Room by Room (Liana short story)
Those stationed on the great Morzo space fortresses often referred to them as a planet, and that’s how it felt walking the endless corridors and rooms inside the giant. One could spend days wandering the halls before finally reaching the other side, and this only made them that much more of a nightmare to capture.
“Clear,” Liana said, her rifle sweeping the empty corner of the room as she had done many times, “looks like they moved sections again.”
“Damn,” Mal growled from outside the hallway, “just give me a straightforward fight.”
Mal was a strange woman, wiry frame with a face gaunt as if from famine. Two orbs of emerald green stared out from behind the clear visor. They suggested that she maybe once was beautiful before the toll of war and famine had eaten away at the woman’s body. They quickly scanned the area. Liana always felt better when Mal was watching her back. On her breastplate, eighteen small marks were dug into the metal; the work of a knife.
The fire teams leader Corporal Hall, a bear of a man, with a mismatch of pale and ebony skin interlocked underneath his armor, remained silent, leaning down and picking up a piece of paper that crumbled away beneath his ashy fingertips. Gesturing to Liana, she knew what it meant. Quickly ducking back out into the dark hallway, she took up position. Lights from their helmets shone in tight beams down both directions.
Mal kept her rifle pointed down the way they came, her eyes giving her face a sunken, nearly ghoulish look to it.
They had been on this metal tome for three months already, a slow grind to finally bring its defenses down and take it and its supplies for the Empire. Just blow it up and be done with it. Some had said. But they hadn’t been the ones to survive the months of rationing, to feel your own body churn with a pang of hunger biting at your flesh. The army needed these supplies.
They moved as one. Their fire team of four stalked down the way, each step they took clicking as their boots kept them glued to the floor magnetized. Behind them, a second fire team slowly shadowed them, keeping them covered from behind.
They reached the corner, Liana taking point as her eyes scanned with her light and aim. Bodies floated helplessly above them, holes and small droplets of blood hovering.
Liana took another step, a drop of blood colliding with her visor, streaking across it in a long line. It was silent.
“Dead check,” Hall ordered, each picking a body.
Liana squeezed the trigger, firing a shot into one of the floating bodies above.
More blood sprayed as the silence continued.
“Clear, I guess the-” Hall’s voice cut off as an explosion rang out, slamming Liana against the side wall, her vision jumping and spinning as a wave of blood slammed into her visor, painting it in a dark red.
“Shit!” Cutter, their grenadier, cursed, putting a hand on Liana, “are you okay?”
“I’m okay Cut,” Liana confirmed, wiping furiously as the blood, smearing it before grabbing a sponge out from her pocket. She turned, eyes widening as she surveyed the damage, one of the bodies had exploded, sending chunks of flesh to every corner of the hallway.
The squad remained unharmed as they gained their bearings.
“They stuffed the fucker with explosives,” Mal’s gravely voice spoke up, wiping guts off of her armor, “should we turn back?”
“No, the next junction, through the crew quarters here, we can seal it from our end and hold it till they can send more help.”
“Yes sir,” Cutter said, moving to take point.
Liana smiled at Cutter, the man was kind, hardly the example of a perfect soldier, instead he always looked like someone in the wrong place. Like he belonged in the great shipyards of one of the Titans, or an artisan perfecting his craft in the heart of the markets on the colony of Azira Prime, anywhere but the hell they had found themselves willingly walking in.
Another explosion somewhere in the station shook them all, leaning against the walls they waited until it settled again. Then they moved, little by little making their way towards the crew quarters.
This door opened with no issue, the fire team behind them closed the distance, all eight of them entering slowly, scanning the room with their lights and their suit’s limited sensors. The room was divided into three long rows of bunks, some with forms lying perfectly still under their covers, with others half hanging out from their beds.
Pale faces gaped at some unseen horror that they were forever frozen in death staring at.
“The junction is at the end. Sweep the bunks and meet there,” Hall ordered, picking the leftmost row, Cutter following him as well as two others from the other fire team.
Liana picked the right, Mal turning and following closely, her rifle sweeping across the bunks warily. Liana reached over, carefully examining one of the bunks, the body was a young woman, face smashed, eyes swollen shut, with dark purple bruising running along her face like ink blots. Her lips were puckered, ballooning well away from her face with an unnatural hue to them.
“Decompression,” Mal remarked calmly, reaching over to a small table between it and the neighboring bunk, picking up a badge. “Mellisa Chang, private, heh, bet the last thing she thought was she wasn’t really dying, probably thinking of some whore not giving her another thought back home.”
