NaNoWriMo Day 9

Switching to a new point of view character, woo!

Bill Mayser loved women. And they loved him. They loved him because he was smart. They loved him because he was rich. They loved him because he was charming. Mostly though, they loved him because he was absolutely gorgeous. And women love gorgeous things.

Less than twelve hours after joining the scientific mission to Tappman, Bill had been in a supply closet with the Captain’s wife. The Captain an old man, almost forty! He had no right to a beautiful, buxom scientist like Matilda!

Matilda Kharn had long brown hair, full, pouty lips, and some of the most phenomenal legs Bill had seen on any woman who wasn’t a professional model. Matilda had practically leapt at the chance to be with anyone who wasn’t her overbearing, workaholic husband. Lucky for her, it had been someone handsome like Bill.

These were the thoughts running through Bill’s mind as Captain Kharn piloted the shuttle down to Tappman from the starship. Also, he reminisced over what a shame it was that spacesuits were not more formfitting. Due to their rigorous physical training, all the women on the crew were incredibly attractive. Bill had found that women of learning tended to get a little chunky after spending all their time cooped up in the lab rather than out exercising. Also, they tended to subscribe to the ridiculous notion that inner beauty was more important than outer beauty. What a load of crap!

Once they were down on the planet Bill was going to have a difficult time trying to decide with of the women he would secretly woo next. Phoenix was his first choice; tall, dark red hair with bright green eyes, an athletic figure, along with a positively gorgeous ass. Larissa was mousy and cute, very shy and bookish, which Bill normally wasn’t interested in, but even though she was the shortest woman on the crew, she had the largest chest. Kendra had the prettiest face of the bunch, and the only blonde; Bill couldn’t resist a beautiful blonde, even if she was so skinny she lacked the feminine curves Bill preferred. Adrien though, Bill wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole; that lady was nuts! He didn’t care that she had raven hair and eyes the same color as the ocean, she was one of those women who would kill you for looking at her the wrong way and your next of kin would never find your body!

When the shuttle finally touched down, Bill climbed out just like everybody else and watched the group in charge of verifying the probe’s air sample readings confirm the air was not toxic. Then he yanked off his helmet, took a deep breath, and started to celebrate with the others.

That is, until the Security Officer got a bug up his ass and shouted at them to get camp set up. Bill got his tent put up and then went to “assist” Matilda and setting up her lab.

She smiled coyly at him. “You should be setting up your own equipment instead of skulking around someone else’s property.” She winked knowingly.

“I’m sure it will be alright if I just—”

“Quit lollygagging, you apes and get a move on!” Security Officer Terrible T. Timing shouted from over by the shuttle.

Matilda snickered. “You heard the man, better get back to work.”

Bill eventually got his lab equipment set up, but not before getting yelled at twice more by Damien. Then, thankfully, Damien went out on a survey mission and Bill was able to spend some quality alone time with Matilda.

“You’re sure your husband won’t look for you here?” They were hiding in the tent Matilda would be sharing with the Captain.

“He’s far too busy getting the camp situated and planning more survey expeditions. Also, what did I tell you?” She grinned wickedly.

“Never to talk about your husband when we’re together.”

“Exactly! Lord knows, that man talks about himself enough without the rest of the world doing it too.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Bill had been worried about how he was going to sneak out without getting spotted, but that took care of itself when the survey team returned with some kind of living-metal ooze. The whole camp was going mad with excitement and, truth be told, Bill was exhilarated just like the rest of them. Sure, science wasn’t he first love, but he was still a scientist and he was going to get to examine a newly discovered lifeform!

It seemed as though everyone in camp stayed up all night running tests and discussing theories. Chemically, the ooze was pure iron, yet it seemed able to move on its own and was liquid rather than solid at room temperature. Something was going on beyond what they were able to observe that first night.

The next morning everyone was groggy, but even Bill was excited for another round of surveying. As they began to break up into groups, Bill was disappointed to see the Captain team up with his wife and Doctor Morris. Bill saw that Larissa was alone, so he offered to go with her and she happily accepted.

Bill smiled to himself. His good morning looked to be turning into a great day.

Then Damien came stomping over and announced he would be going with them. Bill’s jaw dropped. Damien hated Bill, at least Bill thought he did. Damien was always scowling at him and turning up unexpectedly when Bill was alone with Matilda. He had yet to catch them in the act, but Bill was fairly certain the Security Officer suspected there was something going on between them.

Thus, it was with a heavy heart that Bill followed Damien and Larissa into the forest. After several hours they finally turned back, having found nothing of interest. Even worse though, he had not gotten anywhere with Larissa! They had hardly spoken to one another after Damien showed up.

Trudging into camp a little before lunch time, Bill’s spirits were almost immediately lifted. A new metal had been discovered! Kendra, Tobias, and Harold had brought back samples of a black metal ooze. A fresh round of experiments began immediately and it looked as though it was going to be another sleepless night; and in fact it was, just not for the reasons Bill had thought.

Bill had no idea what time it was when Matilda slipped into his lab. She pulled open her lab coat just enough to show him she was wearing nothing underneath and then darted back outside. Bill nearly tripped over himself running after her.

Matilda strolled leisurely out to the perimeter of their camp, disarmed the motion detector so they could pass through undetected, and led Bill out into the forest. They came to a stop by little lagoon that was steaming in the cold night air.

“We found this at the beginning of our survey,” Matilda explained. “It’s a natural hot spring.” She slipped off her lab coat and waded into the pool.

