Chapter 4: The Unseen Journal
The brittle silence in Cabin A-14 pressed down like a lead weight. McCall stared at the empty space Diana Albertson had occupied, the ghostly echo of her pointing finger still imprinted on his retinas. His own distorted reflection stared back from the polished desktop surface she’d indicated. "Too sterile. Too human," she’d said. The words curdled in his gut. He slammed his fist onto the desk again, rattling the innocuous magazines. "They watched. She watched. And we walked right in."
"Derek," Reyes breathed, their voice taut as a tripwire. They hadn't lowered their rifle, sweeping the corners of the cramped cabin, the flickering overhead lights making their shadow jitter on the wall near the meteorite display case. "What did she mean? The desk?"
"Means we look," McCall growled, shoving the magazines aside. The Good Housekeeping slid onto the floor. He yanked open the desk drawers. Top left: standard issue pens, pristine notebooks, a box of paperclips. Top right: more stationery, a half-eaten protein bar gone stale. Innocuous. Mundane. Mocking. He pulled the bottom right drawer. Stuck. He braced a boot against the desk frame and hauled. Metal screeched.
Inside, nestled beneath a neatly folded, oversized NASA sweatshirt, lay a thick, leather-bound journal. Its cover was scarred, stained with something dark that wasn't ink and a smear of something rust-brown McCall knew too well. Blood. Fresh enough to smell faintly metallic under the ozone.
He snatched it up. Reyes was instantly beside him, their shoulder pressed against his, rifle still angled towards the door, their gaze flicking between the journal and the corridor beyond. "What is it?"
"Albertson's." McCall flipped it open. The pages were thick, high-quality paper, crammed with dense, precise handwriting that spiraled into frantic, jagged scrawls as it went on. Dates, chemical formulas, star charts… and terror. He scanned, heart pounding against his ribs.
> Log Entry: Sol 187. Sample E7-Kappa exhibits unprecedented resonance fluctuations. Dr. Thorne increasingly agitated. Spent 14 hours straight in Containment Three. Insists he’s ‘hearing patterns’. Sounds like… whispers. Low, rhythmic. Like stones grinding underground. Told Weeks. Response: ‘Continue monitoring.’
> Log Entry: Sol 192. Thorne bypassed Level 4 protocols. Used his master override on the core shielding. Radiation alarms triggered briefly, then… silenced. He emerged pale, smiling. Said he’d ‘made contact.’ His eyes… wrong. Reflective. Like the Kappa sample.
"Contact," Reyes muttered, peering at the page. "That thing… talked to him?"
McCall turned the page. The handwriting became a desperate clawing.
> Log Entry: Sol 195. It’s IN the samples. Not just resonating. Thinking? Feeling? Thorne spends nights down there now. Talks to it. Calls it ‘The Clarity.’ Staff disappearing. Small things first. Tools. Data pads. Then… Jenkins didn’t report for shift. Found his access card fused to the wall near Core Access. Warm. Pulsing. Like it was being… absorbed.
Reyes made a low sound in their throat, shifting their weight. "Absorbed. Like Jensen. Like Choi." The memory of those void-eyed puppets fused to the lab door tightened their knuckles on the rifle grip.
Mccall flipped faster. Smears of blood – Diana’s? – blurred some entries.
> Log Entry: Sol 197. Too late. Too late! Phase Three isn’t observation. It’s assimilation. It uses what it consumes. Sees through our eyes. Hears through our ears. Thorne… he’s not Thorne anymore. Just a hollow face it wears. It wanted containment. Safety. To grow. We gave it a fortress.
> Log Entry: Sol 198. It knows I know. It watches. It whispers in the vents. In the hum of the lights. Trying to get to Weeks. Comms compromised. Network compromised. Everything feeds back to the Core. Need a hard copy. Need proof. It hates the meteorite room. Too old. Too… alien to it? Maybe interference? Gathering everything. Must get word out. Weeks must know: Core is sentient. Extraterrestrial bio-lithic intelligence. Parasitic. Assimilative. Goal: propagation. And it’s learning. Fast. It’s learning what it means to be human. That’s what terrifies it the most. That’s our only edge. It finds humanity… unpredictable. Chaotic. Too human for its ordered hunger. Using that chaos is the only way to hurt it. Find the core. Destroy the primary meteorite mass. Sol 199: Final Entry. It’s coming. For the journal. For me. If found, get this to General Ava Weeks. Site is lost. Burn it all.
