NOVEL NEXT Chapter 92 - The Demon Box
Up ahead, a massive armored bulkhead blocked the corridor. Green control panels glowed beyond the thick viewport glass, and past that, what looked like an airlock. Lights blinked steadily on the other side. Please let that be atmosphere, Luca thought.
The panel beside the door was cracked glass, melted circuits, frozen sparks caught mid-fall like metallic snow. Luca and Zoe waved their hacking pads over it, but even her fancy TL9 unit came up empty.
"Nothing live," Zoe said, which was both good and bad news.
Ryan floated upright then, because the guy couldn't resist a broken gadget. He yanked away a burnt-out casing and started poking at the guts underneath, tracing wires with his gloved fingers.
"Power's cut upstream, but the relays are still connected." Ryan gestured down the corridor with the confidence of someone who definitely hadn't been the one crawling through monster-infested maintenance tunnels lately. "We need to find five pulse points and trigger them in sequence."
"Energy cells?" Emily asked, already reaching for her pack.
"One for each node," Ryan confirmed. "Just enough to wake the system up."
Danny's voice cut through the comms with his usual optimism. "If the door explodes and vaporizes us, I just want it on record that I said this was a terrible plan."
Luca pushed off the wall, floating closer to the bulkhead. "Can't we just pry this thing open?"
"Sure," Ryan said, "if you want it permanently welded shut. Those locking pistons don't fuck around."
Great. Another puzzle. Luca rubbed his visor. "So we're playing hide-and-seek with electrical boxes while floating in a dead ship full of tentacle monsters."
"Pretty much," Zoe said, already drifting toward the far end of the corridor.
The team scattered like they'd done this a hundred times before. Chris's voice crackled over comms from around the bend, casual as ordering coffee.
"Got a nullmaw here." A pause. "Make that three. Actually, four of the bastards."
Blaster fire echoed through the corridor.
"All clear," Chris reported. "Found the first junction box."
[+75,446 XP]
[+27,000 credits]
[Item acquired: Power Cell]
"Target down," Chris said, slightly out of breath but trying to sound cool about it. "Junction box was playing hide-and-seek under a collapsed beam."
Danny's voice came from the opposite direction, muffled by whatever he was crawling through. "Got mine. This baby's ready to party."
Ryan drifted over to where Luca floated, poking at the deck plating as though he were solving the universe's greatest mystery. "Yours drops below deck. Crawlspace between the hull layers."
Behind her visor, Zoe's eyes practically sparkled. "Oh, so you want me to play human snake and find the shiny button."
"That's your entrance," Ryan said, pointing at a floor grate that looked as though it hadn't been opened since the ship was built.
Zoe was already moving, fingers working the release clamps with the enthusiasm of someone who lived for tight spaces. "Five minutes, tops," she said, disappearing between decks.
Of course she's excited, Luca thought. Some people get all the fun jobs.
Still floating near his conduit pile, Luca looked around. "Hold up. What about mine?"
Ryan stepped back, following a wire bundle that climbed the wall. "Straight up. Overhead maintenance crawlspace."
"Up?" Luca's voice cracked slightly. "You're shitting me."
The ceiling grate stared down at him like a metal mouth, all teeth and darkness. He kicked off and floated up anyway, because apparently he was an idiot. The grill was thick, damaged, and absolutely did not want to come loose. He yanked until it finally gave up with a grudging clank.
His light beam stabbed into the gap above. Dark as hell up there. And tight. Real fucking tight. Just a narrow void between the ceiling and whatever sadistic engineer had decided his junction box belonged in the one place that made his skin crawl.
Something moved at the edge of his light. Just a flicker.
"Nope," he whispered to himself. But there's literally no one else who can do this.
His air gauge blinked at him accusingly. The team was counting on him. Five nodes, five idiots, and his happened to be in hell's own maintenance tunnel.
Fuck it.
He took a breath and hauled himself up.
