Starbleached by Chelsea Gaither

went with her. Galina was down for the count, her shoulder at a
terrible angle. Adrienne couldn’t leave her, she was done with that. No more
running from the broken bodies that needed her. Mich climbed onto the path,
looking perturbed. She gulped for air. Galina’s life flowed out between her
fingers.
    “Bye-bye, Dr. Parker.” He shouted, pointing the gun. “It was
nice…” he froze, lowering the gun as if it had been lit on fire.
    The Overseer loomed behind them like some demonic entity.
Its coat was mud splattered from the haste of its journey, and the black mask
over its face couldn’t obscure the hateful sneer on its lips. “You.” It
whispered.
    “She’s part of the bargain that got you people Holton. She’s
mine.” Mich’s voice rose in terror.
    “I know you.” The monster breathed. It was as if something
had hit the alien hard enough to hurt it. “I know your face. I…” and it turned
to Adrienne, and then back to Mich. Confused and…no, no it couldn’t be
frightened. Could it?
    Mich surged forward, grabbing Adry’s hair and digging the
gun into her temple. “She’s got the enzyme, and that’s what you want, right?
You want the formula, and I want her. We’ll do this the easy way.” He twisted
his fist in her hair, making her scream. “Tell it to him, and you’ll live long
enough to get off this hell—”
    The punch of an Overseer was hard enough to break bones, and
Adry was pretty sure she heard two of Mich’s ribs give. He went sprawling, gun
skittering off into the water. Blood dripped down his chin. Punctured lung. Adry
felt vindicated. He looked up, dazed, as the Overseer stepped between the two
of them.
    “You…” its words seemed to come from across a huge gulf.
“You gave them Holton.”
    Them. The word resounded through Adrienne’s psyche.
So did the shocky note in the alien voice. No, she thought. No, no, it wasn’t
possible. It couldn’t be possible… Mich slowly crawled away,
moving faster, then faster still. He pulled another gun from a holster and
fired it twice, bullets going through the Overseer’s leathers. It didn’t seem
to feel the strike to the shoulder. The lower shot made it grunt, but it didn’t
stop coming. Mich fired at its head. Two bullets lodged in the face mask,
finally making the Overseer pause , its vision blocked by broken carapace. Mich
scrambled to his feet. Blood trickled down his lips and nose. He fired one more
shot, getting the Overseer in the leg, and then ran as fast as his damaged body
could carry him into the swamp.
    Galina was bleeding out between Adry’s hands. The monster
was breathing heavy, too. The torso shot must have hit something important.
Blackish blood dripped across the moss. Black on green. A much better
combination than the red spilling out of Galina.
    It removed its ruined face mask and threw it to one side.
The alien device was swallowed whole by the swamp.. Don’t turn, she
willed it. Don’t show me. Don’t. Please. Don’t. Let my world continue as it
was.
    But prayers like that are never answered.
    It turned.
     
    *****
     
    Then:
    “What happened?” Adrienne had a hand to the bleeding
soldier’s neck. Weak pulse. Weak breathing. Pale as hell. He was just barely
here, hanging on by his fingernails.
    “We went on a mission to Foster. Got a bead on a few POWs,
we thought maybe we could break them out. Only they met us there. It’s like the
fourth time we’ve gotten bad info from that contact.”
    She ripped his shirt open and exposed a raw, oozing wound in
the center of his chest. “Oh my god.”
    “He got fed on.” The team leader looked shaken.
    “Okay. I need an IV and a crash cart prepped, I need—” she
rattled off a long list of requirements, equipment, drugs that she’d found
useful in treating first stage feedings. “How long was he fed on?”
    “Half an hour.” The team leader said.
    She stopped. “What?”
    “It took us time to break in, we moved as fast as we could,
but the thing