Bill dropped his pants and jacket on a rock at the edge of the spring and stepped in to go to Matilda.

“I’ve been waiting all day for this,” she told him as they embraced.

A long while later, the two of them were soaking in the shallows.

“Should I be jealous of you spending the morning in the wilderness with Larissa?”

Bill scoffed. “With Damien tagging along? Even if I had wanted to I couldn’t have gotten near her. You’re the only woman for me!”

She splashed water into his face. “You’re such an awful liar! How is it that you get women to sleep with you when you can’t lie your way out of a paper bag?”

“I can lie!”

Matilda laughed. “Prove it! Tell me something and I will tell you whether it’s true or not. And you can’t lie about whether or not you’re telling the truth!”

“Alright, but only if you play too.”

“Deal. You go first.”

“Let me see…I was seven when I first kissed a girl I wasn’t related to.”

“Lie!”

“Ugh, you’re right. I was four.”

“My turn.” She chewed on her lip as she thought. “You are the first man I’ve cheated on my husband with.”

Bill considered for a moment. “True,” he said at last.

She splashed him again. “If you’re going to play the game, play seriously! Don’t try to flatter me.”

“Alright, that was a lie.”

“Yes it was. You are the eighth man I’ve cheated on him with. Your turn again.”

“My mother died when I was young.”

She stared into his eyes. “Lie.”

Bill nodded. “She ran away with a college student.”

“My mother disapproved of my marrying Orson.”

“True.”

“Very good.”

“The first girl I actually loved broke my heart.”

“True, but that’s not the whole story.”

Bill sighed. Why had he brought Georgia up? Talking about her only made him sad. “Correct. I panicked when I realized how committed we were getting.”

“I’m starting to think about leaving my husband and running away with you.”

Bill stared at her. Matilda’s face betrayed absolutely no emotion.  He had no idea whether she was lying or not. Eventually, he decided it was better to sound arrogant than to accidentally make light of her feelings. “True.”

She giggled seductively. “Well, I suppose I have thought about it, so that counts as correct.”

As Bill leaned in to kiss her, Matilda screamed in pain.

“What’s wrong?” Then Bill saw it. A black shadow looming behind Matilda with Doctor Harold’s face.

Matilda choked and shook as black metal ooze poured forth from Harold’s hand and began to cover Matilda’s bare skin.

Bill turned and ran. Instinct was all he could attribute grabbing his clothing to, because stark panic was all he felt as he ran. After about five minutes of headlong sprinting, he paused to yank on his clothes, and then he was off and running again. He did not stop until he reached the camp.

Damien had taken charge and gathered everyone around the shuttle. A hasty explanation about an experiment seemed to satisfy them as to why he and Matilda had been out in the forest at night. Unfortunately, the relief of his deception not being questioned was short lived.

Matilda, now transformed into an ooze-monster, returned to camp with Harold within moments of Bill finishing his story. Adrien ran into the shuttle and Damien told everyone but Phoenix and the Captain to follow her. Bill did not hesitate to do as he had been told.

Inside the shuttle everyone but Adrien was gathered around the cockpit windows watching the three crewmembers fire round after round at Harold and Matilda. Bill could hear Adrien rummaging around in the back of the shuttle, but it was hard to care what she was doing. The firefight was mesmerizing; terrifying, but mesmerizing.

Matilda and Harold just kept coming. Eventually they were so close that Damien was fighting Matilda hand to hand. “Eureka!” Adrien shouted from the back of the shuttle. Everyone in the shuttle turned to watch her go sprinting past them and down the ramp.

Nearly in unison, they turned back to the cockpit window. Adrien threw something at Harold and he exploded. Then the Captain was pointing his gun at Adrien and shouting while Damien started beating Matilda with his fists. To everyone’s shock, Damien was able to smash Matilda into a pile of black goo without getting infected.

Everyone cheered.

And then they screamed. The captain had shot Damien.

Damien went down hard. Doctor Morris went rushed out of the shuttle to help him. Most of the others followed. Bill stayed and watched Captain Kharn turn and run into the forest.

His heart pounding in his chest and everyone running around screaming, Bill decided now was as good a time as any for a stiff drink. He returned to his tent, grabbed the most potent bottle of liquor he had, and proceeded to get as drunk as drunk can be.

When Bill finally woke up the first thing he did was swear to God that he would never drink again. Then he staggered outside to find that the sun was high overhead and, far worse than a wasted morning and a horrendous hangover, Harold and Matilda had returned. Larissa and Doctor Morris had been infected and Adrien had blown up half the shuttle driving them off. On top of all of this, it seemed that Damien had been infected by the iron metal and instead of becoming a mindless killer he had developed an immunity to the black ooze and super-strength to boot.

Bill learned all of this after he was pressed into service trying to put out the fire still burning in the shuttle cockpit. Altogether, Bill had chosen a rather poor morning to be hung over.

*

After the shuttle fire was finally extinguished, Tobias and Kendra returned from their futile attempt to find the Captain and convince him to return to camp. Evidently though, the expedition had not been entirely in vain. They had discovered a third metal, and while no one else seemed to particularly care about this news because they all believed they were doomed, Bill found himself incredibly excited.

Bill took one of the samples back to his lab and stared at it for a long time. The idea that had come almost instantly to his brain was insane, wasn’t it? What if the copper metal had the same effect as the black metal? What if it was worse? Bill weighed these arguments silently against the prospect of super-strength and immunity to infection. As he deliberated, he pulled out the bottle he had been drinking the night before and took a drink, there was just too much going on to face without a little liquid courage.

