The Evergreen Files: Banshee; Book One
Chapter Twenty

Lyra breathed heavily against Solomon’s neck as the turrets searched for her and the others. Only his flesh and blood protected her from death. The whining of the mechanics of the turret arm increased in tempo as it searched more drastically and then suddenly spun back on itself, Solomon took in a sharp breath as he just caught a glimpse of a shadow dash across the threshold of the corridors end, and then another. Four shadows passed, well within range of the defence weapon, but it ceased to fire, it searched frantically, but remained silent.

A yelp came from Sykra, Lyra almost jumped out of Solomon’s protection in fear of the surprise, “What?” demanded Solomon, too afraid to turn his head, “A hole!” cried out Sykra in reply, the turret spun back quickly to search for something to shoot at, Solomon moved his body to cover more of the area behind him. The turret soon repeated its action responding to another shadow dashing across the corridor. “he means an inspection vent!” called Lyra, almost matching Sykra’s excitement “Can you reach it, without getting shot?” asked Solomon, trying to hide the fear of losing her in his voice. Taking great care to not attract a projectile from the defence turret, Lyra and Sykra worked to free the wall of the vent cover, to reveal a wide work space that ten people could fit inside easily, all but Solomon climbed into the temporary safety the metal service inspection box supplied them, and Solomon once confident that they were safe would make his way to the bridge, keeping an eye out of the shadows. Solomon assumed they were crew of The Evergreen, but why didn’t they help him? Once the group was safe inside, Solomon grabbed the vent cover from the floor, keeping an eye on the twitching defence turret as it spun following ghosts around its vision sphere, kneeling to meet Lyra’s eye, he froze. Her beautiful eyes, bright and loving penetrated his soul, every ounce of fear, hatred and anguish faded as he lost himself within her perfect eyes. Solomon stole a kiss. He felt his heart rise beyond any speed he had ever felt on any battlefield, any good, or wrong decision. Her felt her soft silk lips brushed his rough chin as she playfully bit the tip. Solomon felt himself overwhelmed, only to see an awkward Sykra whistling absently and looking everywhere but their way. “Right, gotta go pull the plug.” Solomon said with a sigh, nodding to the abashed Sykra, and set off down the darkened hall, sparks illuminating his path as he scanned the shadows as he disappeared into the void of the corridor.

The echo of Lyra pulling the vent covering into place bounced around the metal corridor, making the foot falls of the shadowed people hard to follow, Solomon thought to call out for a moment, before having second thoughts of who he would be calling out to. Were they crew from The Evergreen?

Solomon pushed the bloodied corpse of a creature that supported itself on sixteen writhing tentacles from the door to the bridge that it had propped itself up against to die. It slumped to the metal grated floor lifelessly. The door was sealed. “SolGord1131” he commanded at the unmoving metal, after a frustrating minute, Eve’s voice flooded the bloodied and stained Corridor “Welcome Lieutenant Commander Gordon.” and the door slowly ground open, the noise, no doubt echoing throughout the broken vessel, attracting anything with any hunting sense to his position. As the door reached roughly a quarter of the way open, Solomon was greeted by a volley of bullets. Somebody was in the Bridge and firing a weapon on full auto at him. One round found a home in the flesh of his upper arm. Yelling out in pain as the force and surprise pushed him back, tripping over one of the tentacles from the dead creature, the gunfire ceased at the cry of pain. “No further!” cried out a fearful voice from inside the room. Solomon took the minute of tense silence to check the wound. Just a flesh wound, went straight through, taking a little more skin and muscle than he felt comfortable parting with. Taking his belt off, with a jingle of the metal on the grated floor, he proceeded to tie it as a tourniquet around the bulk of his arm, just below the shoulder joint to slow the blood flow to allow it to clot and begin healing with the powder he sprinkled on, and then looked up at the quarter opened door.

“I don’t suppose you have any bandages in there, do you?”

“Don’t come any closer!”

“No? Well that’s a bit of a let down. Is my whiskey still in one piece inside my chair?”

“Don’t even try it! I’ll kill... what? whiskey?”

Solomon smiled as he heard the individual break off his scared threats, and then pressed again.

“Listen, Sergeant. I just need a bandage, and maybe a drink.”

“Ok... Ok... I’ll throw you out a bandage! Just leave me alone!”

Solomon smiled.

“Oh... and one minor, tiny little thing... could you disable the auto defence system please?”

There was a pause as the stupidity of the request sunk into the individuals mind.