Liana shot Mal an annoyed look, earning a silent shrug in response as they moved further and further into the room. Mal often spoke such words, poking at the little hopes the rest of them felt, even the commander, Liana suspected if the woman wasn’t as good in combat, the commander might of spaced her long ago. Her continued presence was a testament to her ability rather than her character.
There was a chattering from the center of the room as they all froze.
“Movement here.” Sergeant Louis, the second fireteams leader chimed in, crouching low in the center row and sweeping with his light.
Liana moved quickly, getting a view through the bunks at Louis and his rifleman Stone as they checked the bunks.
Louis was flung backwards, metal against metal screeching out across the room.
Liana ran around the bunks, Stone’s screams suddenly devolving to choked gurgling. On top of stones chest was a two foot long silver and blue robot in an oval shape with eight long, jointed legs that it was driving down into Stone’s chest and neck, blood spurting up in a long floating faucet of crimson.
Liana aimed, firing off a single shot that launched the creature backwards.
“L9!” Liana called the warning, firing off multiple rounds into the creature once it was away from the late marines body, sparks striking up its body in a shower of flashes and pops.
Mal stepped to the side of Liana, firing the moment she cleared her, bullets tearing the bunks and bodies behind it apart in a show of exploding fabric and gore. In mere moments the creature exploded, half of its body flinging across the room. Liana crossed over, making sure the pieces had stopped moving, keeping her eyes moving from bunk to bunk.
“He’s dead Mal.” Hall said solemnly, staring down at Mal, who was crouched next to the marines body.
“Damn it,” Mal said, shaking her head as they took the dead man’s dog tags.
Liana stepped towards them slowly, her eyes roaming the marines body, a bloody mess, the L9 had ripped straight through his armor, using its long legs to stab deep into the throat and along the chest.
L9’s were referred to as wake up calls, since they usually would be send in small swarms into enemy camps or positions, it would avoid guards, instead crawling into the beds and bunk of all those sleep, stabbing them hundreds of times before leaving. Liana shuddered, remembering the mornings they would wake up, only to find every other man nearby stabbed to death in their, throats slit or heads removed entirely.
Some would even have explosives inside them.
Louis was bloody, a gash across his face leaking blood, he turned to Hall, shaking his head. “We need to take the junction and seal it, wait for more fireteams to make their way to us.”
“Agreed.” Hall said, twirling his finger in the air before pointing down the room before pulling out a small chip and placing it on Stones corpse. A tracker for the inevitable recovery team.
Liana nodded shakily, her and Mal turning and continuing on the way they came. It was the last thing Liana wanted to do, walking head first into the next trap, but she could only follow Mal, the woman’s calm and fearless movements at least lessening the fear.
Mal held a hand up, her head tilting as if studying something before holding up a single finger and pointing towards one of the last bunks. Pale lights bounced off metal, and they opened fire, tearing the bunk and the hiding L9 behind it, to pieces.
They reached the junction, a simple connection airlock, sealed with three doors, a single control panel sat to the side of the door. This junction was the connection point between the quarters and the administration center. Where many Commonwealth soldiers still held residence. Hall and Farris called over Lilly, a stout woman of dark complexion, whose blue lips were pursed as she stared over at the control panel. She quickly bounded over, her steps light as a feather. She crouched, reaching under the panel and pulling several wires out, slowly plugging them into a device clutched a little too tightly in her hands.
“Pardon me boss,” she began, turning a knob that seemed to cycle through the controls, “but if we seal it, might be hard to unseal it,” her accent was thick from the outer colonies, Liana wondered which one but dared not ask, Cutter had received a wound from when he had asked.
“Orders are orders,” Hall replied plainly, taking in a breath through clenched teeth as he turned to Louis, “contact command again and inquire about our reinforcements.”
Louis bowed his head, turning to a rifleman who had been trailing behind them all, the man was silent but slowly slid the strap of his pack off his shoulder, lowering it to the ground, out from it, Louis retrieved a sealed box, barely two inches wide and popped it into a slot on his wrist brace. After a few moments, he spoke up. “Command two, this is fire team eighty, we have secured junction, requesting support and instruction,” he waited, eyes moving as a frown soon creased his face.
“Well?” Hall asked as Louis gently tossed the box to the ground before stepping on it.
“They are sending up a special unit, we are going to breach the administration block as fire teams seventy-two through seventy nine enter from other breach points. But it will take some time, we are to wait here.”
All the better, Liana thought wearily, at least here in the junction there were no bodies.
“Set up watches, we will wait for the unit to make its way up.”