Six or seven drinks later, Bill dipped the tip of his little finger into the petri dish. As he saw it, having two super-people would double the team’s chances of getting home, while if he turned into a horrible monster then he would hardly give a damn one way or the other, so what the hell, why not? It made perfect sense to Bill in his current state.

At first nothing happened. Then his little finger began to tingle and slowly, oh so slowly, copper began to climb up his finger toward his hand. Giddy, Bill withdrew his hand from the petri dish to see if he was going to get monster-ified. Nothing happened. No rapid infection, just a copper pinky. Bill jammed his whole hand back into the dish and let it soak up all the copper in it. Then he went to find more samples so he could develop his super-strength faster.

But first, a celebratory drink!

After pouring one sample on his chest and another down his opposite arm from the one he had tested first, a thoroughly intoxicated Bill stumbled out of his lab to inform the others that they were about to be saved.

It did not go as well as he had hoped. No one was even remotely excited about his plan to go monster hunting. Then Damien came out and embarrassed him in front of everyone. Dejected, he collapsed in his cot.

For the second morning in a row, the first thing Bill did was swear to never, ever drink again for as long as he lived. Then Phoenix walked into his tent.

“Why did you have to come today?” Bill groaned piteously. “Never mind, I can do this. Just give me a moment!”

“What are you rambling on about?” Phoenix glared at him, clearly puzzled. Then comprehension hit her. “Oh! You really are a vile, disgusting little man, aren’t you?” She shuddered. “Well, unfortunately for me, you’re all I have. Come on.

“Where are we going?” Bill looked around for his pants, which seemed to have gone missing during the night.

“Remember your idiotic speech last night? You were pretty drunk, so you might not, but the gist of it was that you wanted to go after the Metalloids while they were still weak from Adrien blowing them up and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

“It is? I mean, of course it is! Hell, yeah!”

“Shut up and find your pants. We’re leaving before everyone else wakes up.”

Thus, Bill found himself in the forest, heading towards the mountains with Phoenix, Kendra, and Tobias. They trudged along for what seemed like forever, but when Bill glanced up to see the sun still low in the sky, he realized it was just the hangover making it feel as though he had been walking forever.

“You don’t look so great,” Kendra said as she handed him a bottle of water.

“I feel like I’ve been flushed out an airlock.” He took the water gratefully.

“How dumb do you have to be to get drunk at a time like last night?”

“As dumb as me.”

Kendra shook her head and moved on. Bill reflected that that had not been one of his more charming moments. At this point he hardly cared. Well, perhaps he cared a little bit. Blondes were a bit of a weakness of his.

Bill caught up with Kendra. “What brings you out here?”

She looked at him as though he had just tried to eat a pickle by shoving it in his ear. “I want to help make sure we survive this.”

“Well yes, I understand that. Phoenix wishes she could be a soldier like Damien. Tobias wants the glory that comes from saving the day. But you don’t really seem like the fighting type.”

Kendra grinned mischievously. “You’d be surprised what you don’t know about me.”

“I’m willing to learn.”

She laughed. “I’ll just bet you are. Sadly for you, I don’t sleep with whores. Especially not stupid ones.”

Bill’s winning smile faltered. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve caught you ogling me a half a dozen times. You’ve made a pass at Phoenix and Larissa multiple times. And I’m pretty sure you were sleeping with our insanely jealous Captain’s wife. That, combined with your copious drinking makes me wonder if you ought to be wearing a helmet.”

“A helmet?”

“Yeah, I know, it would mess up your perfectly quaffed hair, but I think it would go a long way towards protecting you from yourself.”

“How dare you!”

“How dare I? Ha! How can you even ask that? You intentionally infected yourself with an unknown biological agent, putting us all at risk. What if you had transformed like the other Metalloids? You could have killed us all just because you were drunk and stupid!”

“I—you—well—get out of my face!” Bill blustered.

“You know what? No, I will not get out of your face!” Kendra shot back. “You need a serious ass kicking or something else that will make you realize that people’s lives are on the line!”

“I realize that people’s lives are at stake!”

“Do you? Because so far you’ve treated this whole misadventure like some kind of game where you score points by scoring with different women!”

“Why are you so mean all of the sudden? I thought you were the nice girl on the expedition!”

Kendra punched him in the jaw.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Being a stupid whore,” she told him calmly.

“Stop calling me that!”

She punched him in the jaw again.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You seem to be a slow learner.”

“What am I supposed to be learning?”

This time, Bill dodged her punch.

“How to duck, for one.”

“You’re insane, aren’t you?”

“I am trying to be whatever the group needs me to be, can you say the same?”

Then she walked away from him.

Bill was left wondering what had just transpired here. Normally, he assumed that a woman yelling at him meant she was playing hard to get, but something about the things Kendra had said made him question his usual ironclad confidence.

They travelled the rest of the day mostly in silence. Bill found himself oddly introspective. He barely paid any attention at all when Kendra and Phoenix debated over which way to go. Eventually, Kendra just let Phoenix lead the way. As they climbed higher up into the mountains and the sun began to set, that silence grew more ominous. “Maybe we ought to go back,” Bill offered hesitantly. “We won’t be able to find them in the dark.”

“A little while longer,” Phoenix said.

It was fully dark when Bill spoke up again. “Really, we aren’t going back? I can’t see a thing.”

