The Trojan's Betrayel

Chapter One: Ground Zero

Smoke rose from the wreckage of a transport ship. An hour ago, it had been on a routine space flight, until it was hit by the tail of a comet. Twisted metal and debris left a mile long trail to the site of impact. The main part of the ship lay upside down in a crater with its nose buried in a pile of dirt. Its belly was dark and scorched, with the landing gears and tail end torn off and left behind.

In the remains of the bridge a woman drew in a shuddering breath as she recovered consciousness. She was the ships pilot; she had made the difficult attempt of crashlanding on this planet. It was a nightmare that she had only dreamed and hoped would never come true. Polly shifted her hands and did a quick mental check of her body to make sure there were no broken bones. She froze when she thought she heard movement before quickly punching the button of her seatbelt on her chest. She dropped like a rock to what she could only assume was the ceiling. The ship must have rolled and slid to a halt upside down. That was going to make navigating the wreck even more interesting. She grunted as she lay stunned for a moment where she’d dropped then carefully sat up.

Flickering lights gave her a little bit of illumination, casting shadows but also allowing her to see a little as she crawled amongst twisted metal and tangled wiring. She moved her hands around, wanting to find a weapon of some kind. She felt a little naked without something to protect her. She knew that the weapons would all be locked up in the armoury. It was protocol for such freight ships as this to keep weapons out of sight. They weren’t military, so it wasn’t necessary to have one on a person all the time. During her search she came across a body and a lot of sticky fluid that coated her hands. This sent a chill down her spine. She refused to think it was blood; she had to be positive in this. Though the fact that she hadn’t seen or heard any of her crewmembers since she’d woken up was making her feel scared. When the body didn’t move, she crawled on. She couldn’t stop; there wasn’t much she could do for a fellow dead crewman other than mourn their loss.

A low groan drew her attention, it came from her right. If the ship had been the right way up, she guessed that the sound came from where the captain’s chair would have been. Polly nearly fell face first onto another body she came across, this one moved though. It scared the life of her as a hand grabbed at her elbow, causing a shriek to escape her lips.

“Shhhh!”

She recognised that voice, it was the captains. She grasped at that hand that held so tightly to her own and felt wetness. “You’re hurt.” Her voice was husky and strained from fear. She looked up and around herself. “I need to get to a med kit.”

“No…. gotta set off the distress beacon. Over to the far wall. Pull down the lever.” The captain pointed with a shaking finger before passing out.

Polly put her ear to his chest and breathed a little easier when she was able to make out a slight heartbeat. She wasn’t alone yet, that motivated her to crawl to the far wall he had pointed at. She had to half climb up the wall to reach for the lever. Due to wet fingers, she slipped the first three times she tried to get a grip. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she muttered quietly to herself and reached for the lever one more time. Curling fingers around it, she pulled with all her might and felt it slowly give way and lower down until there was a click. She slid down the wall and slumped down unto her bottom weeping. She could feel it, the soft vibration of the distress beacon as it unleashed its SOS call for help. She had to hope that help would come before anything terrible happened here. Her heart began to settle into a steadier rhythm. Perhaps now things would turn out ok. She had a small slither of a chance to survive this crash.

Polly then realized she didn’t even have a clue as to where they were. She was going to have to see if she could get the nav chart working to find out the crash site location. At the sound of the captain groaning, she remembered she wanted to find a med kit. It was time to shake herself out of her self-pity and try to do some good. She looked up and around herself, it was so dark she could barely see her hand in front of her face. That could be fixed right? The emergency lights should have come on! Polly had to think as she dug into a small pouch on her hip. She pulled out a little torchlight that she always carried on her person. It was for whenever the ship had a power outage which happened on occasions due to its age. Polly guided the beam around the trashed bridge. It was odd that she was currently sitting on the ceiling so that meant all the consoles were just barely out of reach above her head. Of course, she could always use the wiring, or adjust the twisted bits of metal to form makeshift ladders at the various consoles. That gave her the idea to try and reach her own console. None of the consoles seemed to have taken much damage thankfully. It was just the power grid that was fluctuating as usual. Of course, there would be other problems, the hull she figured had been breached and the engines most likely destroyed. With the guidance of the torchlight, she picked her way forward to her seat and then pushed and pulled some metal until it would allow her to climb up half-hazardly to reach her console. She had to read the screen upside down but found what she was looking for as she brought up the schematics of the ship and then looked for the damage report.