“Piss off! That thing is keeping me alive!” came the answer from inside the room, Solomon sighed, got to his feet and knocked on the bent and half open door, “Look, I’m not asking for a miracle here Theo. The system is damaged and is attacking everything that is not confirmed as identified crew of The Evergreen. Now, I Know you’re Theo Richmond, a Sergeant in one of The Judgement’s companies...”

“Meaning?” spat the voice, frustration was obvious.

“Meaning, the second you step out of this room without disabling it, you’re dead. The turret out here is searching for you” Solomon spoke as a matter of fact. The man’s options were limited. “I’m OK, because I have a valid I.D., you don’t. And neither do my friends because theirs is damaged, so be a good sport, and turn it off, so I don’t have to clean yours and their brains off the wall later.”

After a pain staking minute of silence, Solomon’s ears pricked up, picking up the hint of movement at his rear, and at the same time, the distinct sound of a round entering the chamber of the defence turret and the explosion of the round as the firing pin made contact and the projectile soared through the still dank air of the wrecked ship to replace its new home in the chest cavity of something truly horrifying.

Solomon caught a glimpse of the shiny skin as it reflected and glistened in the light created from the muzzle flash and saw teeth. Hundreds of teeth, the sheer size of the creature brought many doubts into his mind, making him second guess his own ability to detect something sneaking up on him. Question after question quickly ran through his shocked mind. How did he not hear it? How did it get so far without triggering a defence turret? What the actual fuck is it?

The beast let out a shrill, nerve splitting roar, sounding as a chorus from ten beasts instead of the single one that Solomon saw in the flash of light. When he saw the defence turret let out a volley of projectiles as the single bullet did not put the thing down, Solomon saw it charge, moving as a stop motion figure through the muzzle flash and darkness, charging and ripping the gun from its mounting. Solomon cared not if the man on the other side of the door had a gun, he fancied his chances more with him, than this creature of teeth.

Slipping through the half open door, Solomon smashed his shoulder against the metal and pushed with all his might. The damaged hunk of metal slowly began to grind its way back to its closed position, His heart racing from the appearance of the creature and the obvious sound of the defence turret becoming a small junk pile, he managed to get the door mostly closed before the wretched creature could force its arm through the opening. The limb had a red skin, as horribly muscled as an extreme body builder, it had circles of small bone spikes protruding from the skin in strange gruesome symmetrical circles all the way up the length of the forearm that forced its way through the gap.

A cry of anger rushed towards Solomon as he put more force into closer the door. As the cry came closer, Solomon made out the dirty torn form of a man, ramming a knife into the flesh of the muscled arm, a shrill cry out of pain and hatred erupted, abruptly silenced by the slamming of the metal door.

“Thanks.” said Solomon breathing heavily, his heart returning to a normal pace. “Theo.” replied the man as he slapped the hull of the door for good luck before walking away and dropping himself in Kyrils chair. “No. choose another one.” commanded Solomon sourly, and Theo removed himself from the previous commanding captains chair. Solomon looked around the Bridge, vast tangles of wiring hung from the ceiling, looking like tumour growths. Panelling hand fallen from the ceiling and most of the terminals sparked with shorted electrics or lay dead and silent. It took Solomon only a minute to replace the midnight blue coat covering a body in the corner. He knew instantly that Kyril lay beneath the coat covering. “Found him over the helm. Must have been the only one aboard.” explained Theo. Solomon simply grunted in acknowledgement and would say no more as his brain returned into a stage of mourning for the corpse of the father figure he would so dearly miss.

The two men stood for a moment, Solomon reminiscing of the conversation of old from this room, Theo slowly rocked on the soles of his feet, like an anxious child awaiting a parents approval.

Solomon, considering his options, approached the command console that was home to the internal defence systems and pressed the blinking red button to turn them off, hearing the tell tale signs of the system winding down and an electronic sigh, he turned and made his way to his chair, taking care not to disturb the broken glass and electrical components on the floor as he stepped down the tiers to where his leather chair still stood tall. Theo asked what he was doing, a question Solomon didn’t respond to before opening the rear of his chair, liquid poured out and soaked the floor as a powerful odour of whiskey flooded the room, quickly followed by Solomon cursing aloud. After a minute or so of rummaging through the broken bottles that once contained various alcohol, he found an unmarked, unopened bottle. “Of course. Which other could it be.” said Solomon to himself. “Sorry?” asked Theo as he came closer to see what Solomon was doing and had an empty tumbler glass pushed into his hand when he reached Solomon’s side. Solomon took two more and walked over to Kyril’s body, and sat on the floor next to him, his tired knee’s cracking and he lowered himself with a groan. “Getting old, ay.” muttered Solomon to himself with a smirk, and poured out two generous measures of the honey yellow liquid and then gestured to Theo to come closer, and filled his glass up too. “To Captain Kyril Sinderman. May others command as good and fair as he did.” moving the glass in a motion fit to toast with before draining more than half of the measure, Theo did the same with a sympathetic smile as he saw Solomon pour the contents of the third glass over the carpet next to the body of Kyril. Solomon sniffed and went deep into thought. Forgetting the three survivors in the air vent and focused desperately on fond memories between him and Kyril.

