Rasq Writes: Snake Eyes

'It must be winter' Danny thought as he fumbled with the fuel meter. Winter when the cold wind flowed over the airport like a swift river. There were no barriers to hide behind, so the airmen froze if they ventured outside the heated hangars. Froze until their hands were numb and thoughts flowed like maple syrup. This old aviation gas meter with its digital display and mechanical linkages always acted up, and Danny's hands were too stiff, so he just hammered the side of the meter to knock the ice off. 
The digital display blinked back at him. 0131... 0130... 0129...
Danny folded his hands in his armpits to warm them up, shivered from head to toe and cursed the company-issued coveralls that never kept him warm. With bleary eyes, he stared at the digital counter. He couldn't make out what it said. Either his eyes were fuzzy, or the display was frosted with ice. The fuel meter was blaring an alarm that grated his half-awake mind, and he very much wanted to shut it off.
0105...0104...0103
A stray thought wandered through Danny's mind, and he realized that he could feel his palms against his bare flesh. He glanced down and saw that he was not, in fact, wearing coveralls. Save for a medical bracelet strapped around his left arm, he was as naked as the day he was born.
0056... 0055... 0054...
He screamed and whirled around, staring all about him. A spike of fear drove into his mind at the same time he realized where he must be. This is all a dream. A nightmare. How many times had he dreamed about that damned fuel meter, only to wake all the up and find himself hammering on his alarm clock? It was a dream. A dream!
But this wasn't his bedroom.
0039... 0038... 0037
Sure, the room was about the same size as his bedroom, but that's where the resemblance ended. The walls and the floor were white sterile plastic, and freezing fog rolled out of vents in the ceiling. There was one door with a frosted window, not quite big enough to drive a car through. It looked like... like an operating room, or the paint room in his uncle's auto shop, or... 
A walk-in freezer. He was standing in a walk-in freezer.
Now fully awake, Danny glanced back to the so-called fuel meter. It was a terminal of some kind, fogged over from his breath, and only the timer was big and bright enough to shine through. With blunt fingers, he scraped at the glass.H+43760.19
Cryogas Exhausted
Cryosleep operation interrupted, emergency wake procedure in progress...
0022... 0021... 0020...
Thinking back, his last day at the airport was a hot one. Middle of summer, yes, but the bombing and the strafing runs and the burning dropships hadn't helped none. But Danny had survived long enough to be herded onto a shuttle and carried to high orbit, leaving the Covenant to ravage Chi Ceti V. He'd been near tears of joy as the crew herded him and twenty others into a cryochamber and put them to sleep. He had beaten the odds and now he was home free, so long as his luck didn't roll snake eyes.
Danny knelt down and pulled the medical bracelet off his bicep. It came free with a bit of blood, exposing two large needles that had pumped hibernation nutrients into his veins at the start of the journey. But the cryofluid was exhausted? How long had he been under? And where was everybody else?
0003... 0002... 0001... 0000
With a chuff of warm air, the door parted. Shivering, Danny stepped out of the cryochamber. The compartment was dark, lined on each side with cryochambers. He wanted to call out to the crew, but something felt wrong. It was dimmer and grubbier in here than he remembered, and if the crew wasn't there to greet him now... well, maybe calling out was a bad idea.
Danny peered into one cryochamber after another. All were occupied. He could see the dim outline of people through some windows, while others seemed to hold... Danny wasn't sure. Looked like boxes. Why would boxes be stored in cryo instead of people?
He pinched himself. The feeling was numb, but it was there. He wasn't dreaming.
With a clank and a hiss, the door on the cryochamber opposite of him parted, allowing another man to stumble into the open. He spat a mouthful of nutrient paste onto the deck and stepped out of the doorway to make way for at least a dozen other men. The first man, a portly, middle-aged guy who looked vaguely familiar to Danny, looked around in the gloom. Danny had to wave to catch his attention.
"Keep it down, would you kindly?" Danny whispered.
"Why?'" the man asked. "Where are we?"
"Still on the Eva Mae, I think," Danny replied. "Is anyone missing?"
The man looked at the crowd of shivering evacuees. "Maybe some. You?"
"Yeah. Everyone else in my fucking chamber."