“I hate to admit it, but he’s right,” Tobias said. “Let’s head back and try again tomorrow. Perhaps we’ll have better luck convincing Damien to join us in the morning.”

“Fine, but—oh God!” Phoenix screamed as she opened fire at the Metalloids converging on them from out of the night.

Bill stepped forward, finally proud to be capable of doing something useful, and the Metalloid nearest to him knocked him on his ass. Flabbergasted, Bill leapt to his feet and tried to fight it again. He punched it as hard as he could in the back.

Nothing happened.

He punched again. And again. And again. Eventually, the Metalloid, it was Doctor Morris, turned around swung at him lazily. Bill dodged easily. Then another Metalloid, Matilda, lunged at him and he easily avoided her too. Everyone seemed to be fighting in slow motion.

Panic and understanding set in almost simultaneously. The copper metal gave him a different power than Damien’s iron. He had super-speed instead of strength.

The Metalloids were converging on Kendra, no doubt she would be infected within seconds. Tobias was on the other side of the Metalloids from Bill, he was frantically pulling Phoenix away, trying to get her to flee with him.

Bill turned and ran.

The forest was a blur around him. He had no idea how fast he was running, but it was several times faster than he had ever been able to run before bonding with the copper metal. He ran all the way back to camp. When he arrived he collapsed, sure that Damien was going to kill him for abandoning the others. Instead though, Damien insisted he lead them back to where they were attacked so the others could be rescued.

Bill didn’t know whether to heave a sigh of relief because this would ease his guilty conscience or to cry because he was being forced back out into the night with the Metalloids roaming the land fully reformed.

*

Everyone else seemed to be moving so terribly slow as Bill led them back up the mountain. When at last they arrived, Damien surveyed the tracks leading away from the ambush site.

After his deliberation, Damien announced that there were two sets of tracks. He took Adrien to follow the trail that led further up the mountain while he sent Bill and Benji down towards a valley. Then, for good measure, he threatened Bill with a goodly amount of violence if they lost the trail.

Once Adrien and Damien were gone, Bill turned to Benji. “Have you ever followed a trail in the dark?”

Benji shook his head. The poor guy seemed to be taking the whole imminent death thing pretty hard. He looked worse than Bill had felt this morning when he was hungover.

“Ever follow a trail ever?”

Benji shook his head again.

“Damn. I was hoping you were secretly some kind of outdoorsman. You ever go camping?”

“I didn’t really enjoy the outdoors as a child. I preferred staying indoors and reading where the chance of stumbling upon poisonous insects was far, far more remote.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Benji arched an eyebrow skeptically.

“So they were dirty magazines! I was still technically inside looking at printed materials.”

“Who has dirty magazines anymore?”

“They were classics passed down from father to son! Why, they were practically antiques!”

“I think we might be getting a little distracted.”

“Oh, no we’re not!” Bill insisted. “I am completely focused on putting off getting lost in the forest at night for as long as possible.”

Benji shook his head balefully. “Come on, let’s go.”

They walked for about an hour, following what they hoped was the trail Phoenix and Tobias had left as they fled through the woods. Then, quite unexpectedly, Phoenix stepped out of the trees in front of them.

“I never thought I’d be glad to see you, but damn I’m glad someone found us!” As she walked forward Tobias also came striding out of the darkness.

“We weren’t lost!” Tobias insisted. “We were just making our way back to camp by a different route.”

Phoenix rolled her eyes. “Where are Damien and Adrien?”

“They followed the other trail,” Benji told her in the dejected monotone he seemed stuck speaking in.

“What other trail?”

Benji shrugged. “Damien said there were two trails. He and Adrien followed one and we came this way.”

“We have to go now!” Phoenix insisted. She then began pulled them back the way they had come.

Bill and the others followed. “What’s the big hurry?”

“The other trail was left by the Metalloids after they swarmed Kendra! They’ll be walking into a group of six Metalloids!”

“Six?”

“Yes, can’t you count? The four who were already infected, plus the Captain and Kendra.”

“The Captain is infected?”

“Did you not see a single thing at that fight before your ran off? There were five Metalloids there!”

Phoenix was able to follow the trail back to where they had been ambushed and from there she led them up the mountain along the path Damien and Adrien had taken.

“She seems to have no trouble following a trail in the dark,” Benji observed. “I bet she went camping a lot.”

“Hey, we found them!”

“Actually, we were retracing our steps when we came across you guys,” Tobias admitted bashfully. “Phoenix may have been right about us getting lost.”

“I still say it counts!”

“Will you three shut up?” Phoenix hissed. “I think I see something.”

“You think you see something? Do you or don’t you and should we already be running?” Bill asked.

“Well, look for yourself.” Phoenix pointed at a patch of ground not too far ahead of them.

“I don’t see anything.”

“That’s because you only looked for a second. Watch it closely.”

“I still don’t—oh. What the hell is it?”

“It looks like the black metal ooze,” Benji said. “Only it’s a cave mouth. Almost like it’s a cave made out of the black ooze.”

“So…what you’re saying is that yes we should have been running already?” Bill asked nervously.

“If we’re going to save Damien and Adrien we have to go in,” Phoenix told them resolutely.

“Are you sure? Maybe we should just wait here and see if they come out on their own.”

“No, Damien would have gone down there and he won’t be coming out until he finds out whether or not we’ve been infected. Since we’re out here he won’t be able to know one way or the other and he won’t come out. We have to go in after him!”

