Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Future Lovecraft

“Fall back, Ingeniøri,” Provost Ole answered over the Quorum channel. “We’ll hold an emergency meeting. Politibetjent Chief Malik is on his way up, so extract your team and—”

“Wha—shhhack?” Pipaluk held down the garble button she’d installed onto her com-panel as she addressed her subgineers on their private channel. “Right, we don’t have time to deal with more dawdling by those kanaaks . Ane and Nuka, with me. The rest, seal this airlock after us and don’t open it, no matter what. I trust you all remember what happens when you open airlocks, yes?”

They did. It had been Pipaluk’s team, after all, who designed the last batch of svataarsualiartartoq -suits for Mhu Thulan’s formless spawn commandos—space stations tended to lack many gaps for the polymorphous spawn to flow through, so infiltrating the interstellar strongholds of those Yig-worshipping Valusians and Ithaqua-kissing Gnophkehs necessitated finding another way to get the formless spawn inside. Spacesuits that matched the design of those used by the targeted station, save with opaque helmets, did the trick quite nicely—fill a few suits with the spawn, trigger a rescue beacon on the station’s frequency, and float the formless commandos through the void until they were retrieved by drones and taken inside the airlocks. Then, total havoc as the deadly children of Tsathoggua swept through the station, a sentient tidal wave of ichorous death.

“How will we get back, Ingeniøri?” subgineer Nuka asked, his voice cracking.

“Have some faith, son,” said Pipaluk. “We’ll recode the locks as we go. Things were built by your ancestors; think their primitive programming is beyond your skill?”

Nuka straightened his shoulders, his three-toed foot snapping up in salute. Through the faceshield of his bio-helm, Pipaluk could see the lad’s umber fur bristling straight out from his face in embarrassment. Good, he should feel like an idiot.

“—stunt,” Provost Ole was saying as Pipaluk relaxed her finger on the garble button. “Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, sir,” said Pipaluk, and quit the channel altogether. “Right, let’s go.”

Nuka whined, long and low; Ane prayed, fast and loud; and the other subgineers all saluted as the ancient airlock opened into the deep.

There were three airlocks in total, and the trio had reached the control panel beside the second by the time the first had ground shut behind them. Before advancing any further, Pipaluk had Ane explore to the left and Nuka to the right—the Ingeniøri had been over the schematics a dozen times lest just such an emergency entry become necessary, but it never hurt to confirm what the blueprints had already told her.

“Dead end,” Nuka reported through the bio-helm’s thrumming com-membrane. “Basalt. Dry. No cracks.”

“Same here,” Ane said, as she hiked back across the bay.

“Good,” said Pipaluk. “Everything matches up. The reports state that the Eibon Gate was interdimensional, so they were able to completely surround it. Basically, they built a giant basalt box around the thing, with only an airlock leading in or out. Around that , another stone box with an airlock, and then another. So, through this door is another bay and across that is the final airlock, which opens into the ruins where the Gate is. Professori Laila and her team are either in the bay beyond this door, working on the last airlock, or they’ve managed to breach it and gain the ruins, which could be bad. Very bad.”

“‘Bad’?” said Nuka. “‘Very bad’?”

“Depends,” said Pipaluk, hoping against hope that her quarry was still fiddling with the last airlock and not beyond it. “Even with the feeble half-lives they were capable of producing, back when this was all built, the fail-safes in the ruins should still be operational. So, in a best-case scenario, the fail-safe will have arrested the Professori’s advance. Worst-case scenario, Laila will have somehow gained the Gate.”

“Fail-safes?” Nuka whimpered. “ Issi .”

“Act like you’ve got a quad,” Ane snorted, petting the slimy muzzle of her microwave spitter as she sidled up to Pipaluk. The weapon purred at the subgineer’s touch and Pipaluk made a mental note to invite Ane over for a soak in her breeding bath when they were safely home—the Ingeniøri’s whiskers needed a serious stroking and she had a feeling this was just the Voormi to give it to her. This wasn’t really the time for such concerns, admittedly, but stress always made Pipaluk’s glands overproduce.

“Remember,” Pipaluk said, as her fingers danced over the airlock’s panel, “we need to stop Laila at all costs. Alive to stand trial is preferable but by no means necessary. The main thing will be avoiding the fail-safes, if those idiots have opened the airlock, and the Professori’s formless spawn if they haven’t. We may already be too late, so from here on out, we move faster than fast, got it? Now, let’s get this heretic.”

“Oh yeah ,” said Ane, and her weapon shivered in anticipation.

Nuka whinnied and made the sign of Saint Toad.

Pipaluk opened the airlock. A rush of cooling, semi-congealed blood poured out over their feet.

The bay between the second and third airlock doors glowed a faint turquoise from a K’n-yan luminance system, and before the Voormis’ bio-helms could tint out the blinding, pale light a fail-safe leapt on Ane and bit off her head. The thing’s gears screamed and spat puffs of rust as it thrashed atop the decapitated subgineer, a blur of slick, amphibious tails and bluish metal pincers. Nuka panicked, his high-pitched howl nearly blowing out Pipaluk’s com-membrane, and the Ingeniøri had to force herself not to attack the subgineer before taking out the fail-safe. She spat out the immolation code for Ane’s suit, even as she leapt out of the way of the imminent blast. Even through her own salamander armor, she felt the wave of heat buffet her like a solar flare.

The fail-safe was still alive, but its metallic components had melted to the point of incapacitating the thing. Nuka had managed to avoid the worst of the blast, but was still crying like a Gnophkeh, sitting in the tacky, smoking blood that had flooded the bay. The bio-helm filtered out everything but the smell, the bouquet of burnt hair and engine oil making Pipaluk’s eyes water. She didn’t look down at the fused mass of mewling fail-safe and gorgeous, dead subgineer. Instead, she yanked Nuka to his feet and fired a cold-shower code down his channel—the result was instantaneous, the coward straightening up and shuddering as his suit doused him in a psychoactive chemical spray.

“Subgineer Nuka,” Pipaluk barked in his face while he was ripe for imprinting. “Ready your weapon and follow me. Those hymirbjarg -brained academics have obviously breached the last airlock. Hurry!”

The subgineer saluted and snapped his olid-pistol off his belt. It was no microwave spitter, but it was better than the ceremonial gladius that Pipaluk had brought—had she known Laila wouldn’t be in her lab, ready for arrest, she obviously would have brought something more substantial. At least there weren’t any more fail-safes between them and the final airlock. Probably.

They cautiously entered the final bay, splashing in puddles as they moved through the cobalt twilight. Judging from the oily whorls of colour in the blood, the team of grad students, servitors, and spawn had taken out a fail-safe, as well, but there was no sign of the fallen guardian, nor, for that matter, any of Laila’s crew, beyond the blood. That was…odd. Holding her hand up to the last panel, Pipaluk saw her talons were shaking. She gritted her fangs, willing herself to enter the code, when Nuka nickered excitedly behind her. She lowered the volume on his channel before turning to see what was bothering him now.