A pin drop could have been heard in the compartment, almost. The men were still shivering and chattering their teeth, but they were still and silent like a deer that just heard a twig snap in the forest. So silent that Danny could hear the other cryochambers cycling into wake mode, one after another. And there was something else. Something heavy, shuffling, coming this way.
The men scattered. Most ran back into the cryochamber, but the smart ones ducked into the spaces between the cryochambers or behind an equipment closet. Danny tried to take cover between a pair of cryochambers as well, but the space was full of stowed equipment... including a fire extinguisher. The fire extinguisher had a thick layer of dust on it. That was a bad sign, same as the burned-out light panels that made the room so gloomy. Sealed compartments didn't collect dust, and lights didn't burn out from disuse.
Danny pulled the extinguisher off the bracket, strode down the line of cryochambers, and took up position by the door. He could hear something walking in the next chamber over, If it was a pirate, he was a big man. If he wasn't a man... Danny tightened his grip on the extinguisher. If it wasn't a man, it didn't bear thinking about.
drag-thump-drag-thump-drag-thump
That first man out of the other cryochamber took up position by Danny and said something, but Danny wasn't paying attention. He was focused like a laser on those footsteps, listening to them draw nearer, calculating the exact moment to strike. 
drag-thump. drag-thump. drag-thump.
Whatever it was, it was bigger and moving slower than Danny thought. If it was as heavy as it sounded, it was taller than Danny, and he wasn't a short man. He adjusted his aim accordingly.
Drag-thump. Drag-thump. Drag-thump.
With a yell, Danny stepped out of cover, fire extinguisher swinging... and he hesitated. It wasn't one person, but two, and the skinny one in the white bloodstained coat was hauling the other in a fireman's carry. For a fatal moment, his brain trying to piece together what his eyes were seeing, Danny thought that the one in the coat was a doctor.
But the gaunt, beaked thing that was the 'doctor' was staring back at him with large, glittering yellow orbs. Snake eyes.
Danny screamed again and swung. The alien shrieked and ducked, so the fire extinguisher collided with the naked person that the alien was carrying. Danny swung again and again, but the alien practically threw the person at him and scampered down the other compartment, screaming with terror.
"Shit! Is she alright?" the other man asked. Danny glanced down, and saw that the victim was a middle-aged woman. His airport training took over. He knelt down and checked her vitals. If she had a pulse, he could barely feel it, but the only wound on her was the reddening bruise on her shoulder. If that blow had connected with her head, Danny would probably have killed her.
"That was a Covenant alien," Danny snarled. 
"Yeah, a Jackal," the other man said. "What are they doing, interrogating us one by one?"
"I don't-"
With a hiss, the Jackal rushed out of the shadows. Danny swept up the fire extinguisher and lunged for the alien, and they collided in a tangle of limbs. He'd been in fights before, back behind Smithy's Hangout, but nothing prepared him for the frantic energy of the Jackal. It raked him with claws as it rolled off of him, scrambled to its feet, and took off at a dead run.
"Stop him!" Danny screamed as he rolled to his feet and gave chase. "Someone stop that fucking buzzard!"
Only one man had the guts or the opportunity to try. He leaped out of the shadows between the cryo chambers and tackled the Jackal to the ground. They wrestled for a moment, and then the Jackal broke free, leaving the man with a face cut to ribbons. Danny was already on his feet and racing after the alien, but it hit a button on its way out of the compartment and the door closed behind it.
"Shit," Danny breathed.
"Covenant!" someone else said. "How did they find us?"
"We're done for!" someone else shouted. "What does it matter? We're all going to die!"
"Not yet we're not!" roared that first man. He held the woman up in his arms, as if to show the other evacuees what was at stake. "All of you, man the fuck up and find a weapon. If we're going to die, we're give them a black eye for their trouble. That kid over there has the right idea, and if the rest of you have even half of his gumption, we're going to get out of here alive! You with the beard, get the rest of these cryochambers open! We need reinforcements!"
That nagging feeling hit Danny again. He knew the other man, but his mind was locked up from terror and adrenaline. He pinched himself again, and his fingers came away slick with blood. Definitely not a dream. That Jackal slashed him good across the chest.