The crawlspace grabbed him immediately, tight walls pressing in from every direction. His helmet scraped the top, his boots dragged the bottom, and his elbows found every sharp edge in between. The only sounds were his own breathing, way too loud in his ears, and the soft crackle of comms static.
I hate this shit. The walls were closing in. Every inch forward was a fight against the voice in his head screaming at him to get out, get out now, before the tunnel decided to become even smaller.
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Heat bloomed under his suit. Sweat was already pooling in uncomfortable places, and an itch crawled down his spine where he couldn't reach it. His left elbow wedged against a frozen conduit. His right wrist got crushed under his own weight.
Designed for maintenance drones, he thought grimly, grunting as he forced himself forward. Not for idiots in armor.
His helmet light bounced across pipes, support struts.
Air: 22%.
Great. Running out of oxygen in a metal coffin. This is exactly how I wanted to spend my day.
A vibration ran through the walls around him, subtle but definitely there.
"Ahh!" The sound escaped before he could stop it, way too high and definitely not the cool, collected voice of a starship captain.
"Luca? What's wrong?" Emily's voice cut through the static, concern bleeding through the comms.
No sound in vacuum, but something had moved nearby. Something big enough to make the whole tunnel shiver.
He stared into the darkness ahead and activated his ability [Heightened Awareness].
The crawlspace lit up in his mind, every detail sharp and clear within ten meters.
Oh, fuck me.
His heart hammered against his ribs. Five red blips lit up his interface: Nullmaws, crouched in the darkness.
"Ryan," he wheezed into comms, "got five hostiles, ten meters out. They're definitely not here to shake hands."
[Target Lock Assist] kicked in, crosshairs dancing over the blips, but he triggered [Steady Aim] anyway. Please don't let the recoil bounce me around like a pinball.
Wedged between floor and ceiling, he braced his knees against the bottom and his shoulder against the top. No room to lean back, no room to dodge, no room to do anything but shoot straight and hope for the best.
"Here goes absolutely nothing," he muttered, his blaster's muzzle against the tunnel roof.
Plasma bolts erupted in a tight burst. The lead Nullmaw jerked sideways, tentacles whipping, while two others melted back into the shadows. Another shot clipped something that used to be an arm.
Two left. Of course, there are two left.
They came at him together because, apparently, these things had watched every horror movie ever made. Tentacles reached for him.
Luca wedged his shoulder harder against the beam, finger shaking on the trigger.
The next burst caught them both. One vaporized in a flash of superheated plasma, the other smeared itself across the hull in a very permanent way.
[+56,584 XP]
[+20,250 credits]
Sweat pooled in his gloves. His interface still painted red warnings around the edges, but the corridor ahead was clear. No more blips. Also no junction box.
"Node's not even here," he wheezed into comms.
"Hang tight," Ryan's voice crackled back. "Zoe's got her floor node sorted. Joey's working the wall panel."
Past the cloud of Nullmaw gore, Luca found what looked like a junction box. Except it was a dead end, and the crawlspace kept going up into the darkness up a vertical shaft.
"Ryan," he called out, staring at the cables that disappeared into the void above. "This thing just keeps going up."
"Everyone else is in position," Ryan replied with the patience of someone not currently trapped in a metal tube. "What's the holdup?"
"It's dark up there, Ryan. And really fucking tight," Luca said through gritted teeth.
Emily's voice cut through the static, warm and encouraging. "You've got this, Luca." Easy for her to say.
He twisted until his ribs screamed, dragging a gloved hand across his visor. Gore streaked away in one disgusting smear. Scooting forward, he wedged his boots under the cable run and levered himself into something resembling a crouch.
Pressing his helmet into the void above, he felt his suit stretch to its limits. Sharp scratchy wires scraped across his back. One elbow, then the other, hips, legs, until finally he squeezed through into the vertical shaft.
Screw tight spaces. Screw Nullmaws. And screw whoever designed this death trap.
