The Salvage Diaries: Whispers
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Chapter 6: Dead Reckoning
They avoided the main cargo elevators, where shouts echoed like a relentless heartbeat, and slid into a side passage humming with an oppressive, eerie stillness. Emergency lights flashed erratically in shades of crimson and amber, casting rhythmic, bloody shadows across the white walls.
As they rounded the corner toward the bio-labs, the silence wasn’t empty---it was alive, thrumming with a low-frequency vibration that resonated in their bones rather than their eardrums.
“Contact,” Jax called out, his rifle shifting to his shoulder strap as he dropped to one knee beside the man. “He’s hit. Heavy arterial spray on the bulkhead.”
Jazmyn halted mid-step, her gaze locked onto the tech’s expression. No scream escaped him; no pain contorted his features. His eyes were wide, fixed on the door’s seam with a hungry, desperate focus.
“Jax, get back from him,” Jazmyn warned, her grip tightening on her sidearm.
“I’ve got him, Jaz. Just a compression wrap and--.” Jax reached out, his gloved hand moving to press against the wound in the man’s side.
The instant Jax made contact, the tech lunged, clawing at Jax’s armor, not seeking aid but using the gunner as a ladder. Bloodied fingers scrambled over Jax’s shoulder, climbing upward with desperate urgency toward the door override panel.
“The path...” the man hissed, a bubble of red foam bursting on his lips. “Open it... I want to go... home...”
Jax staggered back, unprepared for the desperate strength of the dying man. The tech’s boots flailed uselessly against the floor as his body bent toward the door, drawn like a magnet to its pull.
“Easy there, buddy!” Jax grunted, attempting to restrain the man’s arms without causing harm.
Torvin wasted no time. His massive armored hand closed around the technician’s collar, and with one smooth motion, he lifted him away from Jax, slamming him against the opposite wall.
Even then, the tech didn’t fight Torvin. His head lolled back toward the door, his fingers still twitching in the air toward the panel, dancing to the rhythm of the vibration within the metal.
“He’s gone, Jax,” Jazmyn said, her voice cold as the void. “He’s not feeling that his gut’s leaking all over the floor, just listening to the Siren, now.”
A red emergency light strobed above the thick, armored door. Jazmyn pressed her palm against the access control, and it slid open with the precision of a scalpel. The trail of the technician’s blood led inside, directly into a theater of heat and noise.
Automated turrets had dropped from the ceiling, their searing laser fire cracking like whips. Guttural roars echoed off the white plasteel walls, vibrating through the soles of her boots and into her very bones. In the chamber’s heart stood three meters of living terror—a Siren. Mottled grey and black armor rippled over its segmented torso, and turquoise bioluminescence traced its flanks in rhythmic waves that pulsed in time with the unblinking obsidian eyes.
The creature lunged at the ceiling, swiping a spindly limb, and the nearest turret housing shattered into a spray of molten slag and glass. It landed with a crash that shook the entire section.
“The laser show’s just pissing it off,” Jazmyn said, her voice tight. She dashed behind the closest console, her boots skidding over a trail of blood. “We’ve got to take out the legs.”
Near the creature’s swinging limbs lay the remains of another technician, his white coat torn into bloody shreds. But a few meters beyond the carnage, a figure stood motionless in the monster’s path.
Jazmyn’s breath caught. It wasn’t anyone from Meridian Station’s staff. It was the navigator they’d pulled from the freighter wreck less than a day ago, the one she’d handed over to twitchy assistant. He wore a thin hospital tunic as he stood in the Siren’s path. Not fleeing. Not even flinching as alien claws gouged furrows into the floor mere centimeters from his bare feet.
The Siren’s head split open like a wound, revealing rows of jagged teeth gleaming with dark, viscous fluid. It screamed, a piercing wail that tore through the air like shrapnel, but the navigator didn’t shield his ears. Instead, he leaned into the cacophony.
Jazmyn’s auditory sensors flared with interference, a sensation like minuscule claws scuttling up her spine until they burrowed into the base of her skull. The source wasn’t the creature-it originated from him. His mouth moved frantically in silence, his eyes wide and vacant, mirroring the abyssal void she’d witnessed before.
“Hear that?” Torvin’s voice cut through the crackle in her audio, grim and steady despite the chaos. “His circuits are beyond fried. Even worse than before.”
“I see the path...” Navigator’s voice was barely a whisper against the din of the failing turrets. “...the corridor is clear... follow it home.”
The Siren ignored him completely, its predatory focus locked onto the turrets above it. To the beast, the man wasn’t prey. He was a willing pair of hands that had served its purpose.
“He’s been gone since the wreck,” Jazmyn snapped, raising her auto-pistol and pinning her HUD’s assistive targeting on the Siren’s closest leg. “Focus on the joints!”
Before they could unload, the door behind them hissed open, releasing a rush of compressed air. A squad of corporate troopers filed in, their movements a disciplined black tide clad in matte-black tactical weave. Unlike the station security in the halls, their rifles weren’t armory grab bag finds, but heavy-caliber kinetic platforms built for maximum stopping power.
