Dead On Arrival

 Thick, unnatural white crystal flakes fall onto Pluto's steep, rough landscape. As the hours fade away, the ever-growing weight of collected snow continues to crash the weakening outer shell of the Recon 47-X, scraping the man-made metal like dry twigs from a centuries-old tree. Long breathless whistles from a demonic wind, howling with icy fury, slipped to and fro throughout the creaks of the ruined starship's skeleton. Blinded by these brutal conditions and the pressure of assuming command, Alek's shoulders sag with frustration, his eyes dark with doubt as he gazes down the frozen hall where he sent the Rookie to rescue E.V.E., feeling the weight of responsibility crushing him, and a deep sense of vulnerability creeping in as he questions his own strength. 

Back on earth, Alek knew how to handle the situation - but that was with unintelligent thugs or overambitious soldiers. Here, lost beyond the star, upon a frozen wasteland humanity abandoned long ago, Alek's training and knowledge were utterly useless. His fists clenched as doubt gnawed at him, making him feel vulnerable and uncertain about his abilities in this alien, desolate world, fueling a sense of helplessness.

Alek shook his head. Taking out a steel flash with the fingers of his left hand, then forcefully spun off the lid, whispering one harsh obscenity before taking a long, strong hit of vodka. His middle finger tapped impatiently against his leather shoulder holster, housing his TK-34 pistol, accentuating his rising frustration and inner tension, creating a tense atmosphere.

" God Damn It!!!" The immature phrase arose from behind Alek's stoic figure.

Nowicki, a Polish medic of the Recon 47-X, slams childishly on top of the heavily damaged radio, desperately trying to reconnect with HQ as static crackles through the broken device. Pulling aggressively on his dark brown hair, the medic rises to his feet, wiping sweat from his forehead before lighting a cigarette to calm his nerves, the tension thickening with each failed attempt to reach help, his mind racing with fears of failure.

Awkward silence remains potent for a little while between the two space marines.

" Serg, we've been screwed over before for a company's preferred desires," Nowicki said, blowing a thick cloud of smoke, his voice tense. " But I've never seen anything like this..."

Throwing away his flashlight, the solid blue eyes of the Sergeant remain focused on the empty hall. Alek's face tightens.

" Doc?!" Alek inquires with a hollow voice, " You don't think The Rooke would condemn himself to death to save the life of a machine?"

Resting his back as he lowers himself beside the Sergeant, Nowicki takes a long pull off his cigarette, allowing the tobacco to fill his nervous lungs with distracting tastes before exhaling a healthy cloud of smoke into the frigid air. However, before he could relay his opinion, something within the darkness caught the medic's attention.

There, blending within the darkness, a faint silhouette moved awkwardly about before thunderous flashes of orange light spat erratically about, only to be struck down by an unseen opponent.

Equally gripped by a prime fear, the two marines charged out into the darkness without relaying a single word. But what the two men didn't know was that they had just entered the claws of an unmatched horror.

Cautiously moving down the long, narrow, dark halls of the Recon 47-X, the two marines drew their pistols and locked and loaded for expected action. Time froze to an unnatural halt as the two stopped moving and arrived at the shape's location. But signs of life were to be found. The two space marines stood still for a moment in hopes that something might reveal itself. However, the drop in temperature was noteworthy. Continuing to survey the area, it wasn't long before a clue was revealed. Greeted by an eerie sense of foreboding and death, about fifteen feet ahead of the pair, a pronounced and painful hole as big as a well-aimed cannon blast struck the side of the ship, vomiting the freezing blizzards of the planet into the hollow remains of the Recon 47-x, with any sign of their comrade remaining inconclusive.

Ready for the worst, the pair unshouldered their shotguns as they blindly stepped out into the brutal weather for the briefest of moments and waited. Soon, the pair dispersed. With Nowicki submitting to the cold, he went back into the ship's interior, while Alek's stubbornness allows him to embrace the planet's wrath to search for his comrade.

Holding his weapon, Nowicki feared the worst had befallen The Rookie. Saying a small prayer as he headed back to their self-made base, something strange reforged the medic's attention. There, just below his person, a small puddle of warm purple liquid trails away from the hole and deeper into the darkness of the ruined spaceship. The medic follows carefully. As the seconds passed, it wasn't long before the liquid present element of terror- scattered awkwardly upon the freezing metal floor, legions of used pistol shells littered, but that was not what worried the medic. After all, he and Alek did see someone, more likely The Rookie or E.V.E. firing, but his concern came in the shape of eight human teeth that danced lifelessly in a bowl of now cold human blood. Intensifying his sights, the medic looked up at the ceiling - there, along the upper surface of the hall, four thin, long, and deep gashes greeted the medic with macabre delight. Tightening his grip on the pistol, Nowicki's mind drowns in a toxic mixture of fear, anger, and unwanted anticipation.

Nowicki reached upwards with his left hand, just barely touching the gashes. Dragging his gloved hand along the surface, he stopped just as he reached the gash's center and felt the roughness of a strange lump. Pulling his hand back down, Nowicki, still looking up, holstered his firearm. Without looking away from his discovery, the medic grabbed a nearby discarded box and placed it directly under the gashes, then stepped on it with his right boot. Nowicki moved up for a closer look. Pulling out a 6-inch blade, the medic began to adjust the gash's form, and with an aggressive pull of his right hand, he revealed it. There, in the center of his gloved palm, a single, razor-sharp claw started back at Nowicki with the honesty of its lethality but the secrets of its master; intriguing and encouraging the darker imagination of the frightened medic.

Diligently searching through the rubbish and damaged floor of the Recon 47-X, Nowicki soon found a badly injured human eye in the far-left corner against the wall. His stomach turned and wrenched at the thought of the disturbing fate that could have befallen The Rookie.

" Doc!!!" The faint yelling from Alek reached out from beneath the howling wind.

The medic looked down at the fragment with fear and disbelief. Nightmarish images of haunting thoughts of what could be living out there within this frozen wasteland choke the medic's consciousness with anxiety rather than relief. Arising from where he knelt, he slipped his discovery into his back pocket as he headed back towards the opening where the Sergeant awaited him. 

Spending the next few minutes trying to find the Sergeant's location within the outer side of the Recon 47-X and the nearby frozen lands as an acknowledgment of the growing danger that surrounds them, Nowicki stumbled upon the badly damaged figure of E.V.E. 

Bent over an oddly shaped hill of ice with her artificial organs oozing over the snow and ice, E.V.E.'s malfunctioning purple eyes shift away mindlessly as she vomits a sickly-colored liquid over the once-clean, cold, white ground, transforming it into something ill. There, several feet behind her, the stubborn figure of the Sergeant was possessed by something in the darkness. Bending towards the android's torn flesh, Nowicki examines E.V.E. - of course, it was difficult in this weather to make any determination.

" Doc!!!" The Sergeant calls sharply," Forget about that and get over here!"

Furious, the medic rose from his position in the snow and quickly stepped up to the Sergeant. But instead of questioning him, Nowicki noticed the element that held Alek's attention. Fourteen feet in front of them, stretching along the frozen landscape, a set of bizarre bloody footprints takes residence within the snow. 

Confused and shaken, the two space marines stood in dead silence, with only their imaginations fueling a childish fear that all mortal training attempts to cleanse men of...

The next installment of my sci-fi survival horror, Dead On Arrival.