There was a bright flash of light about ten feet from the cave entrance and suddenly Adrien was standing where the light had flashed.

Adrien looked around, saw them, and ran straight to Phoenix. “Thank God you’re here! The tunnel walls started shifting and the Metalloids were all of the sudden all around me!”

“Where’s Damien?” Phoenix demanded.

Adrien shook her head. “He’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone? He can’t be gone!”

“The tunnel shifted and we were separated. I heard shouting and then a struggle. Then the Metalloids converged on me and I…left. I’m sorry, Phoenix, but there is no way Damien made it out of there. The Metalloids came after me as soon as they were finished with him. He’s gone.”

NaNoWriMo Day 7

The fire burned the rest of the day. Adrien did her best the quench the flames in the cockpit, but the bomb she had rigged burned incredibly hot and it was all they could do to save the rest of the shuttle.

Damien kept the others busy carrying sand and water to throw on the fire. For as long as they had a task to perform they wouldn’t start panicking. Damien was already trying to formulate a plan for after the fire went out.

No one found any evidence of the infected crew members reforming or escaping, but no one doubted that they would be back. There was also the matter of the Captain going insane after losing his wife and Tobias’ expedition with Kendra to go find him. If none of them returned they would be down to only five survivors.

Finally, as the sun was setting and the fire was dying down, a very confused Tobias and Kendra returned to the camp. It fell to Damien to explain what had happened. Retelling the story did not make it sound any better, in fact, it seemed to make everyone realize how incredibly screwed they were. No one even cared that Tobias and Kendra had found another type of metal that looked like copper. Everyone shambled about as though they were already dead.

That night Damien called a meeting with the Antonov siblings, the three of them were the surviving officers on the expedition.

“We need to figure out what to do tomorrow,” Damien told them.

Benji just stared into space as though he hadn’t heard. Adrien sighed. “I can start trying to repair the shuttle, but it’s going to take a lot of time and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get it working well enough to leave the atmosphere again.”

Damien nodded. He had figured as much. “That means we are going to have to survive for the next twenty-nine days. Our first progress report was due then and we’ll be missed.”

“Make it thirty-nine days. It will take at least ten days for them to launch a rescue mission. And that’s a best case scenario,” Adrien said in a rather unenthusiastic tone. Damien could see her trying to envision a way for them to avoid contact with the metal thingies for the next six weeks when there had been two attacks in twelve hours.

“You burned them up real good, hopefully that will give us time to relocate to a more secure location.”

“Relocate? You want to give up on the shuttle?”

“Can you fix it in twenty-nine days?”

Adrien shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t had time to inspect the interior.”

“Well right now we are in just about the least defensible position imaginable. They can come at us from any direction and we’ll have no warning at all with all the trees around. We need to find a cave up in the mountains where they can only get in through one entrance and we can see them coming from a long ways off.”

Adrien sighed. She looked at her brother sitting there like a lump.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He had a thing going with Larissa. He seems to be taking her death pretty hard.”

“Good God! Just what we need. Was everyone on the mission romantically involved? What part of no dating the other crew members did you people not understand?”

She rolled her eyes. “Give it a rest, you sound like a crotchety old man! You aren’t even that old, you’re what, thirty-five?”

“Your age doesn’t matter if you have no discipline.”

Adrien grabbed him by the collar and shook him. “You are not in the army anymore! You are dealing with untrained geeks who are terrified! You need to lead them not berate them! Good Lord, what the hell happened to you that made you such an insufferable ass?”

“Dunbar.”

“Dunbar-shmunbar! You need to forget about what nearly killed you in the past and focus on what’s going to kill you in the future if you don’t quit trying to make everyone hate you! We need someone to lead us, and as you can see,” she punched her brother so hard he fell off his chair and onto the floor, “it isn’t going to be him! I need to work on the shuttle, figure out if it’s fixable and then start either repairing or salvaging. Understood?”

Damien grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

They stepped out of his tent. Damien nearly slapped himself in the face, but at the last second remembered that his hand was completely coated in iron now.

Bill, who appeared to be drunk, was brandishing his copper coated right hand and shouting, “Now there are two of us who can fight them! You all saw Damien beat one of them into a pile of goo and not get infected! We can go and fight them now! Everyone else get a gun, we’re going monster hunting!”

The others muttered to themselves skeptically.

“Alright, Bill, that’s enough of that.” Damien walked up beside him. “What happened to your hand?”

“I was in the lab with the samples and I accidently put my hand in the copper metal. It bonded to me like the iron bonded to you! I’m going to get super strong now and we’re going to fight them together like superheroes!”

Damien could smell the booze on Bill’s breath. He was this close to screaming his brains out at Bill, but then he remembered what Adrien had said. “Sounds great, buddy. But even superheroes need to be well rested. So I want you to go sleep off whatever it is you drank and the two of us will go monster hunting in the morning.”

“You mean all of us! The others are going to take the guns and we’re all going! Safety in numbers, you know.”

“Absolutely!” Damien said patronizingly. “Right after you have a good, long nap.”

Damien convinced the rest of the crew to get some sleep as well. No one argued. Damien went back to his own tent and tried to sleep. He failed, naturally. Too many options, scenarios, and contingency plans raced through his mind as he lay in his cot.

They needed some place to hide, but where? Should they just start marching in one direction and hope the metal ooze creatures never caught up with them? Should they try to find an easily defensible cave in the mountains? Assuming Bill’s drunken rant about the two of them being immune to infection was correct, did that change anything? No, Damien decided, Bill could be counted on for less than nothing.

