Sector 3599
An Unknown Planet
This far into space, the planets don't have names. The colonising types don't want to venture into this territory, being so close to the unchartered, unsectored depths of the universe. The Manhunters, and worse, lurk beyond those borders. Fear reigns strong here.
But I'm here. I've spent my time travelling from one barren, nameless world to the next, looking for some sign of my son. The monster known as Kryb, a member of this Parallax Corps, has stolen my son. And she has him somewhere in this sector...
As I arrive in this new planet's orbit, I'm greeted with something I haven't found much of in my search thus far: readings from my ring of sentient life. I land, and it's not long before I find the lifeforms.
"Good God...."
Babies. Dozens of them, from a whole range of species. All of them trapped in pods of some kind, with tendrils seeping up from the ground and hooking into their skin. One of these children is my son. One of these children is Martin! I need to find him, I...
"How dare you!?"
I'm blasted off my feet by a burst of yellow energy. I land hard on the ground, try to roll with the impact, and turn to face my attacker. It's a hideous, hulking hag of a creature, with four arms and a giant cage growing out of my back. Kryb.
"You violate my sanctuary! My home! My children!"
"They're not your children!"
"LIAR!"
Kryb lunges, landing on top of me, pinning me down with its four hands. Try as I might, no matter what will I muster, I can't break free of it's grip. I can't get out! My son is trapped, in this creature's clutches, and I can't get out! My ring won't work! I can't...
"You're afraid."
And I realise she's right. That's why my ring is failing me, because my willpower is failing me. I can't help it. My son, I... I'm giving in to fear.
"No one is fearless. Everyone is afraid of something, and in the face of that fear, their willpower crumbles. Prepare to die, Lantern."
A yellow construct of a giant axe forms over my head, ready to decapitate me. My son! I can't leave him like this! I have to do something! My ring is weakened, so I act on instinct. My arms are pinned down, but Kryb is close enough that she obviously isn't expecting what I do next. Lunging upwards, I bite into her throat.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!"
The shock and the pain breaks Kryb's concentration, and the construct vanishes. She stands, writhes, swings around, but I keep my teeth clamped down in a vicelike grip, rotten black blood spraying everywhere. The more determined I get not to let go, the more I feel myself glowing with that green energy once more, willpower engaged on a primal level. And in constrast, Kryb's aura weakens, her mastery of fear giving in to feeling fear herself.
And so she should. She tried to take my son from me.
"NNNNNNNNNNGLLLLLLLLLLLFUUUUUUUUUHHHH!"
With a guttural, muffled roar, I bite down the rest of the way, biting through the remaining flesh of her throat and tearing her jugular clear out. Kryb collapses, twitching, as I spit out the putrid mass of flesh in my mouth in disgust. With black blood dripping out of my mouth, smeared all over my face, I watch the abomination bleed out on the ground in front of me.
My heart is pounding in my chest, the adrenalin coursing through my veins. I turn my attention back to the babies, and the adrenalin all too quickly cuts out when I see it. When I was blasted off my feet, I dislodged one of the pods from its roots, severing the baby's connection with whatever was being pumped into it. I can see it, it's a baby, a little blue skinned baby. And that baby's screaming, oh God, it's screaming. It's in agony, it's skin rippling and bubbling as if its insides are being torn apart. What can I do, how can I...Jesus, oh Jesus! It's melting! It's skin is peeling, its falling in on itself.... it's disintegrating before my eyes! I don't even know what I'm doing as I break into the pod, trying to scoop it out and watching my fingers sift through its rotting remains. Why is it still screaming? WHY IS IT STILL SCREAMING?
And then, it's gone. Nothing but a bubbling mass of goo. I sit there on the ground in front of the ruptured pod, dumbfounded. Then I throw up, sobbing through the last dribbles of vomit seeping out of my mouth. What just happened? I look at my blue-stained hands, and I retch again. I stagger to my feet, trying to walk it off. What just happened?
I stagger through a network of pods, walking through a nightmare. Did being disconnected from the pod do that to the baby? I raise a trembling hand towards the nearest pod.
"Ring. Full biological scan of the lifeform inside this pod."
<LIFEFORM IS BRAINDEAD. ALL INTERNAL ORGANS, INCLUDING BRAIN, HAVE BEEN DISSOLVED INTO A MUSH OF NUTRIENTS, CHEMICALLY COMBINED WITH THE FORMULA BEING FILTRATED INTO THE BODY. ANY ATTEMPT TO DISCONNECT FROM THE NETWORK WILL RESULT IN STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE. SUSTENAINCE PROVIDED BY NUTRIENTS WITHIN THE POD, AND BY THE MILK OF THE LOCAL LIFEFORM, KYRB.>
"What?"
I cast a guilty glance over at Kryb's corpse.
"What if Kryb can't feed them?"
<THE END RESULT WILL BE DEATH BY STARVATION.>
So take these children out of the pods, and they die a slow, agonising death. Leave these children in the pods, and they die a slow, agonising death. That's no choice. That's no choice....
And then I see my son.
He's one of them now. One of these mockeries of life, one of Kryb's "children". What kind of "mother" would do this? I think about this as if it's an abstract idea, as if it's someone else's child this has happened to. I don't even realise I'm sobbing inarticulately at first, and when I do, I know that it's because this isn't someone else's child. It's my child, my boy. I kneel down in front of the pod, place my hand on it, and in a choked whisper, ask my ring the same question, already knowing the answer.
"Ring...... Full biological scan of the lifeform inside this pod."
<LIFEFORM IS BRAINDEAD. ALL INTERNAL ORGANS, INCLUDING BRAIN, HAVE BEEN DISSOLVED INTO A MUSH OF NUTRIENTS, CHEMICALLY COMBINED WITH...>
I don't listen to the rest. I press my head against the surface of the pod, and let out a deafening wail that reverbates through the barren silence of this world, of this God forsaken sector of space. I don't know how long I lie there, how long I cry and scream and tear at my hair. But after a while, I am quiet. I raise my head off the pod, looking down at my son as I kneel beside it. My ring cuts a perimeter around it, and gently, I lift off the roof of the pod. I place my hand on my son's head.
"Hello, Martin."
Of course, he doesn't recognise me. He stares vacantly, mindlessly through me, his eyes looking at me but not seeing me. Not anymore. I wonder if he even feels any sensation as I gently run my hand along his cheek. It still feels like his skin.
"You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I will love you for the rest of my life."
Softly, I kiss my son on the forehead. Fresh tears run down my cheeks as I say the one word I can't bear to hear escaping from my lips.
"Goodbye."
A blinding flash of light escapes from my ring, a concentrated beam that instantly vaporises everything within the pod. Martin Jordan died quickly, and painlessly.
I don't scream this time. Inside I am, of course. But I just stand in front of the smoking pod, numb, absorbing the enormity, the finality, of what I've just done. And I'm ashamed to say it, but the first thought that springs to my mind is the lie I'll have to tell Carol. I just killed my own son. I look around at the sea of pods. Dozens of innocent babies, snatched from loving parents and corrupted by a vile monster.
"God help me... I have to kill them all."