It was as she had thought, the ship was not going to fly again. In fact, it seemed to have broken into pieces upon impact. The bridge and main part of the ship however was all together from what she could tell. She studied the screen a little longer before her neck started to hurt from the angle, she was having to look at it from. She then activated the emergency lights, orange and red lights started to flicker throughout the ship. That gave the bridge a bit more light. She could now see the damage to the whole bridge. There were some bodies laying scattered about on the ceiling below from where she currently was perched. It was the majority of the flight crew. They all seemed dead other than the captain, which jolted her from her current thoughts. She needed to find the med-kit now that she could see her way around. She climbed back down and moved around the bridge carefully, shining the torchlight into hard to see corners as she searched. Then she saw it, the red cross on white symbol. She reached the wall and shifted some broken furniture so she could climb up to the med kit panel. She broke open the little door and dragged the small bag out then slung it over her shoulder. Polly carefully climbed back down to the ceiling and started to make her way towards where the captain lay groaning.

On her way a sudden movement caused her to jerk and look sharply to her left. Someone had moved and was slowly sitting up, clutching hands to their head. Polly froze in place as her heart raced wildly before a slightly crazy little smile appeared on her lips as it fully sank in that she had found another crewmember alive. She hurried over to them, to help them in their disorientated state. “Hi, you alright?”

“What happened?” the young man asked, taking shaking hands down from his face, there was some blood caked to the side of his face, and it had turned a bit of his blond hair strawberry in color. “Did we hit something?” he asked confused.

“Not sure, I got emergency power up and my nav charts. Think we clipped the tail of a comet.” Polly sighed and pushed a few strays of hair from her eyes. “Maybe you could look at the nav chart and tell me what planet we landed on?” she pointed over towards where the captain lay. “I found the captain, he’s injured so I’m going to check on him. Want me to check yours?” she frowned as she brushed some hair back from his brow to reveal a nasty gash.

“Go see to the captain. I’ll be fine.” He assured her and slowly pushed himself to his feet. He made his careful way over towards her makeshift ladder to her piloting console and clambered up it then started to study the map.

An odd noise made her freeze sharply. It sounded like scratching at the bulkhead on the outer exterior of the ship. Fear caused her to crawl the rest of the way over to the captain, she had to find a safe place to hide. A place where they could wait out the arrival of help if it would ever arrive. She grabbed the captain by his wrists and dragged him towards his office. She could only hope that the door would slide shut once they were inside. She carefully lay him by his upturned desk and then turned to head back to the door when she froze. Framing the doorway was a towering creature that was almost indescribable in her mind’s eye. It had eight legs and an abdomen that was attached to a human seeming torso and deformed head. Eight gleaming red eyes stared at her hungrily. Her mouth parted and a scream tore into the air as she felt as if she could not more. The creature took a step forward and then shuddered as shots were fired which made Polly scream even louder. She thought she was going to faint as the beast staggered back, finally she was unfrozen and lunged towards the door to punch the panel. The door shuddered and hissed but slowly it drew closed. She collapsed backwards onto her rear and stared at the door with a horrified expression as the wounded creature threw itself against the door, then hooked claws around the edge of the door before it could close completely. With a feral scream Polly used her booted feet to kick savagely at those claws until the creature was forced to let go. Panting she sat there, then roused herself to crawl over to the captain where he lay. He looked over at her, before grabbing a hold of her hand and pressed the gun into it.

With a shaking hand she took the weapon then glanced towards the door again. It was shut and not opening any time soon. Then she remembered the young man who had been checking the nav map out on the bridge and her heart leapt into her throat. “Brett!” her voice was hoarse from the screaming and she scrambled towards the door again. She had to save Brett! She slapped a hand against a panel to the side of the door and it grudgingly parted open. With the blaster clutched in hand she stepped out and looked slowly around herself.

“Brett?”

The lights were flickering more than usual. She side stepped and slapped the panel on the otherside of the door, making it close. She didn’t want that thing getting anywhere near the captain. Crouching down she worked her way amongst the debri towards her work station. The sickening sound of crunching bones drew her gaze to the makeshift ladder. The creature that the captain had wounded had Brett by the waist and was biting into his left shoulder. His head dangled back at an odd angle that denoted the neck had been snapped. Polly planted a bloodied hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming again. Her entire body shuddered from fear and horror of the situation. That thing was eating one of her crewmembers! There was nothing she could do for him, the icy realization ran through her veins. Slowly she began to retreat back towards the captains office. When the thing turned its head and locked all eight beady eyes on her. It parted its maw and showed off it’s bloodied teeth at her.