The men were pulling hoses and breaking sections of conduit, making a hell of a lot of noise, working themselves up for a fight. Danny crept forward and put his ear to the door. He thought he could hear something on the other side. Squawking, the clicking of claws on the deck. There was someone on the other side of the door, but did it bring friends?
Danny retreated and ducked to the side of the doorway. It wasn't the most original plan, but he was flat out of options. The men were taking up positions, and more evacuees were stumbling out of cryo chambers. If there was enough of them, and if they were all brave or stupid or panicked enough, maybe they could rush-
The door opened. The gunshots started a heartbeat later. Yellow-hot spikes hissed through the air and cut men down. Dying men's screams were cut with the shrieks of the Jackals. When the evacuees were driven back from the doorway, a pair of Jackals advanced with wicked hooked knives, the kind you'd skin an alligator with. They wore white smocks, but neither was bloodstained, so Danny guessed that the son of a bitch he'd tackled earlier was the unseen one with the gun.
A gun. He just had a fire extinguisher. How was he supposed to-
Inspiration struck at the same time the third Jackal quit firing. Danny flipped the extinguisher, reversing his grip and bringing it up.
The Jackal darted around the door, and this time it made sure to check its corners. Those snake eyes glinted madly as it snarled and took aim.
Danny squeezed the trigger. So did the Jackal. Metal spikes hissed past his ear. A stream of chemical fire retardant hit the Jackal square in the face. It flinched, and its aim was thrown off for a crucial second.
Danny covered the ground between them in three steps and swung the fire extinguisher around, and slammed it into the alien's beak with a loud, wet crack. He carried forward on pure momentum and slammed the Jackal against the wall. He felt ribs crack, fortunately not his own.
The Jackal fought back, weakly. Mostly it just sunk a talon into his arm and dragged him to the ground. Danny rolled away, felt his elbow collide with the gun, and lashed out. He needed to get away, he needed to get the gun away-
Footsteps thundered all around him. The men had overpowered the other two Jackals, and now they were getting out of here. Danny rolled out of the way, surged to his feet, and stumbled after them.
Outside the door, there used to be a changing room, full of lockers with the last set of clothes that the men had worn. But now... Danny felt a sick sense of familiarity as he looked around. It was a kitchen. Designed by aliens, to be sure, but it was a kitchen all the same, with ranges and ovens and stainless steel countertops and a pot of stew bubbling in the corner. The men were tearing it apart, looking in every drawer for something they could use as a weapon. 
And through the next door, where there was supposed to be a shuttle bay, Danny saw a bunch of Jackals seated at a bar. Some were gawking in horror, while others went for their weapons.
Danny didn't bother pinching himself this time. He grabbed a cleaver out of a knife block and charged.
----"That was a hell of a tackle back there, son," the old man from the other cryochamber said as he taped a towel over the laceration's on Danny's shoulder. "Did you ever try out for the highschool team?"
Danny wanted to laugh as he finally made the connection, but it hurt too much. Coach Lamont, the man who ran the highschool gravball program since there was a program to run. "Naw, but my nephew was gonna this year."
"Ah. Missed opportunity then." Lamont stood and surveyed the damage in the alien diner. "Good work."
'Good work' Those words felt hollow after the fight in the diner. Some of the Jackals had guns and the presence of mind to draw them. Half the men who stormed out of the cryochambers were dead, and many more were like Danny. Too injured to fight. If the Jackals hadn't panicked and run... Well, they had. And now there was an alarm blaring somewhere. The aliens would probably be back with reinforcements.
Danny looked away from the kitchen. He was sitting at a booth with an exterior window, and through that, he could see where the Eva Mae had come to rest. Like the kitchen, it was alien yet familiar. Held together with energy tethers and scaffolds of exotic alloys instead of good old Titanium A, but an asteroid habitat nonetheless. One habitat linked to another, teaming with aliens, and the Eva Mae at the heart of it all.
"Coach? We're not going to make it, are we?"
"I've seen better odds," Lamont conceded. "But we've given them a black eye, and I think we can do worse than that. Now you're going to sit tight right here and watch the other wounded. The rest of us are going to go on a run."
Danny nodded dully. Sitting here would probably be the easiest thing he'd ever done.
"And one more thing," the gravball coach said as he plunked a plasma pistol on the table. "I want you to do me a small favor..."
"Don't let yourself get taken alive."
Category:The Weekly