Theo broke the silence first. “So, what did you mean by when you picked up the bottle?” Solomon looked blankly at him for a moment before snapping back to reality. “Oh. He bought me this” be said gesturing to the coat covering Kyril’s face, “when I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander of The Evergreen and joined his crew, all those years ago, and only it survived the crash that took his life.” They both nodded in reflection and Theo savoured the drink, oak and honey, he wasn’t used to whiskey and didn’t like it much, but this was extremely to his preference. Then came a polite knock at the sealed bridge door. “Excuse me, gentlemen. It’s all very sweet, but, allow me to introduce myself officially. Hello. My name is Zhou, and I’m going to kill you.”

Theo quickly set aside his glass and pointed his weapon at the door that remained sealed. Solomon seemed not to notice. Theo had to make one of three choices:

Smart talk them, pretend to be confident enough to kill them instead.

Try talk peacefully with them, try make them leave.

Ignore them entirely and pretend they was not there.

He chose the latter option.

“Nobody home? Huh, I guess I didn’t hear voices then… I don’t suppose you’ll mind if we leave a package here for you then, how does nerve gas sound?” came Zhou’s voice gleefully through the reinforced steel. Theo looked around frantically, easily spotting the airtight seal has been bent on the door, and the gas could simply pass through and into their room, panic began to set in and then a slow steady beep began to transmit from the defence station. Theo approached it, ignoring the still drinking Solomon who seemed oblivious. The screen Theo found himself at showed a security clip taken from a camera with a motion sensor down the corridor from the bridge door, flagging up non-crew motion, fully expecting to see members of the party outside saw only the corridor but then he saw something on the floor amongst the rubble. His knife. The knife he had planted in the creatures arm. Another beep, another camera came into view closer to the bridge, this video clip came in slightly hazy and fuzzed a little, but the creature was unmistakable. Red skin, rows and ringlets of teeth flexing from its pulsing jaw that seemed more like an oozing open wound than a mouth. It was coming for the bridge. “wow, she looks pissed off.” said Solomon with a tone that was matter of fact, he was swirling his drink with a drawn face and took another sip of the whiskey. “I don’t suppose we best tell our new friends about the Mrs, shall we? Might as well let the old girl have some fun first, before we have to put her down.” Continued Solomon, Theo blinked, losing a little bit more of his resolve with each passing second, he could only manage one question. “That thing’s female?” he stammered, Solomon drained the last remnants of his glass, “Probably. It has the attitude of one.” he said reaching for the bottle, “Hang on lads!” he called out to the party of pirates outside the door, “Just let me fill up my glass, one last drink for the road, ay?” he heard the pirates chuckle at his bravado and Zhou giving orders to get the canisters ready. “Yes, yes my friend, you have one last drink! But don’t empty the bottle, I might enjoy one myself after I pry it from your dead hands.”

Solomon checked the ammunition in his clip and reloaded his final magazine into the slot of his assault rifle, and then, the screams came.

No gunfire followed, but the crunching sounds of breaking bones soon reached the ears of the two soldiers awaiting their fate inside the bridge. The thuds of the bodies being thrown around like rag-dolls came to a sickening end as the creature came to be satisfied with the kills and let out another chorus of screaming roars to signify its kills. Theo swallowed hard, his hands beginning to shake, the attachment tassels and strap on his scavenged weapon rattled slightly. Solomon made to silence the noise but was too late. The creature had made the connections.

Noise behind door? Must be tasty food.

The bashing of its massive frame against the bent reinforced door soon became the only noise the two men could hear. Theo looked desperately at Solomon to miraculously come up with a plan to save them both, but instead, found their sanctuary. The door bent a little more. It wouldn’t hold forever.

