Phillip Peterson - The Dark Ship

Jeff looked at his hand, which was still bleeding heavily.

My finger!

Gradually a dull ache spread through the remainder of his finger and hand, and grew stronger.

He had to get to Joanne, who was still carrying the medical kit on her back, and treat his wound.

“Yes, that’s better,” Green said. He had pushed the handheld back into the machine.

“Aha. Interesting. Well, most of the data on here is unimportant. But there it is: general and specific access codes. Oh… password protected. I thought so.” He turned to Jeff. “The password please!”

Jeff was trying to stem the flow of blood with his left hand and stood up with difficulty. He wanted to look the demon in the eye when he said what he had to say. “I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. I don’t know it. Irons didn’t tell me.” He laughed bitterly. “Even if you torture me for a thousand years. I really don’t know it.”

Green cocked his head. “Well that is a shame.”

Jeff wondered why Irons had given him the code to the handheld but not the password. Had he forgotten it? But that wasn’t like him. Or had he assumed Jeff knew it? And suddenly Jeff did know. It could only be the name of his dead son. Jack!

“Thank you,” Green said suddenly. “That’s all I wanted to know. Excellent. It accepted the password.”

Oh Jesus, no! He had made a dreadful mistake.

“Correct, Jeff. I am telepathic. Unfortunately, I have not been able to sabotage your deflective shield and therefore cannot possess you completely, but if I concentrate very hard, I can read your mind.” He laughed a dirty laugh. “And with that you have fulfilled your purpose. But I would like to thank you. In fact, I have made special plans for you.”

Jeff backed away along the row of consoles. He didn’t want to know.

“I will make you my chief assistant. You will become my inquisitor and foreman. We will let the people of Earth torture each other over millennia in the cavitys.” The demon chuckled gleefully. “And when the time is ripe to destroy them for good, you will take over the job and deliver the final death blow. Bit by bit, you will destroy the soul of every single human being. Is that not an honor? A privilege?”

The room had started to spin, and Jeff was afraid he would pass out at any moment. Irons had entrusted him with the codes and warned him to destroy it sooner rather than later. He had failed. He had delivered humanity into the hands of this demon.

“You can begin by practicing on your father,” the demon said. “We have plenty of time before we reach Earth.”

Jeff backed away slowly from Green along the wall of consoles. But Green followed him so that they remained the same distance apart.

Suddenly, Green stopped and took a long, thick cylinder from a bracket on one of the consoles.

Jeff swallowed as he continued sidling backward.

The demon pressed a button on the underside of the cylinder and the tip lit up blue. It emitted an electric crackling noise.

“I’m afraid I am going to have to stun you,” Green explained, moving closer. “So that I can put you in a cryopod. I have had a special avatar made for you that will do justice to your new role. It is almost ten feet tall, has hooves, a whip-like tail, very sharp teeth, and two long horns. How do you like the sound of that?” He chuckled again. “We’ll meet again in the cavitys. You’ll get to see Joanne and your father again. You can celebrate with a nice threesome—I’ve already thought up some nice games for you to play!”

This couldn’t be happening. He must be dreaming. He should have shot himself while he still had the chance. He had failed spectacularly. It was all over. Now all that remained was never-ending horror.

The demon aimed the cylinder at Jeff.

A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he had to support himself on a console to stop himself from falling.

“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt,” Green grinned. “At least not when I stun you. The pain comes later.”

Right next to his hand Jeff saw something yellow. A logo. The logo! A yellow circle with a black sun!

It was his last chance!

He took his hand off the console and immediately lost his balance. At the same moment the demon fired his weapon. Jeff collapsed onto the console and a blue ray of light flashed past his shoulder. Before he crashed to the ground, Jeff managed to jab his elbow into the switch. It made a loud clicking noise and flashed brightly.

Green’s smiled faded. “What was that? What did you do?” Then he closed his eyes, as if to listen to an inner voice.

Jeff struggled to his feet. His legs were like jelly and he had to support himself on the console. Nothing appeared to have changed. Only the glow of the switch indicated that something was in progress.

Complete silence reigned. Trembling, Jeff looked at the demon in Green’s body. He understood that a battle had commenced deep in the bowels of the ship. A battle between the commands given by the demon and the computer routines programmed millennia ago. And it was not clear which would win.

Minutes passed. To Jeff they felt like years.

Then suddenly a metallic sound echoed through the room. So loud that Jeff thought his eardrums would burst—as if gigantic hammers were striking planetary-sized anvils. The acoustic inferno lasted only a few seconds, then all was quiet again except for a reverberating echo.

The demon ripped his eyes open. All color had drained from his face. He didn’t even seem to notice as the stun gun fell from his hands and clattered to the ground.

“What did you do?” Green croaked. “What did you do !” He stood there motionless, staring at Jeff with undisguised hatred. Any moment, and he would lunge at Jeff and kill him with his bare hands.

Jeff stumbled backward and braced himself for the moment when the demon would pounce.

But it didn’t happen. Green turned toward the door. “No!” he screamed in desperation.

The door opened.

Light aliens floated into the room. One after another and incredibly fast. Faster than Jeff could run, they moved toward the demon in Green.

The light aliens had changed. They were considerably smaller and came up only as far as Jeff’s chest. They were no longer fully transparent and had discernible shapes. For the first time he could see eyes and a mouth. And their luminosity had diminished, too.

Two of the beings had already reached Green. They grabbed him by the arms and dragged him to the middle of the room, while the others began to busy themselves at the man-high pillar.

“No, don’t do it!” Green screamed. Then suddenly he began to rave in an alien language.

Jeff walked around the pillar so he could see what the creatures were doing. About two dozen of them were gathered around the column, blocking Jeff’s view.

Suddenly, a gray box slid noiselessly out of the post. Now Jeff understood what was happening. It must be the demon’s cryopod. Two of the light aliens began tapping on one of the consoles.

Green screamed in terror. Then all of a sudden he fell silent and his eyes glazed over. As the light aliens released him, he collapsed on the floor like a rag doll.

One of the light aliens took a small box from a console on the wall and approached Jeff. He stopped right in front of him. Now he looked like the picture Jeff had seen on the projection.

“Jerry?” Jeff asked.

The creature nodded like a human.

“Yes,” came a synthetic voice from the little box.

“Is it over?” Jeff wanted to know.

The creature nodded again.

“The demon is dead.”

“Can you hear me?” Jeff asked. Joanne did not react. Her lids were half open, her eyes glazed. But she was still feeling the effect of the strong tranquilizers. Jeff hoped she would recover quickly once the medication wore off. She had only been under the demon’s influence a short time, and he was sure she would be able to make a full recovery. Or would she?