Chapter 4: Myeong & Roco

MYEONG

Myeong grabbed onto the wall with a gasp as the ship rocked. Closing her eyes, she held her breath as the floor swayed.

The lights blinked off, replaced by a flashing red light as the ship finally steadied. Amid a faint beeping noise, she could hear voices ahead.

“Brenda! Juan!” she called. “Wait!”

She sped down the corridor and came upon the trio. They all looked like she felt—powerless and scared. It didn’t make her feel any better. It twisted up her insides.

Alexis looked particularly upset. Tears glistened on her cheeks as she furled and unfurled her hands at her sides. Myeong had seen her and that white Zibon’s passionate kiss as she’d hidden in a dark corner.

~Because I like you too much~.

Myeong glanced down the three corridors. “Where are we going?”

Brenda pointed down the left corridor, Juan down the right.

“Clint’s this way,” Juan said.

“How do you…” Then Myeong realized. ~The bond~. It made her feel even sicker. If she’d been bonded, she’d know exactly where Roco was—and if he was okay. She’d never hated Paul as much as she did right now.

“They’re in trouble,” Brenda said, her voice strained. “~We’re~ in trouble.”

Juan was staring down the right corridor, his gaze growing wider and wider, his face paler and paler.

“Juan?” Myeong said.

He swallowed and gasped, then turned his eyes to Myeong. Myeong’s heart fluttered—he was so white he looked sick.

The ship shuddered again. Myeong fell into Juan, who caught her. The ship steadied again.

“What’s going on?!” she cried.

“Clint!” Juan cried.

Myeong grabbed onto his arm before he could run away. “Where’s Roco?”

He looked furiously at her, then calmed himself. He took her arm. “With Clint—I think. We’ll go together.”

“What about me?” Alexis cried.

“He’s a doctor! Try the hospital!” Brenda called over her shoulder as she raced down the left corridor, her red hair gleaming against the red light.

Clawing his fingers into Myeong’s arm, Juan dragged her after him.

Myeong couldn’t remember running so fast in all her life. Somehow she kept up with Juan, though her thighs were burning and her lungs were aching. How could a ship be so huge? Corridor after corridor—endless blinking lights and dark windows.

Where was everyone? It felt like they were the only ones left on the whole ship. She glanced through the windows but could see nothing that might suggest that they were under attack.

~Under attack~—she couldn’t believe it.

What if he was hurt? What if he was ~dead~?

Roco!

ROCO

Roco kept his weapon steady, trained on the door ahead, even as his heart pounded and his guts tied into a knot. He was one of over a hundred fighters stationed in the holding bay, prepped and waiting. Roco opened and shut his mouth as the scar at the corner of his mouth itched.

“Steady,” came their captain’s voice through Roco’s headset. “Infantry steady. Keep your eyes open. Forcefield in check.”

Yeah. But for how long?

“Radionics, go ahead. Three pulsations.”

Roco planted his feet hard into the floor. Moments later, the ship shuddered as they felt the resulting vibrations of the gravitational barrage. Once, twice, then the lights went out. A couple of fighters staggered, but nobody fell. The red light of their backup generator was flickering.

Roco raised his weapon, staring at the door, waiting for the final word.

“Eighty-nine percent penetration,” the captain spoke. Roco hardened his mouth. Less than average. Eleven percent. It was a large nest.

“Pulsars at the ready,” the captain said.

Roco looked up at the sound of metal sliding against metal as the Wrilings clung to their hull. Roco could visualize them now—like sucking mouths—latching onto their equipment, trying to maul their way through. Like parasites. Like a disease.

“Holding door opening,” the captain said. His voice was hard with tension now as the outer door unlatched. There was a light hiss as some of the ship’s atmosphere sucked out through the lining of the inner door. More scraping of metal against metal as the Wrilings shifted toward the entry point.

Roco steadied his breathing. His grip tightened around the trigger. Myeong’s face flashed in his mind. He couldn’t bear the thought of witnessing her small body being slowly consumed by one of these fucking creatures. The image made his heart pound.

It would never happen. Not while he was still breathing.

A fighter yelled. Several pulsars kicked off as the Wrilings began to seep through the gaps around the door. Roco fired his own pulsar. The Wrilings’ membranous bodies shattered like glass, but they kept coming. Eleven percent—so little and yet so much.

“Back up, back up!” Clint ordered through the headset. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Roco’s weapon vibrated in his hands as he sent pulse after pulse. He gritted his teeth, remembering Myeong’s dark eyes.

MYEONG

“This way!” Juan called.

Myeong ran as fast as she could. The corridors were like a labyrinth. A muscle in her chest twisted. Maybe they were lost. Maybe Juan didn’t really know where he was going at all.