Sometime after midnight, Phoenix came to call on him. “I knew you’d be awake still.”

“When I was a grunt I slept like a rock whenever I had a spare second. It wasn’t until I was promoted that I stopped being able to sleep.”

Phoenix nodded sympathetically. “Officers have to worry about what’s going to happen next. They have to constantly plan their next move so that the men depending on them don’t buy the farm just because their officer was careless.”

“You father taught you well.”

She sighed. “Not well enough.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know what to do next. I always thought I would be a leader, just like my dad, but here I am in the midst of a crisis and I’m no more use that the rest of the nerds.”

Damien laughed. “Hardly! You and Adrien are the only ones who have kept your heads in this whole mess.”

“But what are we going to do next? It doesn’t matter how well you keep your cool if you don’t have a plan!”

“Oh yes it does. The second you panic, you’re lost. I’ve seen men turn and run when they’re overcome with fear and the second they do they’re dead. Whether it’s immediate or if it takes time for the enemy to chase them down, it doesn’t matter. Once fear has you then you’ve already bought the farm.”

Phoenix sat down hard beside him on the cot. “Then you might as well shoot me now, because I’m terrified.”

“Hey, now! Being scared is completely different from giving in to fear. You’re still here and you’re still trying to find a way to fight these things. You haven’t run. You haven’t given in. Stick with me and I’ll get you through this, I promise.” Damien’s stomach lurched as he said the words. He had sworn that he would never promise to keep one of his soldiers safe in combat ever again.

Phoenix looked into his eyes for a long time. “Damien?”

“Yes?”

“I have a crazy idea.”

“Alright, let’s hear it.”

“Okay, but hear me out before you say no.”

“Very well.”

“The Metalloids have always come from the northwest, right?”

“The what?”

“That’s what Kendra has started calling the crew members infected by the black ooze metal.”

“I see. Yes, they have always come from the northwest.”

“The four we know are infected are most likely weak from Adrien blowing them up, right?”

“I suppose. We don’t really know anything about them.”

“Yes, but it does seem to take time for them to reform into human shapes after being blown up.” She took an anticipatory breath. “So I think we should do what Bill said. Go on the offensive and try to kill or contain them while they’re weak. We’ll never get a better chance than we have now. We have no shot of getting rescued for over a month and there is no way Adrien can repair the shuttle, I don’t care how good she thinks she is. I think it’s this or wait until the Metalloids pick us off one by one.”

Damien groaned. “No.”

“No? How can you say no? We’ll never have this kind of advantage again! The next time they come for us Captain Kharn will be infected and the other four will be back to full strength!”

“They could be back to full strength now. And even if they aren’t we have no idea what can kill them or even contain them. We have absolutely no intelligence on an enemy familiar with the local terrain. We need to find a defensible position and wait there for reinforcements.”

“A defensible position? You want to hide? What was all that about not running away or giving into fear?” Phoenix stood up, obviously upset with him.

“Phoenix, can’t you see that it’s you who is giving into fear? You don’t know what to do so you’ve decided to act rashly rather than think through the situation. We need to gather intelligence if possible and protect our people if that’s not possible.”

“Listen to yourself! You really do think you’re an old man, don’t you? Well not all of us lost our nerve on Dunbar! Tobias, Kendra, and I are taking Bill to go find the Metalloids and kill them at dawn!”

Then she stormed out. The next morning Bill, Phoenix, Tobias, and Kendra were gone. Benji spent the day in his tent, Adrien cursed at the shuttle as she assessed the damage and began repairs, and Damien kept his eyes on the mountains to the northwest.

The sun reached its zenith and began to fall. The afternoon wore on with Adrien swearing violently as she worked and Damien silently keeping watch. Finally, as the sun was setting, Bill returned.

Alone.

*

“Where the hell are the others?” Damien growled.

Bill looked over his shoulder as though he were surprised by the news that he had returned without his companions.

Damien grabbed Bill by his shirt and lifted him off the ground. “Where are they? Where is Phoenix?”

“I—I don’t know! They were right behind me when I started running!”

“Running?” Damien shook Bill violently.

“The metals! They give you different powers! I can run super-fast instead of having super strength—urk—like you!”

Damien dropped Bill violently. “Tell me exactly what happened!”

“They came out of nowhere! The Metalloids, they just appeared!  We were up in the mountains. I tried to fight them, but I punched one and nothing happened. Then the black Metalloid took a swing at me and everything slowed down. It felt like I could still move at normal speed, but they were all in slow motion. I dodged, but they kept coming at me, so I ran! I thought the others were right behind me so I didn’t stop until I got back here. I didn’t know I left them behind!”

Damien wasn’t sure if the sound he let loose was a growl or a groan or a scream, but it was loud. “Adrien! I need more grenades!”

“Why?” Adrien called from the shuttle where she was still working.

“Bill left the others out there and I need to go after them!”

“The hell you do, it’s nearly dark!”

“This is not negotiable, dammit!”

“The hell it is!”

“I’m going after her!”

“Her?” Adrien screamed. “What do you mean her? We’re missing three people and you’re talking about a her?”

Damien ground his teeth. “I promised Phoenix I would keep her safe.”

“Tough titties!” Adrien shot back. “You shouldn’t have made a promise you couldn’t keep!”

“I’m going, dammit!”

“The hell you are!”