“There!” cried Theo as he pointed to the end of the room, his finger shaking with a strange mixture of fear and relief. At the near corner of the room, the wall had fallen in slightly, a large hard object had come through the wall, but very kindly left a gap under its body only just large enough for person to squeeze through. Theo limped over to the hole and flashed a light through it to check outside, Solomon scratched his unshaven chin and thought about the security flaw in the room walls design. The hole was in the wall that Solomon guessed on its position came from the utility closet just a quick left turn from the very door the creature was smashing its mighty body against “It’s clear. I think.” came Theo’s voice in no more than a whisper, and slid through the gap with ease. His dirty torn brown clothing disappearing into the darkness, Solomon thought of the void of space as he gazed into the severe lack of light inside the hole. Another metallic moan from the structure of the door frame as it gave way a little more against the savage bombardment of the creatures brutal slammings. Solomon acted quickly, moving with professional accuracy, he slid his legs into the darkness and pushed his body through the hole, only to be stopped by something. Breath taken away from his lungs with the sudden compression against his chest, his thoughts immediately darted to the large object falling upon him and killing him, but it was sturdily jammed in place. And then the bridge door came slamming into the wall across the room, followed by a red skinned creature growling as it forced its way into the bridge.

‘Designed to withstand thermal warheads fired directly at it.’ he had been told about the bridge door when he came aboard his first space vessel, and this, held against the creature for no more than five minutes.

The thing was haunched over on four limbs, its back seemed curved unnaturally, as if forced together making an outward curve. It hungrily searched the room with its eyes. Like a hunter searching for prey, the eyes darted from dark hiding spots to terminals furthest away from it first. Solomon saw these precious few seconds as a saviour. He knew it would soon search the area of the room it had just come through. He fumbled a little more, trying to squeeze himself through the gap, only to be stopped by a metal clink. His breastplate harness. His blood froze when he realised the growling had stopped.

The creature had heard the metallic noise too, and fell silent. Slowly it turned its massive cranium to face Solomon who lay on his back, only his upper body visible. His hands working quickly to release the harness of his breastplate. The creature moved slowly, taking great care where it placed its monstrously mutated arms. Savouring the build up. Solomon knew what it was doing. And it certainly was. The hunt was over. The prey was caught, and even better, the prey was trapped, and still alive. The thing came within a few feet of Solomon, still struggling with his harness, it greedily sniffed his skin. He felt the warm air flow across his face and under his armour. Suddenly, he jolted across the floor, towards the creature. He felt Theo’s hands grabbing his legs and pushing him out of the gap, and felt the man’s fingers grasp his legs ready to pull him back in. this sudden movement startled the creature and it jumped back with a yelp, which it very quickly showed embarrassment over, and returned to Solomon with new and greater hatred. This movement had given Solomon the space he needed to fix his breastplate clasps and as Theo pulled his body back into the hole, the armour fell away, and into the jaws of the advancing creature. Slipping through the hole and into the utility closet, the cold stale air was fresh against his skin. The creature’s disappointment was clear as it let out another roar and very quickly it’s claws came thrashing through the gap. “This way.” said Solomon as they set off down the corridor, only catching a glimpse of the blood and carnage the creature had left of the pirates. Their bodies had been dressed in a dark grey metallic material, supporting a pattern of hexagons over the entire body of it, only to stop where the creature had torn away the flesh and bone.

The pair made a plan to use the stairs to reach the lower levels where Lyra and the two Gryph remained hidden. They needed ammunition and Theo needed a better weapon, so they made the plan to stop off at the first companies armoury. This did not take long. The route was surprisingly clear. They came across no living creatures, only their bodies.

Soon Solomon came across the familiar sight of his company armoury door. It lay half open, a spark could be seen flashing hungrily with the abrupt crack of discharged electricity. Solomon ventured inside first. Checking the room with his flashlight, feeling exposed and vulnerable without his breast armour. He became very aware of his ever increasing heart rate. Theo followed, and made a direct path to the weapons. The room carried the familiar smell of gun oil and metal polish. Across the far wall stood many personal lockers, most standing with open doors and their contents strewn out at their feet. Bits of rubble littered the floor, and then to Solomon’s surprise, the light flickered to life when he pressed the switch, enlightening the room. As Theo went through the various weapons that now lay on the floor, and replaceing ammunition that went with each one, Solomon found his way to his personal arming chamber, where he kept ammunition for his weapons in locked draws, in the hope that most vigorous movements wouldn’t dislodge the draw and spill the ammunition out. He found a messy station, but the draws were indeed closed. He slid his key into its slot and opened it. To replace another five magazines for himself. And a photo. The picture showed the familiar faces of a young soldier that Solomon had grown attached to, sweaty and red faced, next to General Ken’s daughter. Decius and Sandra. With a sniff, and the build up of grief ever rising, he found a sharp small length of metal to act as a nail and tacked the picture to his wall of lost family. Decius and Sandra both stood tall and proud, smiling with a future of high hopes, much like every other brother and sister that found their way to his wall.