“Isn’t Ludland supposed to be at the ship?” she yelled, but Robert didn’t answer. “Robert, close the fucking door!”
The lights went out.
“Norah, we gotta get out of here.”
Her eyes dilated, adjusting to the sudden darkness.
She couldn’t see it, but she couldhearit. The whistling howls of something approaching, something that wasn’t human, coming closer with each shriek.
Norah bent over and covered her ears, her head began to pound. She wiped blood from under her nose. It was hot, unlike the water. Everything happened in slow motion as a terrible pain wormed its way across her skull.
She reached out for her friend and stumbled. She couldn’t see. Her boot caught on something on the ground.
“Robert,” she moaned, trying to find him in the dark.
Her head felt as if it was going to explode. The room was still open.
Norah dropped her gun and grappled forward until her hand hit the warm plastic of the panel. She crawled to the door. Softly, slowly, with tensed muscles, she closed it. The horrible shrieks deadened enough for her to reach up and lock them in.
Something hit the outside of the it, and she was neither stupid nor brave enough to check to see if it was another person.
“Robert?” she cried but got no answer.
Something clawed at the barrier.
The last thing she remembered was her cheek hitting the wall, a scream filling her ears before her body curled up and the darkness took over.
***
Stryker wasn’t one to take chances. In fact, he thought himself as being as calculating as any normal Cyborg, and that was saying something. He had a plethora of animal DNA coursing through him. Well, not so muchanimalasreptile.
He stretched his arms out and cracked his knuckles, watching the stars fly by as he warped into the Euthenia Galaxy. His ship hissed during the transition before it fell back into its state of silence.
He settled into his seat and checked his ship for any irregularities. When he was finished he enabled auto-pilot and afterward, he hailed Gunner. And waited.
And waited some more.
Stryker narrowed his eyes at the communications screen and bore a figurative a hole through it with his eyes.
Fucking Hell, Gunner. Answer the damn call.
He rubbed his hand over the creases of his mouth and stood up, feeling the iron-clad armored suit he wore strain over his body. He left the bridge behind without a backward glance and headed toward the hull.
The milky-white passageways reflected the white lights running down the sides, giving off a cold vibrancy to his battlecruiser. The pale silver wall panels curved into a circle and, at the apex, was a large metal door. It was the biggest door on his ship and faced the long passageway he was walking down. It also faced his bridge.
His ship looked like a giant magnifying glass, the bridge at the tip, his lab at the back.
It was one of the smallest in the EPED’s fleet.
He entered through the door and looked out over the hold where giant glass and metal cages sat in perfect symmetry, forming a temporary menagerie. Every enclosure, except four, contained monsters he’d captured throughout the universe. His ears popped from the quiet vacuum of his gallery.
Once, he'd had a crew of twenty aboard his vessel but one by one they had left his service, burdened by the extended amount of time spent in space.
Now, only one remained; Stryker couldn’t be bothered to recruit more. They would just leave like the others.
After all, his time was valuable. He was the best monster hunter in the Earthian Planetary Exploration Division. He made a lot of money, and he had used the money to upgrade theWhite Lightso that it could maintain itself.
Without humans and without interference.