She turned a corner and, with a yell, crashed right into Juan, who was standing in the middle of the corridor. Just ~standing~ there. Myeong staggered but caught herself against the wall. Juan hardly noticed.

“Juan?” Myeong panted. “What’s wrong? Why’ve you stopped—”

She paused. The look on his face was enough to turn her blood cold.

“Juan? What’s happened?”

“I feel strange,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his. “Something—something’s wrong.”

“What?” Myeong croaked, gripping at her throat. “What’s wrong?” She seized his arm. “Come on, we have to keep going!” If there was something wrong with Juan’s alien, then there might be something wrong with Roco. “Juan!”

Her scream seemed to knock some sense into him. He looked at her, though he seemed to gaze straight through her. “Yes. We need to go. Up ahead.”

They ran again. Juan was like a machine now. He was running faster. Too fast. She lost him around the next corner.

“Juan!”

ROCO

“Silo!” Roco bellowed.

Silo jumped backward as a Wriling sprang toward him from the wall, latching onto his breastplate like a strangling squid. It wrapped a tentacle-like appendage around his friend’s arm. Silo shouted.

“Hold!” Roco ordered.

Silo heard, saw him, then flung open his arms, his yellow eyes wide. Roco fired directly at his chest. The pulsar ruptured the organism, tearing it apart into thousands of pieces of frozen shrapnel that fell to the floor like crystals.

Silo was thrown backward.

Roco kept shooting as more and more Wrilings attacked, quiet and deadly but intent, stretching out their long, slippery appendages to incredible distances as they leapt from wall to wall and sometimes to people, evading their shots or bursting into pieces.

Silo scrambled to his feet, clutching at his broken breastplate. With a snarl, he ripped it off. Then he was shooting too.

The Wrilings were everywhere. Roco could already see two Zibons made victims of the Wrilings’ cocooning, crumpled on the floor in fetal positions, their yellow eyes unseeing, a thin translucent membrane covering their faces and chests.

There was nothing Roco could do to help them. He continued with the fight, blasting another and another. They seemed to be winning.

They seemed to be holding them back!

“Eleven percent. Eleven percent. Eleven percent,” he muttered.

Bits of dead Wrilings crunched beneath his boots as he turned his sights toward the ceiling. A Wriling leapt at his face, but Roco nailed it with a single shot, blasting its crystallized remains backward, showering a nearby fighter.

Roco thought he recognized Tor, but it was hard to be sure amid the chaos.

Men were shouting, weapons were blasting. There was so much noise that he could no longer hear the commands of his captain. Roco ripped off his useless headset.

He turned—and that was when he saw the Rictorian. Or at least he thought he did. Clint’s mate? Impossible! The small male.

Roco shook himself and blinked, then stood frozen as the Rictorian rushed into the fray, determined, pale-faced, his mismatched eyes wide with shock.

Roco watched as he skidded to the floor beside one of the fallen. Suddenly, he understood why. The body—its dark hair and angular eyes—it was ~Clint~.

Then, Roco heard a shriek that turned his blood cold. He turned.

“Roco!” Myeong screamed.

It felt as though Roco was in a dream. What was she doing here? This couldn’t be real. Yet, his legs propelled him away from the conflict and toward her.

He seemed to forget that he was supposed to be defending the ship, that he was supposed to be fighting at all. Instead, he skirted and weaved between shooting fighters, his weapon forgotten, the threat behind him ignored.

The noise seemed to reduce to a hum as he raced toward the sweet and beautiful Myeong.

Myeong’s dark, fearful eyes darted around the crowded, chaotic bay as she gripped the wall. Then, her eyes found him. Her face blazed with relief. She even managed a smile.

She raced toward him.

“No, Myeong, stop!” he bellowed.

She obeyed. She turned to look at something over her shoulder. Too late, Roco realized what it was. A stray Wriling! It leapt from the wall straight for Myeong.

“No!”

Myeong thrust out her hands with a shriek, but the Wriling smacked into her, wrapping its tentacle-like appendages around her wrists and throat. It latched onto her face as she staggered.

“No!” Roco bellowed again.

He reached her, skidding to the floor beside her as she collapsed onto her butt. Her fingers sank uselessly into the Wriling’s translucent membrane as she thrashed her head from side to side, trying to yank it free.

Roco didn’t even think. Even as he knew it would be pointless, he tried to pry it loose from her face with his bare hands.

It should have been impossible. Never had it been done before. Yet, the Wriling loosened, twisting around in Roco’s slippery grip. He only had time to raise his arm before it leapt onto him instead.

Myeong’s scream echoed in his ears.