“Just try and stop me!” Damien turned to tell Bill to lead him back to where he had lost the others when something hard hit him in the back of the head. He turned to see Adrien standing on the shuttle ramp with another hunk of metal in her hand.

“I swear to God the next one will explode when it hits you!”

“What is wrong with you?”

“YOU! You who were so God-damn impersonal before and now someone is missing that you give a damn about! You need to stop, think about this rationally, and realize that there is nothing we can do to help the others because they are already infected.”

“I won’t believe that.”

“Bill said that he left them in the middle of an ambush by the Metalloids. Get it through your thick, iron skull that they are dead! We need to fix the shuttle, get back to the starship, and get the hell back to Earth!”

“Then stay and fix it! Bill and I are going!” Damien grabbed Bill by the ear and started dragging him until he followed.

“Dammit, wait!” Adrien shouted. She had grabbed Benji by the elbow and thrown a satchel over her shoulder.

“Coming after all?”

“Someone needs to watch your back and I sure as hell don’t trust Bill to do it.”

Bill led them back through the darkness up into the mountains. He stopped on a short plateau and shrugged. “This is where they attacked us.”

Damien studied the multitude of tracks crisscrossing the area. “There are two sets of tracks leading away from the plateau. One goes this way.” He pointed to the west, down into a valley. “And the other goes this way.” He pointed north, farther up the mountain.

“Which way do we go?” Bill asked.

“You and Benji follow the tracks down into the valley. Adrien and I will head up the mountain.”

“And if we lose the trail?” Bill gulped nervously.

Damien clenched his iron fist. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Right! Off we go, come on Benji!” Bill grabbed Benji by the elbow and led him off down into the valley.

Adrien and Damien followed the other trail north towards the mountain’s peak.

“So what the hell crawled up your ass, you and Phoenix have some kind of thing going on? I find that highly ironic after your rant at me about my brother and Larissa.”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Then why the hell am I up here in the mountains in the dark with you?”

“I told you, I promised her I’d get her through this safely!”

“Why in the hell would you do that? I wouldn’t promise another person I could get them down the stairs safely!”

“You don’t understand!” Damien shouted.

“Hence my desire for you to explain your seemingly irrational actions to me!” Adrien shouted back.

“I have left men to die on thirteen worlds! I swore, swore! That I would never do that again, but I broke that promise on Dunbar. I watched ninety percent of my command die, and for what? So I could lose yet again!”

Adrien cocked her head to the side, perplexed. “Lose? The Union won the Battle of Dunbar.”

“That I know all too well.”

Adrien gasped. “You were a Free Alliance soldier, a rebel!”

“We were fighting for our freedom. Earth was small, distant, and arrogant. I had never seen the place, what right did they have to order me about? That was how I felt before my homeworld was destroyed by their nuclear missiles. After that, I fought for vengeance. In the end though, the Free Alliance killed more of its own soldiers than Earth did with its Super-Soldier program. I could never understand why I was always being given a new crop of fresh recruits just when I had gotten my old squad battle-hardened.” Damien shook his head sorrowfully. He had thought he was over these feelings, but here they came, back to the surface, gushing out once more. “My squad was always rotated back to Dunbar for ‘additional training!’ The Alliance was trying to mutate them into Super-Soldiers! I sent my men home for what I thought was some well-deserved R & R, but they were being sent back to labs where science-types like you were torturing them to death!”

“The Alliance leaders, they say they went mad at the end of the war,” Adrien muttered.

“Of course they say that! Earth would say anything to demonize its enemies!” Damien shouted. “But they leave out the fact that they nuked half a dozen habitable planets and about three billion people before the Alliance became desperate enough to launch the Super-Soldier program! And do you know what haunts me at night? I would have done the same thing! I would have sacrificed thousands to try and turn the tide of the war against an enemy willing to vaporize billions of civilians! So excuse me if I want to finally try and save someone after all these years!”

Adrien stared at him for a moment. Eventually, she said, “What the hell are you waiting for?” Then she continued up the mountain, following the trail.

“Why don’t you go back and keep working on the shuttle?” Damien asked as he began walking again.

“Because you don’t get to give a speech like that without inspiring at least one person to follow you anywhere.”

“You’re the only person who can fix the shuttle. You should go back. If I die then you guys are on your own to survive without the guy who used to run around with a gun every day, but if you die, then the others are dead unless they survive to see the rescue team arrive; which I highly doubt they can do without either of us.”

Adrien kept walking.

“Well, don’t you have a witty response?”

“Do you see that?”

Damien started to ask, “What?” before he saw it. A blacker than black hole in the mountainside. “What is it?” He asked.

“I’m guessing we’ll find out once we’re inside.”

Damien followed Adrien down into the tunnel that appeared to have its walls made entirely out of the black Metalloid ooze that composed their vicious attackers.

*

Black metallic ooze dripped constantly from the roof of the tunnel. The walls writhed and squirmed. With each step they took the floor reached up feebly to grab at their shoes. The tendrils of Metalloid ooze seemed unable to latch onto them and spread the way it did when spreading from an infected person to a fresh victim.

“It must need a host to have any real strength,” Adrien said nervously.

“Good to know, but the Metalloids have still reformed after being blown up a lot faster than we thought they would.”

“That’s true,” she admitted glumly. “Do you think the Captain has been infected yet?”

“I wouldn’t bet on him not being infected. Hang on!” Damien thought he saw something move in the darkness ahead, but when he looked again there was nothing but ooze.

“Damien?”

“Yes?”