With a scream Polly flung herself at the doors, slapping the panel as she did so. The door groaned and at first wouldn’t open. She banged on it a few times with a fist, while looking wildly over her shoulder as the creature dropped Brett’s now limp body and started to slink towards her. With her heart racing in her ears, she kicked the door again, before it finally opened wide enough for her to slid inside. She then spun around and slapped the panel again to make the door close. She backed up, clutching the blaster with both hands as she raised it and pointed it at the door that was still struggling to close.

The creature finally reached it, and glared at her, it reached to grip either side of the doors and strained to try and force the doors to open, but the doors made a grating sound and closed a little bit more. It growled, snarling in annoyance, then pointed a finger at her, parting it’s maws it spoke in Bretts voice. “Come out here and help me, Polly. We need to fix the nav control system.”

“No!” she screamed and fired several times at the creature, hitting it a couple of times in the face and it’s clawed hands. It yanked its hands free, clutching at its face. In doing so the doors hissed fully shut.

Polly slowly lowered the blaster, her hands were visibly shaking and she was hyperventilating.

“Polly.”

The hoarse whisper from the captain broke through to her, making her swing around and point the blaster now at him.

“It’s ok Polly.” He held up a hand and motioned her towards him. “Put the blaster down. Its gone and you’re safe.” He coaxed gently.

Polly blinked sweat and tears out of her eyes. She sniffled and rubbed the back of her hand against her nose. She looked at the blaster she was still clutching in her other hand and carefully set it down on the ground. “I’m sorry.” She managed to say after a moment. She wiped her hands as clean as possible on her jumpsuit then knelt beside the captain and inspected his condition. They were safe in the captain’s office for the time being. She glanced around and saw the blankets from a nearby cabinet laying in a pile nearby. Rising she moved to gather them up and draped them over the injured man before finding the pillows and slid them under his head. She set the med kit on the ground and carefully opened the captain’s shirt to inspect his wounds. It seemed he had some shrapnel and was probably suffering a broken leg. She gave him a hypo spray to ease his pain before she started cleaning at the wounds.

“It’s going to be ok lass.” Murmured the captain as he seemed to drift out of unconsciousness for a few moments and gave her a tired little smile. “They’ll come to find us.”

Polly sniffled as she worked, throwing aside bloodstained cloth, and focusing on removing what shrapnel she could see before she began to carefully apply the bandages. “How can, you be sure?”

“The S & R have had our backs for many years. They are good at their job, got the best on their teams to search and rescue ships that end up like us.” The captain winced slightly and grunted as she finished dressing his wounds. “Looks like you managed to pay attention to your first aid courses.”

“Not just a pilot sir.” She managed a weak little smile then froze at the sound of a dull thud against the door. Her head snapped up to stare at it again as her whole body tensed.

“Easy…” came the soft mutter. “They smell your fear. As long as you stay in here, they can’t get at you.”

Polly wiped sweat from her eyes and looked down at the captain. “What do you mean? Do you know what that thing is?”

He licked dry lips before speaking huskily. “Don’t know what they are called, but I’ve heard of them. Bug men that can mimic the voices of your loved ones. They’ll bait you to come out from safety then tear you to pieces the moment you set foot out that door.” He sighed heavily. “Whatever you do, don’t go out that door.”

Polly sighed heavily and nodded her head. “Yes sir.” Though her next concern was food and water. How was she going to get those if she couldn’t leave the captain’s office. She finished making the captain comfortable then carefully shoved the broken desk aside before rummaging in the cabinet and pulled out some more blankets and pillows to make herself a bed as well. Right now, she needed to sleep and then she’d think of how to outsmart whatever was out there in the ship and on this planet.

“So we just wait for the S & R to show up?” She asked as she got herself comfortable next to the captain.

“Yes.” Came his mumble. “They are the best at what they do.” He turned his head to look at the young blonde haired woman and reached to lightly pat her hand reassuringly. “You wait, the Trojan will be in orbit and this will be nothing more than a bad dream.” He coughed for a few minutes, spitting out some blood before she helped him to get comfortable again on the makeshift bed. “They’ll be here.” He repeated softly before passing out.