Thirty feet up, his glove bumped against something different. A panel, smooth and narrow, set into the ceiling like a hidden door. His heart did a little jump of relief.
The latch clicked open with surprising ease. Inside: a cluster of wires and the tiniest override port he'd ever seen. He swapped in an energy cell, watching the gauge flicker to life. Red light pulsed, waiting.
"Chris, you're up first," Ryan's voice echoed from below.
A spark crackled through the comms. "Got it." Chris's panel flickered green.
"Zoe, you're next."
"Here we go," Zoe said, and another green light joined the first.
Then Joey tried, and everything died.
"Cell's fried," Joey muttered.
"Wrong sequence," Ryan said, frustration bleeding through the static. "And the surge is toasting our cells every time we fail. We're burning through supplies here."
Great. A puzzle that eats our gear when we're wrong. Luca's chest tightened. His air was ticking down, and now they were gambling with their last energy cells.
"Let's try again," he said, gripping his panel. "Chris and Zoe got through before."
They ran the sequence again. Chris, Zoe, Luca. Joey started his attempt, and then everything went dark.
Another whining zap. His panel went black.
"Damn it," Joey's voice came through tight with frustration. "Another one's toast."
"Three cells down," Ryan hissed. "But we know the order has to start with Joey or Danny."
Something skittered across the hull above him. Luca flicked [Heightened Awareness] on just long enough to see the writhing mass of shadows gathering fifty meters up. A ball of tentacles and hunger, sliding down the tunnel toward him.
"Guys," he rasped into comms, "we've got company coming fast!"
Fuck tight spaces. Fuck Nullmaws. And fuck Ryan's brilliant plans.
"Joey, then Danny, then Chris," Ryan snapped, all business now.
The sequence fired. Joey's light. Danny's light. Chris, Zoe, and finally Ryan's voice: "Luca, now!"
He slammed the cell home. The wiring exploded to life, green light racing along every conduit. Emergency lighting bathed the crawlspace in an eerie glow.
"All five!" Ryan whooped. "We're in!"
And fuck whoever built this hellhole without proper maintenance access.
A deep groan rolled through the deck as the bulkhead unlocked. Luca let himself drift down, visor still smeared with monster guts. His boots caught the opening's edge just as his light swept across writhing black shapes pouring down the tunnel walls.
Two dozen tentacles, each one tipped with needle-sharp fangs, closing in fast.
"Ryan!" he gasped into comms. "Please tell me that airlock is open!"
"Working on it," Ryan replied, way too calm for someone whose friend was about to become tentacle food.
His HUD flashed: Air Supply: 12%.
Running out of air, running out of time, and these bastards are almost on me.
He aimed his blaster and fired. Once, twice. They kept coming.
"I got you, Luca," Chris said, and suddenly strong hands grabbed his boots.
Relief flooded through him as Chris yanked him out of the ceiling. Joey was right there too, ready to catch him if Chris's grip slipped. Below them, Ryan and Danny hunched over the main console, going over the controls like they were defusing a bomb.
"We need to seal this thing, now!" Luca gasped, still tasting panic.
"I'll do you one better," Chris said, already firing up his plasma welder. The torch hissed to life with a sound that meant business.
Sparks showered the corridor as Chris welded the grate shut. Luca felt the impacts through the hull as the writhing mass above slammed against their improvised barrier. A black tentacle squeezed through a gap in the grating, probing for soft targets.
Zoe appeared next to Chris, boots locked to the ceiling. Her plasma dagger flashed, and the questing tentacle became a much shorter, much deader piece of meat.
"Every time one of those things pokes through, I'm chopping it off," she said cheerfully, twirling the dagger.
"Got it!" Ryan's voice cut through the chaos. The airlock door slid open with a hiss that Luca felt in his bones rather than heard.
Air. Actual breathable air. I'm never taking atmosphere for granted again.