No thought was given to security. I suppose it was assumed that if you were down here to begin with, you were one of their own. I crawled in through a waste chute, my pant legs soaking up the brown grimy juice running along the pipe at the lowest point. Or perhaps a hallway? With a lubricant so they can more easily slide through it.
So much I would never learn, but had no desire to. The pipe emptied into a juncture and through a grating, I could see a group of the ungainly grubs gathered around, chittering excitedly. Angling for a better look, I now saw that the object of their excitement was a projected image of the Earth. I didn’t have to guess which one.
I crawled through the tunnel until, peering through a grating, I discovered something of a nursery. Seemingly comatose creatures lay prone in medical alcoves, secreting one egg after the next, filling up translucent sacks. The door suddenly opened, giving me a start, and light poured into the room. The egg layers murmured in disapproval, little legs wiggling.
The one in the doorway was dressed as a man. It went around collecting the egg sacks that were full, tying them off, pulling them free of each ovipositor, then loading them onto a wheeled cart. Once fully laden, he pushed the cart out the way he came and shut the door behind him.
When things settled down, I pushed out the grate and gingerly tiptoed among the sleeping monsters. The smell was much like rotting meat and I had to fight back convulsions until I was out of the room. I found myself in a long, brightly lit corridor. I spotted the man with the cart rounding the corner at the end, so I followed at a distance.
Around the corner, I saw him enter a room through a transparent sliding door. A sort of airlock, it turned out when I got close. Nothing in the way of locks, so entering after him was easily done. The chamber on the other side looked out over the rocket, various hoses and cables strung to it from some kind of support tower.
He stood, back turned, loading the egg cases into a large cylindrical container. Words in some undecipherable language stenciled on the outside, no help to me. But I had a good idea of where it was headed.
I don’t know why I expected one shot to put him down. I don’t even know where their brains are. But upon shooting him in the back of the head, he screeched, turned around with murder in his eyes and lunged at me.
I continued shooting at various parts of his body. Pinning him down was no help either as he simply erupted from his human suit, now twice my size, and unfolded a pair of mantis-like arms from beneath his mouth parts.
I shot at the eyes, blinding the thing but not otherwise impeding it. Finally, a chance shot to the midsection caused it to collapse in a twitching heap. It took several minutes to slow my breathing down.
By the time I managed to heave the immense jiggling corpse into the empty egg cart, and cover it with a concealing layer of eggs on the top, I had quite a bit of its blood on me. Foul smelling black goo, somewhat resembling crude oil.
I couldn’t very well go undetected like this. Not savoring the idea but with no obvious alternative, I climbed into the human suit. It fit snugly and seemed to actively adjust to my proportions. Not simply rubber, but some sort of living material, possibly technology of some type I’d never had reason to imagine.
I wheeled the cart back to the nursery, stuffed the creature’s corpse through the vent, then dumped all of the egg cases in there with it. Took several loads, during which I encountered two human-suited technicians of some kind in white uniforms, who saluted me as they walked past me down the corridor.
“Hope you’re almost done with the egg cases, sir. The rest of the launch preparations are just about complete.” I’d evidently stolen the disguise of someone important. All the better. Once all of the eggs were stashed, I placed the MIRV, and set the timer for an hour.
With any luck long enough that I’d be entering orbit before then, but not long enough for anybody to discover the corpse and the eggs. I returned to the room where I’d shot the fellow whose skin I was now wearing, climbed inside the case intended for the eggs, and pulled it shut.
I waited in darkness for some time, growing anxious. What if I’d misunderstood? What if it went off before the case was loaded? What if someone found the body before then? My nerves starting to fail, I contemplated opening the case, but didn’t get the chance.
It lurched around me as some unseen pair of hands, perhaps hundreds of little ones, picked up my hiding place and loaded it onto a cart. Or small vehicle? I was jostled about slightly as whoever had come to collect the case delivered it to what I hoped was the launchpad.
“I don’t know”, I heard outside, somewhat muffled. “He just left. Yeah, I know you were waiting on him. He’s done this before, you’ll recall. Should really be replaced before he throws the project completely off schedule. You’re lucky I thought to check on him.” I heard a loud electrical whine and felt upward acceleration. A lift?
The case was then hoisted up and carefully slid into what I hoped was the capsule at the top of the rocket. Confirmed when I heard the loud clang of a shutting hatch, and felt pressure on my eardrums. Then more agonized waiting. Couldn’t I have set it for two hours? Would it have really made a difference?
I strained to see my watch. Just barely couldn’t manage, arm pinned by the confines of the case. It smelled faintly of the eggs I’d taken from it earlier. Then I heard some incomprehensible loudspeaker nonsense. Barking out one foreign sound after the next which, when I realized it was a countdown, sent me into paroxysms of joy.
At last, the familiar crushing force of liftoff. A few minutes of violent shaking and pressure until everything was once again serene. I felt myself become weightless, and chose that point to open the case. I gasped for air, which helped somewhat, but soon grew dizzy again. Withdrawing the perchlorate candle from my pocket, I activated it, securing at least a few minutes of oxygen.
The capsule interior was baffling. As I suppose I should’ve anticipated as it wasn’t meant for humans and, evidently wasn’t even meant to support a living, breathing being. There were no whirring fans, no gentle hissing or any of the other sounds I associated with life support. Then I remembered the note.
Only designed to deliver eggs. No wonder the interior was so small. Nothing resembling seats either, just someplace to secure the cylinder. I began to panic, wondering if I’d asphyxiate before-
Just then, the device fired. Their equivalent of it, anyway. The white fog enveloped me, I felt my stomach drop, then all of a sudden everything returned to normal. As normal as it could be, given recent events. I peeled back the suit, struggling to squirm out of it in the tight confines of the capsule interior.
When re-entry began, there was nothing to strap myself into. The best I could figure was simply to climb back into the egg cylinder, shut it, and pray. A luxury I’d not had for decades, but my only recourse as I hurtled through the upper layers of the atmosphere, sweating profusely in my strange little coffin.
Stay Tuned for Part 5!