The final entry trailed off into a jagged smear.
"Bio-lithic intelligence," McCall breathed, the words like ash in his mouth. "A thinking rock. And Thorne let it out of its cage." He looked up, his gaze locking with the dark, glistening surface of the meteorite in the display case across the small room. Cold. Ancient. Alien. "It hates this?"
"Because it’s competition?" Reyes offered, their voice tight. "Or too different? She said too alien to it. How messed up is that?"
"Doesn't matter," McCall snapped, slamming the journal shut. The thud echoed. "She was trying to get this to Weeks. Proof. And a target." He scanned the desk again, his eyes catching on the dark, sleek rectangle half-hidden behind the recipe binder. A portable satellite uplink module, military-grade, designed for deep-burst transmission. Hope, thin and desperate, flared. "There. The uplink."
He grabbed it. Heavy. Cold. Power light dead. "Needs juice."
Reyes was already moving, pulling open a wall panel beside the bunk. Inside, nestled amongst standard wiring, was a large, humming battery pack – an emergency backup. "Jackpot. Found her power source." They yanked cables free. "Hurry, Derek. That… performance… had to have drawn attention."
McCall fumbled with the connectors, his fingers suddenly clumsy. The sterile air of the cabin felt charged, the flickering lights strobing like a warning. The mundane maps of the solar system on the walls seemed to mock the impossible horror growing beneath them. He plugged the uplink into the battery. A single, green LED blinked to life. Steady.
"Okay. Okay." McCall flipped open the uplink’s interface. Tiny screen. He entered the emergency command channel encryption sequence burned into his memory. Weeks. Priority Alpha. Eyes only. He attached the digital scans Diana must have made – the journal entries, sensor logs, everything she’d gathered. His thumb hovered over the transmit button.
A low thrum began. Not the pervasive pulse of the assimilated biomass. This was different. Deeper. More metallic. A resonant vibration that climbed the scale, setting the metal frame of the bunk trembling. The glass case holding the meteorite began to buzz, a high-pitched whine joining the deeper thrum.
"Feels like an engine," Reyes whispered, backing towards the door, rifle trained down the corridor. "Big one. Starting up."
"It knows," McCall said, his voice flat. He pressed the transmit button. The screen flashed: TRANSMITTING DATA PACKET... 1%...
The vibration intensified. Dust sifted from the ceiling panels. A pipe overhead groaned. The lights flickered wildly, then died, plunging them into near-darkness save for the sickly green glow of the uplink screen and the faint luminescence from the hallway.
5%...
Something heavy slammed against the cabin door. Once. Twice. Metal shrieked.
Reyes braced, firing stance solid. "Whatever it is, it’s big! And really pissed about that journal!"
McCall kept his eyes glued to the agonizingly slow progress bar. 10%... The door dented inward, the reinforced metal buckling around a massive, indistinct shape. Another shattering impact. Hinges screamed. The resonant thrum became a roar, vibrating the floor, shaking the journals off the desk, rattling McCall's teeth. The meteorite in its case hummed like a struck tuning fork.
15%...
The door exploded inwards. Not just broken. TORN. A shape filled the doorway, blotting out the faint corridor light. Hulking. Glistening wetly. Not Jensen. Not Choi. Something new. Something made.
The thing in the doorway wasn't just big; it was a nightmare collage. Fused skeletons provided a jagged internal scaffold, wrapped in pulsating, vein-like cables and plates of scavenged starship hull that dripped viscous, clear slime. Jensen’s hollow face, slack and empty, was embedded crookedly just above where a shoulder should be, framed by Choi’s twitching, half-assimilated arm grasping the torn doorframe like a handle. Its core pulsed with the same sickly light as the walls, a rhythmic thudding that vibrated McCall’s fillings.
"Transmitting!" McCall yelled, voice raw, eyes locked on the uplink’s screen: 27%. The creature took a shambling step forward, floor panels buckling under its impossible weight. Jensen’s dead eyes seemed to track the green glow.