They set to work, Liana and Mal set up defensive positions for those on watch while Cutter and Lilly, broke out some water and a nutrition tablet. She hated the things, they tasted like fish with the texture of chalk, she could already imagine trying to choke down one of those things tonight. She shuddered as they finished arranging the two positions to either side, with enough room between the sealed doors to give some defense against a sudden intrusion.
Done. She thought, looking over and nodding before taking up a place facing the door they had just sealed, while Mal took up position facing the way they had come.
They settled into their silent watch. The only noise coming from the soldiers relaxing behind them, discussing news from the Empire and rumors.
“I heard, pirates have shown up along the inner ring, deserters turned to plunder.” Cutter chortled.
“Liar, pirates would never be found within ten systems of the inner ring, too many patrols.”
“I swear, heard it from some officers talking back on the Gilead, some up-and-coming Commodore was sent after them right before we shipped out.”
Liana listened to them talk, she found it a comforting noise, even if she didn’t hang on every word. She seldom did, from talking about how bad the food was to their various conquests in private quarters, it was fairly forgettable. But, when Mal talked about the dark oceans of her homeworld or Cutter the interlocking fortresses in the gas giants of Morossi, then she listened, she listened and imagined herself in those places, sailing on an ocean of black water or dancing above endless clouds in a ship.
She smiled to herself as the group continued.
Eventually as the talk died down and minutes turned to hours they were relieved by Lilly and Cutter. Liana slumped to the ground in their small secure space, leaning against the wall and sighing. Mal across from her also sat down, removing her helmet and placing it beside her, green eyes looked over Liana for a moment before looking down as the woman produced a small holo card, those eyes softened as she gazed down at it.
Liana could see the hologram from her angle, it was a man, young like they both were, with a wide smile and a dark black well trimmed beard.
A lover? Liana thought with an intermix of amusement and astonishment, Mal was not one she figured would settle down or even tie herself to anyone.
Mal’s eyes snapped to her, blinking slowly with a cold studying gaze before sighing. “He’s my husband.”
“How long have you two been married?” Liana asked with interest leaking into her voice. She had never had Mal say something this personal before, had the world gone mad?
“Six years now, he,” she hesitated before shrugging, “he is part of his father’s staff for governoring their sector.”
A governor’s son? Liana thought, smiling widely, she certainly married up, she mused with a giggle. “Nice catch.”
“He is very kind, we’ve known each other since we were kids. I miss him.” Mal admitted, her voice breaking before she shut the hologram off, leaning back and closing her eyes, inviting no further discussion on it.
Liana closed her eyes, imagining her own ever after, once this was all over, and soon sleep crept up on her.
She had often had this dream, bobbing water against a gray overcast sky, no rain despite the water streaming down her face.
“You can’t go!” Liana insisted through tear filled eyes. Her brother, Daniel, stood facing away from her, his boots scraping against the rocks beneath his feet as he tossed another rock into the water. His silence only made her feel worse, she wiped her face, her nose running as she slumped onto the rocky coastline floor.
He turned, his young teenage scruff making him look so much older, almost like dad. Daniel was six years older than her, and had just gotten accepted into the Imperial Navy.
“Sis, I will be fine, before you know it I will be back.” He said, trying to reassure her he reached out, fingers ruffling her bright blonde hair.
That’s what Meg’s father told her too. Liana thought, but dared not say as she looked up at him. “Promise.”
“I promise! I know I can’t let you try and run things with dad getting older.” He grinned, giving her a playful push.
She smiled, she couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t of smiled if she knew, she would of cursed him, begged him to not get on that transport, tore up his tickets, anything, she had to do something!
But she didn’t instead she smiled and laughed while they played among the shores of their home, splashing water on each other and eating the frozen treats he had packed. Their sister had declined to come, instead she had stayed with dad.
Their father had begged, and threatened and promised so much if only he would not go, hard to believe they would all go in the end, claimed in their own ways by the war that raged among the heavens.
Liana looked over. At her brother, his brown eyes shining as he laughed and smiled, talking about all his plans, how he would marry Meg when he returned a war hero, how he would settle across the lake from them and continued to tease and taunt her, she had smile too, never knowing they would never see each other again.
Then the dream twisted, darkness rolling in above as if time had sped up, a storm suddenly raging with thunder shaking her to her very core. She looked over at Daniel, his face vanishing into a blurry veil. She reached out to grab him but her hands phased through the ghost, she groped fruitlessly as the thunder turned to explosions and gunfire.
She could hear them calling, begging for her help.
“Lia help!” Her brother called out, silenced by a sudden crash of thunder.
“Run!” Her sister called from somewhere in the maelstrom only to be drowned out by the screeching wind.
