right in front of me. Crime, in general, had been all but eliminated on all the main planets of the Federation, including Earth.
I kept staring at the motionless body on the floor, unable to move a muscle. The man who’d been a living, breathing, thinking individual just moments ago, was nothing but a corpse with its neck snapped.
Jose recovered first.
“We are a peaceful delegation!” He faced the newcomer—the errock, I recognized his species.
His yellow eyes narrowed as he gave each of us an assessing glare.
At least a few inches taller than the biggest man of my crew, the errock seemed twice as broad. His reddish skin darkened to gray on the hard ridges running along his arms and bald head. Wearing black pants, dark boots, and a wide utility belt, the male was topless.
Errocks were a civilized nation. Yet this individual’s behavior was that of a feral, murderous animal.
The second engineer suddenly leaped on the newcomer’s back with a laser knife clutched in his hand.
With a grunt, the errock grabbed the engineer’s head and yanked it, twisting it with his hands. The human’s neck snapped with the same wet cracking noise I’d heard earlier. I swayed on my feet, ready to barf.
“Oh, my God...” Val whimpered. She staggered backwards to the wall while pressing an arm to her side. Her face as white as the wall behind her, she slid to the floor.
“Run!” Jose shoved me aside, grabbing a long, heavy tool from the shelf in the suit storage.
Run! But where?
According to the glowing sign over the airlock by the control panel, outer space lay behind it. I had no time to get into my spacesuit. We were trapped on the ship, with the huge, murderous errock blocking the only exit he’d created. Where did he come from? Why was he killing everyone unprovoked?
I had no idea, but it was clear he wasn’t going to stop. A murderous glimmer in his eyes, lips curved in a menacing smile, he faced Jose.
I anxiously darted my gaze along the walls and the ceiling around me, searching for an escape route, a place to hide, anything. Running to our sleeping cabin would only make it easier for the errock to corner me there.
My body shook. Everything inside me vibrated with horror and the need to escape.
The escape capsule!
Tripping over my feet, I dashed for the round door next to the suit storage.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the sight of Jose being hurled against the wall by the monstrous errock. Our captain’s head dangled awkwardly, only attached to his body with muscles and skin.
Lee ran for the opening the errock had cut out, probably hoping to escape that way.
Val was lying on the floor next to the round table in our common area in the middle of the ship.
“Val!” I yelled. “Here!”
Curled into a ball, she didn’t move. Was she dead, too? The monster must’ve gotten her already.
“Lee!” I screamed, stabbing my fingers into the control panel next to the entrance of the escape capsule. The door slid open, and I climbed in.
I poked my head out, searching for Lee. The errock held him over his head. He slammed our scientist over his knee, snapping the man’s spine in half.
My head spun, terror lodging tight in my throat. I hit the panel on the other side of the door, locking myself inside.
The capsule was designed to take us off the Anomaly upon completion of our mission if the ship failed.
My entire team had been annihilated in seconds. Screw the mission, the documentary I was supposed to make, and the astronomical reward I’d been promised.
With trembling fingers, I strapped myself into one of the six seats inside the capsule and initiated the take-off sequence on the on-board computer.
I was the last survivor of our ill-fated expedition, and I was getting out of here.
A red warning flashed on the control panel in front of me.
“Not enough power to complete the take-off sequence.”
What exactly did it mean? I feverishly searched my brain for any mention of this message during my year-long training for this mission.
The capsule was much smaller than the spaceship. Its engines, however, were many times more powerful than the ship’s. The sole purpose of this thing was to take us off the Anomaly. Why wouldn’t it do just that?
Had something been damaged during our crash landing? I punched more buttons on the control panel, trying to troubleshoot the problem.
The dreadfully familiar sound scraped against the capsule door from the outside.