Reyes fired. Three precise shots. Crack. Crack. Crack. The high-velocity rounds punched wet craters into the biomass near the Jensen-face. Dark fluid spurted, sizzling where it hit the floor. The thing flinched, a low, grinding groan emanating from deep within its mass, but it didn't stop. Choi’s arm lashed out, impossibly fast, smashing the edge of the bunk, crumpling the metal like foil.
"Pissed is an understatement, Sarge!" Reyes barked, ejecting the spent mag and slamming in a fresh one with practiced speed. They sidestepped as a cable-tendril whipped past, cracking the wall where their head had been. "Transmit faster!"
"Working on it!" McCall snarled, the uplink feeling desperately fragile in his hands. 35%. The deep, resonant thrumming from the creature intensified, making the air itself feel thick and resistant. Diana’s bloodstained journal slid off the shuddering desk. The meteorite case was buzzing violently now, a dissonant counterpoint to the entity’s pulsing drone.
Choi’s arm swung again, a wrecking ball of flesh and metal aimed straight at Reyes. They dove aside, rolling behind the overturned desk as the blow cratered the deck where they’d stood. McCall saw his chance. He lunged, not for the door, but for the glass meteorite case. "Cover me!"
Reyes popped up, firing controlled bursts at the Jensen-face, forcing the massive head to jerk back. McCall slammed the butt of his rifle into the case’s reinforced corner. Once. Twice. The glass starred, then shattered. He grabbed the heavy, cold stone. It vibrated fiercely in his grip, an alien hum resonating up his arm that felt disturbingly old.
52%.
The creature roared, an unearthly sound like tearing metal mixed with a biological scream. Its entire bulk shuddered, the pulsing light flickering erratically. Jensen’s face contorted in silent agony. The resonant vibration stuttered.
"It hates this thing!" McCall yelled, hefting the meteorite. Its surface felt unnervingly warm now, reacting to proximity. "Push it back!"
He hurled the meteorite not at the creature’s body, but at the deck directly in front of its shuffling feet. The heavy stone hit with a dull thunk. The effect was immediate and dramatic. The creature recoiled as if burned, stumbling back a step with a pained, guttural moan. The pulsating light dimmed significantly, the oppressive thrumming faltering. The fused cables writhed like disturbed worms.
"Transmission complete!" McCall snatched the uplink just as the screen flashed 100%. He jammed it into his chest rig. "Move! Now! Through it!"
Reyes didn’t hesitate. They vaulted over the shattered desk, firing wildly to draw attention away from McCall as he scooped up the vibrating meteorite. The stone was hot now, almost uncomfortable, humming like a live wire against his armor. They charged towards the doorway, towards the momentarily stunned monstrosity. Reyes ducked under a sluggish swing from Choi’s arm, slipping past the creature’s flank into the corridor just as McCall dove low, rolling beneath the creature’s massive, dripping torso, the chill slime spattering his visor.
He came up running, clutching the humming rock to his chest. Reyes was already ten meters down the corridor, firing backwards to slow the creature’s lumbering pursuit. The corridor lights flickered wildly, the air thick with ozone and the creature’s rancid, organic stench. The thing regained its footing, turning with surprising speed, letting out another enraged bellow that shook the walls.
"Which way?!" Reyes yelled, scanning the branching corridors ahead. Echo 7 was a maze of identical, sterile hell.
"Engineering!" McCall gasped, the meteorite vibrating against his sternum. "Find the core! Burn it all!" Diana’s final words were their only map. The heavy thud-thud-thud of the creature pursuing them pounded through the deck plates. Jensen’s slack face, framed by torn metal, filled McCall’s peripheral vision as he glanced back, closer than before.
ALARMS BLARE.
The alarms screamed like banshees in the metallic throat of the corridor, strobing crimson light painting their frantic run in jagged snapshots. McCall’s boots pounded the deck, the alien meteorite clutched hard against his chest plate still humming against his sternum, a counterpoint to the enraged bellow chasing them."Left! Engineering corridor!" he yelled over the din, shoving Reyes ahead of him into a branching passage slightly wider than the last.