The rain turned to blood, her family’s blood, as she sunk to her knees, and gave herself over to the storm that would one day swallow her. She suddenly felt a chill, metal arms like a spider creeping up her legs.
Wake up. She screamed at herself, shaking.
Liana’s eyes shot open, darkness enveloping her view as she searched for enemies unseen. There were noises, shouts of alarm as her eyes adjusted, bleary-eyed she looked up, staring at the looming figure. Mal had drawn a pistol from her resting position, aiming it towards the figure. She must of just gotten up too. Liana thought, scrambling away from the figure holding something in their right hand.
“How did you get past? We had both ways covered!” Cutter said, cursing something under his breath.
The figure ignored him, it was a large person, armored in white with red and silver streaks slicing through. Their head, masked behind an armored plate with two eye holes, with a painted shield on the side of it, cocked to the side. Liana looked at the squirming object in its hand. An L9 drone lashed out with spiked legs at them. The masked creature squeezed its hand in a quick motion as the drone exploded in a series of fizzles and pops, fluid dripping onto the floor as it was dropped. Mal lowered her pistol, eyes wary.
Hall walked over, an amused look on his face as he looked over at Cutter, “Settle down everyone, this is our backup. You should of signaled you were approaching Operative, nearly got shot.”
“It wouldn’t of done anything.” The Operative replied, it had a smoothness to it Liana didn’t expect.
An Operative? Liana thought, eyes wide as a smile broke out on her face. She had heard of the Emperor’s warriors, she even had seen one during a military parade on Kallik, but never met one face to, well, mask.
“Operative?” Liana blurted in wonder, her fear replaced with fascination, “are you going to help us secure the administration center?”
“Of course, they wouldn’t send me all this way just to kill a couple of bed bugs,” he chuckled, kicking at the drone at his feet. His mask shone with multiple colors as he turned, Liana realized the red and silver were just some of the colors, like scales of a fish light seemed to dance with colors of all kinds with each movement.
“Are you taking command?” Hall asked, his face revealing nothing as he stared down the Operative.
“No, but I carry the orders, its believed the defenders will blow the station.”
The words hung in the air with dread like a smothering fog threatening to choke Liana. She looked at the others, their own worried looks trading between each other. Even Hall had grown silent, his lips a thin line as intense eyes glared at the Operative.
“So they mean for us to assault right away?” He asked, seeming to know the answer.
“Unfortunately,” the Operative replied, a surprising somberness seeming to seep into his tone.
The group got to their feet, prepping their weapons while the Operative stood motionless facing the door they would soon open and go through. Liana approached him carefully, stopping beside him.
“I’ve never met an Operative before,” she admitted, looking over at the sparkling armor, “what should I call you?”
“My siblings call me Vash,” he replied as the door suddenly opened.
The door slid open with a long, drawn-out, shuddering groan. Dim yellow-orange lights lit parts of the large room; it was the shape of a large circle with several box-shaped rooms sticking out on either side, above them at the back of the circle was a single pill box metal room suspended by beams several floors up with stairs on either side.
Mugs and papers and all sorts of other items were floating in place above several tables in the middle.
Liana took a breath before letting it out, warm breath briefly fogging a small part of her visor before vanishing just as quickly.
"That would be where I would blow the station," Vash commented, gesturing at the pill box.
"Liana and Mal left," Hall said, gesturing for the others to go right.
Liana slowly made her way forward, eyes darting to the tables and workstations as they swept left, she didn't hear the Operative moving at all, though she dared not look. Two closed doors on the left worried Liana, a feeling creeping up her neck as they neared them, a tiny light above the doors showed they had power.
Liana stopped short just as the station began to shake, the lights flickering on and off in arrays of light and dark.
"What the hell," Louis growled from the other side, examining a large vent, "something i-"
He never finished the sentence before an enormous metal spike shot out, ripping his armor as if it was paper and spilling blood and chunks onto the floor.
A second spike emerged, gripping onto the floor and pulling a large form out of the vent, bullets erupting off its metal carapace as it stood. It looked like a metal crab, it had four main spike like legs that kept it standing and four smaller multijointed legs that swayed, partially folded by its body. A single shimmering lens spun on top of its head.
It let out a deep vibrating click before lunging at Corporal Hall, closing the distance in less than a second.
But Vash the Operative was faster, bowling into its robotic body and sending them both tumbling to the side.
Louis was clutching at his opened abdomen, uselessly trying to keep himself together as Vash and the robot were slamming against the wall as the doors near Liana opened, several Commonwealth soldiers leaning out from them and opening fire.