“Was there a tunnel leading off to the right when we went past?” She pointed at the wall about ten feet behind them.

Damien frowned. “No, there wasn’t.”

“What do we do? Can we leave some kind of trail to find our way back?”

Damien shook his head. “We keep going. The slime on the walls can’t hurt us and being out in the forest in the dark is no safer than being down here.”

Adrien nodded. “Lead the way, then.”

They made their way down deeper into the cave. As they moved through the tunnels, the tunnels began to shift more violently. Forks in the tunnel started to appear and they had to decide whether to go left or right. Sometimes caverns appeared with four or more possible exits that closed and opened as they watched.

“Have you seen any sign that the others were down here?”

Damien shook his head. “I don’t know how I could with the floor moving like this.”

It was when Damien entered one of the caverns that the tunnel abruptly closed behind him with Adrien on the other side.

“Adrien!” Damien shouted as he pounded on the wall as hard as he could. His hand went into the wall and slid back out, but when he tried to walk through the wall it pushed him back out. His heart began to beat faster.

“Calm down, Damien,” a deep voice rumbled from behind him.

Damien turned to see the source of the voice. It was a nine foot tall, hulking man-shaped mass of Metalloid ooze. “Move this wall so I can get to Adrien!”

The Metalloid laughed. “Iron Metalloids are always so angry and stubborn. I assure you, there is no cause for alarm.”

“No cause for alarm? My people are missing, I don’t know if they’re alive or dead!”

“And yet, here you are fighting for them against astounding odds.”

“You’re damn right I’m fighting for them! And you’re going to hand them over right now!”

The Metalloids chuckled at the implied threat. “Or what?”

“Or this!” Damien threw himself at the giant creature, punching and kicking. The iron had spread to cover both arms, his entire torso, and most of his legs down to the knees. Each blow was incredibly powerful, he felt three times as strong as he had when he fought Matilda. Chunks of black ooze flew everywhere, but the Metalloid just laughed as it took the punches without offering any resistance.

“I’ll give you one thing, iron has strength. Of character and physical strength. That’s why she wants you.”

That last part took Damien aback. “She?”

It nodded its massive head. “Our queen. Our master. Our creator.”

“And this creator of yours, she wants me for what exactly?”

“She is meant to rule over all creation. You are meant to serve her. You are honored above all of your companions for the opportunity she has offered you to be first among her servants!”

“And if I refuse?” Damien chose his words carefully. A plan was forming.

The Metalloid chuckled again. “Can you refuse to let the sun rise or set? She is a force of nature now. There is no refusing, only service.”

“Very well,” Damien said happily. “I will serve your queen as soon as I know that my people are safe. Particularly Phoenix.”

The Metalloid drew itself up menacingly. “You demand payment?”

“No, no, nothing like that!” Damien told it soothingly. “What I meant is that I will be a poor servant if I am distracted by the worry that my companions are missing.”

Damien did not have time to duck as the Metalloid swung its gargantuan fist at his face. He was lifted off the ground and sent flying end over end to crash into the cavern wall.

“You deceiver! You scum! You are not worthy of the honor she has heaped upon your worthless head!”

Damien leapt to his feet to defend himself. He threw a punch at the Metalloid, but the thing was so huge that it didn’t slow down at all. It grabbed Damien’s shoulder and tossed him across the cavern as though he were a doll.

Damien hit the cavern wall hard and slumped to the floor. For as strong as Damien had become since the iron fused to him, this Metalloid was ten times stronger than he was. Fighting Matilda had been so effortless, but now Damien was certain he was going to die.

Still, he struggled to his feet to face this nine foot Metalloid.

“Good, very good,” the Metalloid said gloatingly. “Face your death with some dignity. Perhaps that will in some small way redeem you for tossing aside the greatest honor imaginable.”

“I’ve seen thousands die. Maybe tens of thousands. And do you want to know the one thing I’ve learned about death?”

“Enlighten me,” its booming voice dripping with condescension.

While the Metalloid had its guard down to better insult him, Damien threw himself forward, puncturing its chest with his iron fists, and tearing outward.

The Metalloid screamed and thrashed as the top half of its torso toppled backwards to the cavern floor.

“The one thing,” Damien said in between deep gasps for breath, “that I’ve learned about death,” he tried to stand, but fell right back down, “is that you should never give it the opportunity to take you by surprise!”

His back felt like one giant bruise from where he had hit the wall and his face was throbbing from the beating he had taken. Damien had no doubt that the Metalloid would have killed him. Then Damien saw something that made him wish he had let the Metalloid kill him quickly.

The Metalloid was reforming. It had been just lying there as though dead, but now it had started to pull itself back together.

Every muscle screamed at him as Damien stood once more to fight an enemy he had no hope of defeating.

“You give good advice,” the Metalloid said calmly. Then it backhanded Damien viciously across the face.

Damien hit the wall and landed hard. He tried to rise, but his body failed him.

Purple spots still sprinkling his vision from the last blow, Damien watched as the Metalloid picked him up and flung him at the ceiling. What hurt worse, hitting the ceiling or falling with a crash back to floor, Damien wasn’t quite sure.

It picked him up by the foot and began to spin. Around and around and around it went. Then it let go and Damien careened into the cavern wall head first.

Blood pouring from his mouth and nose, Damien’s head swam. He had no idea whether or not he was still conscious, or even if he was still alive. The pain had stopped. Everything seemed to have stopped. The whole world was fading to black.

Then Kendra stepped into his vision and smiled at him.