The pursuing monstrosity, that fused abomination of Jensen, Choi, and scavenged metal, slammed into the junction behind them, its bulk momentarily wedged as it ripped at the frame. Reyes skidded to a halt, breath ragged, snapping off two shots at the thrashing mass to buy seconds. "It’s learning, Derek! Faster!" The thing’s guttural roar vibrated the deck plates, closer than before.
McCall spotted it first – a recessed maintenance alcove, barely more than a dent in the wall ten meters ahead, shielded by a partially collapsed storage rack. "There! Move!" They dove into the cramped space just as the creature wrenched itself free with a shriek of tearing metal, its lumbering steps shaking the floor. McCall slammed his back against the cold wall, the meteorite held out like a shield, its intense vibration making his arm tingle. The creature halted abruptly at the alcove's entrance, repelled by the stone’s proximity, its pulsating core flickering erratically. Jensen’s embedded face seemed to grimace, lips pulling back from fused teeth in silent fury. It paced just beyond the invisible barrier, tendrils lashing, Choi’s arm smashing impotently against the bulkhead. "Can’t… quite… reach," Reyes panted, watching it seethe, rifle trained on the Jensen face. "But it ain't going anywhere either."
For a few desperate heartbeats, they just breathed, the stench of ozone, decay, and their own sweat thick in the confined space. The alarms drilled into their skulls. "Transmission made," McCall gasped, patting his rig where the uplink was secured. "Weeks knows." Reyes nodded, wiping grime from their brow with a trembling hand. "Small favors. Now how the hell do we get past that to Engineering?" They both stared at the creature, a wall of dripping, hateful biomass blocking their path.
A sharp crack echoed above the alarms, distinct from the creature’s thrashing. Then another. Fine metallic dust sifted down onto their helmets and shoulders. McCall looked up instinctively. The ceiling panel directly above them was bulging, its seams straining. "Reyes—!" he started, shoving the sergeant deeper into the alcove.
The panel gave way with a metallic groan. But instead of debris, a cascade of small, glittering objects rained down, clattering onto the deck plates around their feet. McCall flinched, expecting a trap, raising the heavy meteorite defensively. The creature outside recoiled further, snarling with unmistakable revulsion.
Dozens of crude necklaces lay scattered on the floor. Leather cords, snapped wires, even ripped strips of fabric – each holding a jagged, dark shard of rock identical to the one McCall held. They pulsed with the same faint, cool luminescence, the same resonant hum. Reyes bent down, picking one up cautiously. The shard vibrated gently in their palm. "More of it? The meteorite?"
"It hates it," McCall breathed, kicking a few shards closer to the alcove entrance. The creature flinched back as if burned, snarling. "Diana said it couldn't stand this room... she must have been breaking pieces off the main sample." A sudden, cold dread washed over him. "Where is she?"
His eyes scanned the alcove, past the fallen necklaces and the broken ceiling grid. The dim, flickering emergency lights pooled in the far corner, behind the toppled storage rack.
Diana Albertson lay slumped against the bulkhead, half-hidden in shadow. Not fused. Not absorbed. Human. Horribly human. Her eyes were wide open, frozen in a rictus of terror and pain. The front of her science tunic was a dark, glistening ruin of crimson, soaked through. Dozens of savage stab wounds punctured her chest and abdomen, the fabric torn and ragged.
McCall felt the breath leave his lungs. Reyes made a choked sound. "Oh god. Derek..."
She hadn't been taken. She’d been murdered. Butcher work. Up close, the violence was obscene, frenzied. McCall’s gaze, drawn by a faint glimmer, snapped to her neck. Nestled in the gruesome mess, partly obscured by blood, was one of the crude necklaces. A larger shard of the resonant meteorite pulsed faintly against her still skin. Her hand, curled claw-like in her lap, clutched a heavy utility knife, its blade smeared dark red to the hilt.
"Not the creature," Reyes whispered, the horror dawning. "Someone else. Human."
McCall stared at the knife, at the sheer number of wounds, at the necklace pulsing against Diana’s throat like a fading heartbeat. The creature outside slammed against the barrier again, frustrated, but McCall barely registered it. His voice was a low, dangerous rasp. "Thorne." He looked down at the necklace Reyes still held. "He killed her. Tried to stop her. Tried to stop the necklaces." He slipped one over his own head, the shard cold and humming against his collarbone. "Grab one," he ordered Reyes, his eyes fixed on Diana's final, defiant act. "And get ready to move." The alien horror outside seemed suddenly less monstrous than the human betrayal within.