Diving to the side Liana let off several shots into the doorway, taking cover behind several large metal boxes, she could hear Mal scrambling beside her before she saw her pop up, firing a burst before retrieving a grenade, flicking the switch on it, cooking it for several seconds before lobbing it into the doorway.
A bullet whizzed past Liana's face as she saw a soldier firing down at them from just outside the pill box above them, she turned to fire when the soldier's chest flared with sparks and blood.
Louis went limp, dropping the bloody, smoking pistol in his hand.
A moment later, a large explosion shook the room with fire and sparks lashing out from the room, pitiful cries of pain pouring out as two soldier's lunged out the door and onto the ground, their armor glowing with heat and metal splinters sticking out from horrifying areas.
"Grenade!" Mal cried, knocking Liana back behind cover as an explosion caught her from the side, sending her to the ground with a scream. There were fragments in her eye as she tossed and turned, grabbing Liana tightly, blood wept down her face, her other eyes barely peeking out from her eyelid.
"I got you!" Liana said, trying to soothe her as she dragged her backward, to her right she couldn't see any of the other marines, only hear their gunfire. She finally looked at Vash the Operative as he ripped one of the spiked legs off the robot before stabbing it into the floor with the crunch of buckling metal.
"I've got it from here, just get out!" Vash ordered, grabbing an emerging Commonwealth soldier and repeatedly breaking his body over the robot's exterior, the body becoming limp and elastic as bones crumbled beneath the armor and skin.
She couldn't just leave, if they didn't get to the control box they were all toast anyway.
Gritting her teeth, Liana lept from cover, scrambling to the stairs as bullets sang their song of death around her, sparks flying up the stairs as if following her.
Something bit her hand and side, sending her down into the railing as it turned, her body screamed out at her but she ignored it, searing pain giving way to adrenaline.
Passing the body she threw herself inside the pill box, two Commonwealth soldiers were hurridly connecting wires to a console, one spun, rifle in hand.
Liana pulled the trigger, bullets crashing into his visor in a spray of gore as they ripped his head in half.
The second stood and turned, his visor wasn't tinted. Instead the scared eyes of a boy stared back at her, he was young, like her, eyes still untouched by the horrors around him.
She was thrown out of her thoughts by the burning holes glowing red through his chest. Crimson drops of blood floated up behind his body as his smile vanished as he slumped.
Liana looked down, breathing ragged, bile rising in her throat as she stared at the smoking barrel of her rifle. She couldn't stop now, remember your training, keep moving.
"Sorry," she muttered, walking over to him and shakily taking the detonator from his grasp, her throat burned, her eyes stung and her body shot pain through her as she slowly sat down as Vash burst into the room, "detonator secured, boss."
It had been thirty hours since the firefight, the other fireteams eventually found them and relieved them from their posts. She had been relieved at first, then the shakes got worse.
Liana's hands objected as she landed another blow against the black punching bag, it swayed slightly before swinging back at her. She welcomed the pain from each hit, it kept the hollow feeling in her stomach at bay.
Mal had been taken to the medical station on-board for treatment. The grenade meant for Liana had nearly taken both of Mal's eyes,
Cutter had been busted up pretty bad too, though he had given her a thumbs-up before being wheeled off.
But, Corporal Hall, Stone, Louis…
"Fuck!" Liana yelled, slamming another fist into the bag.
"You should be resting," Vash's voice made her jump, reeling around to face the Operative as he slowly walked over and looked down, examining her bloodied hands, "but I suppose rest can sometimes be worse."
"It always is now," Liana croaked, "any word on Mal or Cutter?"
"Your companions will both survive their wounds, in fact Mal has already been sent off to recuperate," Vash said, tilting his head as he watched Liana's crestfallen face, "I wanted to thank you, your actions saved every fire team on that station, and because of those lives you preserved, I will be forever thankful."
"You seem very fond of life for an Operative," Liana commented with a laugh, "more fond then even us marines."
"Life is filled with potential, I love that potential, no matter how small, or however grand it may be," Vash said with a bobbing motion, gently patting her shoulder, "I have arranged for you to be moved off the front for now, hopefully the rest will do you some good."
"Thank you, Operative," Liana said, managing an appreciative smile as she breathed a long sigh of relief.
"Until we meet again Liana the warrior," Vash said, bowing before leaving her alone.
Liana looked down, she had wanted to thank Mal for saving her, wanted to wish her luck in reuniting with her husband, instead that crass woman had vanished, as had most people in her life.
As she finally made her way towards the transports, she watched as the new fireteams passed by her, their faces bright and smiling with fiery determination behind their eyes.
Just as she had been, before the war took her soul.
