.”
“Yeah.” A response from the other side of the intercom, “We're all fine down here.” Riley nodded.
“That said, I want to address our current situation. Looking out the viewer, I can see we still have quite a number of those animals out there, and I understand they're dangerous. Now, our reserves are big enough to last three weeks longer, which is good. But we have to be out well before then to ensure we find food to restock before we run out. That gives us at best, another week and a half to figure this out. That's nine days.” He hoped that sounded like a lot, though it certainly didn't feel like it to him, “Plenty of time.”
“I'll be down to the unloading dock before long, and we'll brainstorm, all of us. We've got a few hundred thousand minds on this ship, we're sure to come up with something in the time we've got.” That's right, he told himself, surprised at the hope in his own words, we do have tons of people to help think, we'll make it out of here, “So, I'll see you soon, folks. Keep your hopes high!”
- - -
Down below in the dock, after the captain's announcement, a full minute of continued silence pervaded the crowd. Then, it started how every roaring crowd begins: one person began whispering to his friend or family beside him. Then another spoke up. Over time, the sound of multiple whispers layering on top of each other began to drown out every individual whisper, so they spoke louder. The crowd grew louder because of this, so the individuals within the crowd raised their voices even further. Before long, the crowd was absolutely roaring with the sound of thousands of hopeful voices. Kevin, still on the outside but no longer a center of attention, remained silent, but felt a smile forming across his lips. He would have to meet the captain when he came down.
In the middle of the crowd another was silent, a young girl of only twenty years. Nearly everyone else had left their weaponry in a pile on the floor, but not her. She still held onto hers in small, blood-darkened hands. None of the blood was hers – everything that covered her hands belonged to the over thirty beasts she had punted off the closing ramp. The weapon in her hand was a section of steel beam that had ended up breaking in a way that formed a long, sharp point. Over half of the beasts she sent off the ship had died at the end of that point, instead of just being batted off. It felt lucky, so she held on to it.
She was staring at it as the crowd's roar went on unnoticed around her. Her eyes traced the length of the spike underneath the caked-on blood. It felt like there was a pattern to the break. 'What?' She asked herself, 'What'd that mean?' Still, she couldn't deny that it made some strange sense in her mind. Furthermore, she felt like she could see another pattern in the blood spatter over the blade. The two patterns meshed together, melding to become one. She brought an arm, wiry, muscled and dark, up to her head as it began hurting a bit. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to find her mother standing over her.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just a headache.” As she lied, something whispered in the back of her mind. Suddenly unable to concentrate on her own thoughts with the crowd and mother stealing her attention, she could not address it this precise moment. But it scared her.
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