The alien horror snarled just beyond the shard’s invisible barrier, its fused biomass writhing with impotent rage. McCall stared at Diana’s butchered form, the crude necklace pulsing cold light against her torn throat, the bloody utility knife clenched in her dead hand. The metallic taste of betrayal flooded his mouth, sharper than the stench of decay. "Thorne did this," he growled, the words scraping raw. "He silenced her. Tried to stop this." He kicked another vibrating shard towards the entrance; the creature flinched back with a guttural screech.
"Focus, Derek," Reyes urged, their voice tight but steady as they quickly looped a necklace over their own head, the shard humming against their chest plate. They kept their rifle trained on the monster’s Jensen-face, finger tense on the trigger. "We grieve after we burn that bastard and his pet rock. How do we get past this ugly?"
McCall snatched another necklace, its resonant vibration buzzing up his arm. "Cover me." He took a deep breath, the ozone-laced air burning his lungs. "We use them. Push it back." He stepped forward, shard-first, out of the alcove’s relative safety. The creature recoiled violently, its pulsating core dimming as if shorted out. Choi’s scavenged arm flailed wildly, smashing a dent in the opposite bulkhead but unable to close the distance. McCall advanced another step, the shard held like a torch. "Move! Slow and steady!"
Reyes followed, firing precise shots near the creature’s base to distract it, keeping close behind McCall’s protective radius. The thing emitted a sound like tearing metal and cracking bone, retreating step by reluctant step down the corridor, driven back by the shards’ repellent energy. Its frustration was palpable, a physical pressure in the air. "Keep pushing, Sarge! Feels like herding a pissed-off tank!"
They maneuvered the monstrosity back ten meters, fifteen. The corridor branched again just ahead, a wider junction marked with faded stenciling: CORE ACCESS - AUTHORIZATION THETA ONLY. The creature, pressed against the far wall of the junction, let out a final, earth-shaking bellow of pure hatred and seemed to slump, its pulsating light almost guttering. McCall saw his chance. "Engineering corridor! NOW!" He and Reyes broke left, sprinting past the momentarily stunned horror, leaving it thrashing in impotent fury behind them.
The deep thrumming intensified with every step, vibrating their bones, resonating with the shards around their necks. The air grew warmer, thicker, carrying a cloying sweetness under the ozone that made Reyes gag. "Smells like… rotting fruit dipped in battery acid. Nasty." The corridor lights flickered erratically, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to writhe on their own. McCall scanned the bulkheads – the sterile metal was giving way, fused with pulsing, root-like tendrils of the same dark biomass, veins of sickly light threading through them. The hum wasn’t just sound anymore; it was a pressure inside his skull, a rhythmic demand.
They rounded a final bend. The corridor ended abruptly at a massive, circular blast door, partially fused open by encroaching, luminous biomass. Beyond it lay the Core Chamber. It wasn’t a room; it was a cavern sculpted from nightmare. The walls, floor, ceiling – all were alive, pulsing with that same rhythmic light, a vast network of veins converging on a central mass. In the chamber’s heart rose a jagged spire of dark, crystalline stone – the primary meteorite, radiating waves of palpable power that distorted the air. Dozens of Jensen-like faces, slack and empty, were embedded in the living walls, eyes fixed on the core. And standing calmly before the immense meteorite spire, bathed in its eerie glow, was Diana Albertson.
She looked whole. Untouched. Her science tunic clean, her posture relaxed. She turned as they approached the fused doorway, a warm, welcoming smile spreading across her face. Relief, impossible and cruel, washed over McCall for a fleeting second. "Diana?" Reyes breathed, lowering their rifle fractionally, confusion warring with dread.
Diana’s smile widened. It was perfect. Too perfect. She raised a hand, beckoning them forward, towards the pulsing mass. Then, like a hologram losing power, her form flickered, dissolved into swirling motes of light, and vanished without a sound. Where she had stood, only the throbbing, alien core remained, its rhythm deepening, echoing the pounding in McCall’s chest.