Commander Thorne entered last, his expression as cold and unyielding as rock. He didn’t react to the Siren’s presence in the core of Meridian Station, instead appearing more annoyed by a minor glitch in his data logs.
“Mercs. You got here early,” Thorne remarked, his gaze sweeping over their makeshift gear. He didn’t offer thanks. “Stay out of the professionals’ way.”
“A strong word for someone keeping a Siren in a glass jar,” Jazmyn retorted.
Lyra Kade gestured toward a massive primary exhaust grate above the creature. “Sector Theta’s ventilation system connects straight to atmospheric processing. If it reaches that vent, we lose it to the station’s lower levels.”
Thorne barked orders. “Suppressing fire! Herd it back into containment!”
Chaos erupted. Kinetic rounds cracked and lasers hissed. Jazmyn moved like a scavenger, taking cover behind toppled workstations. She fired her auto-pistol, the frangible bullets merely scratching the chitinous hide.
“Jax! The knee joints! Aim for the sinews!”
Jax tracked his target, spotting the fissure where the segmented armor intersected. His shot found its mark, embedding a kinetic slug that tore a chunk of mottled flesh from the creature’s hind limb. The Siren let out a high-pitched, grating shriek that echoed in Jazmyn’s bones. It felt less like sound and more like a physical invasion, clawing at her mind.
The Siren locked onto Jazmyn, its gaze feral and focused. For a moment, it ignored the troopers, swinging its tail in a brutal arc that shattered the observation console. It hurled the navigator aside as if he were a discarded toy.
Above, the turret’s red eye locked onto the motion for a fraction of a second before unleashing a volley of superheated plasma. The rounds tore through the man’s torso, melting flesh into the blood-soaked grating.
“Back off!” Torvin barreled between Jazmyn and the beast. He didn’t draw his rifle, but slammed his armored frame into the creature’s side. The impact echoed like a cargo ship crashing into a pier.
The Siren staggered, claws scraping against the plasteel as it carved grooves to regain balance. Yet instead of retreating, it turned its attention upward.
“It’s going for the vent!” Kade shouted.
Thorne’s troopers fired a hail of bullets, but the Siren moved like a living nightmare, its spindly limbs grasping the fractured edge of a broken support pillar. With a sleek, agonizing motion, it heaved itself skyward.
“Don’t let it—” Jazmyn’s warning was drowned out by the screech of rending metal.
The Siren’s claws ripped through the reinforced exhaust grate as if it were paper, letting out a guttural scream that echoed with the abyss’s fury before disappearing into the vent. The ensuing silence was suffocating, punctuated only by the fading hum of the ruined turret and the labored breaths of the troopers.
Kade’s lowered her rifle, jaw clenched as she tracked the gaping ceiling breach. “You get the picture, now, Corporal?” Her voice was ice wrapped in razor wire. “Briefing’s over.”
Thorne was already barking commands into his comms before the dust from the shredded vent had settled. He and his troopers moved with a grim, practiced speed, their boots thudding toward the exit.
“Get me a thermal lock on that thing!” Thorne roared. “Shut down the ventilation in Sectors Theta through Delta. Seal it in the gut!”
Jazmyn didn’t hesitate; she followed, her boots skidding on the blood-slicked floor as she hurried after the commander. She needed answers, and Thorne was the only one left with a voice. But as she rounded the first corner, a hand shot out from a recessed alcove and yanked her violently into darkness.
She spun, adrenaline spiking as she brought her auto-pistol up, but a matte white hand caught her wrist with the crushing, immovable force of a hydraulic press.
She was face-to-face with the android.
Jax and Torvin were instantly there, leveling their weapons at the machine’s head. The android ignored them. Its face mimicked a youthful man, yet the perfection of its features and unbroken skin felt unsettling. It lacked the micro-expressions, the warmth, and the subtle flaws that made a face look alive.
“Miss Silas, don’t follow them,” the android said. Its voice was a smooth, measured tenor, completely untouched by the panic echoing through the station. “I know where the Siren is headed.”
Its blue optical sensors were wide, unmoving pools of light. Jazmyn exhaled, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked at the machine, then flicked a glance at Jax. He looked like he wanted to pull the trigger, but he waited for her word.
“Alright,” Jazmyn said, her voice tight. “Let me go now.”
The android released her wrist and stepped back. “It is hunting, and we need to get there before it reaches its prey,” it stated, already turning to move down a dark, secondary corridor.
Jazmyn rubbed the red mark on her wrist, cursing under her breath. “Follow the corpo toy,” she commanded, gesturing for Jax and Torvin to move.
The android led them at a punishing pace, stopping in front of a heavy cargo elevator. It swiped a blank, white access card over the reader. “I am Neril Deveron,” it said without looking up, the voice perfectly level. “Not in the flesh, obviously.”
The elevator doors hissed open, and the android waved them inside.
“Can you tell us what the hell is going on here, Deveron?” Jazmyn asked as they filed into the cabin. The air inside smelled of ozone and lubricant.
The android entered a complex string of bypass codes, and the cabin lurched, accelerating across the station at a breakneck speed that made Jazmyn’s stomach drop.
“Yes,” it replied. “You are about to be framed for my murder.”