Leeches of souls, a short story of sci-fi

The ship had been deserted for decades, but desperate times called for smart measures. Flaire used to be the Commander of the beauty, but times had changed and old ships had been left behind, left behind until trouble swept through their colony. They never meant to leave the planet, they had come to stay, but there lay a force under the surface of the land, a force that did not like visitors, or maybe it liked them too much. The darkness beyond fed on Flairs people above.

There was nothing they could do, but leave. They had tried fighting, but it was a loosing battle, the shape-shifters either fed from their dead or consumed their living until they, too would be nothing but a shell. It seemed her people had awoken the dwellers who had lived underground just waiting. She should have known when they landed as well. The flora on the planet was flourishing while there were no other life forms to be found. The planet was a trap, a flame to a moth.

So she had done the only thing a leader could have done, she took her people, the ones that were left, and found the Ascension once more, the only ship she had ever commanded, the one ship that had served her well, and led her to so many planets a long time ago. The only colony ship the planet had. They did not have time to build new ones, even though they had the knowledge and the technology. It would take years, and years was not what she or her people had.

---

-- The ships intelligence systems seem to be down, and the main bridge is locked, the secondary bridge is still active, though.- they had just stepped onto the vessel, the whole 1753 passengers, the engineers were checking the systems by connecting to them through the entry-halls computers and the head engineer was the one to update their Commander.

-- Okay, I want all of you to keep together, keep weapons charged and movements limited. Get all the people as close to the secondary bridge as possible and put us in the planets orbit, we need to reboot Ascensions systems so she can scan and eliminate any shape-shifter DNA in the craft. We can not risk bringing one of those creatures anywhere other than their native planet, who knows the destruction they could bring. Major Kristan is in charge while I will be going to the main bridge. You need all of the hands possible to get us out of here, but after we are in the air, assemble a team to join me!- Commander Flair was the highest officer of their crew, she had the authority and the skill to deal with dangers, plus she wanted to make sure that she was the first one to know what was wrong on the bridge, and if it really was something serious, she could warn her people to prepare accordingly.

She took her swords and her blades with her as Ascension was not fully operational yet, its defense systems would not react well to a gun being fired at any of the parts crucial for keeping the ship going. And somehow she had a feeling that her crew was safe as long as it did not come with her, she always trusted her intuition. A guard passed her a helmet, equipped with glasses, that picked up the footprints of the shape-shifters, and she started her journey to the core of the spacecraft.

She had lost half of the colonies people. When the attacks started, she had reached out to warn the interstellar committee that something was off on the planet and they had offered to send a ship. The only thing Flair could say then was a ''no'' she did not know what was attacking them and any more people on the planet could potentially mean more deaths. It happened fast, in tree weeks they lost almost 2000, so she knew that quarantine was all she could do. She informed the council that she would try getting out with as many as she could, but sending help would be suicide for the coming.

Her scientists had come to conclusions about the creatures as well, they were not used to feeding on intelligent life forms, they battled the human minds for a long time and most got frustrated and just suffocated their prey even though they apparently preferred to feed from the living. Flaire assumed that there had not been life forms on the planet other than the local ones, the animals and all that was now gone. Otherwise the planet would have been added to the galaxies register of quarantined habitats. The commander was blaming herself for the lives of her people, the disappearance of their livestock should have been a sign that she should have taken more seriously. But they had lived on the planet for more than 20 years before the creatures awoke, they had put their guard down.

The ship suddenly illuminated. A good sign, which meant that the second bridge had been reached and her people were soon to take off. Flaire switched off her flashlights and looked in front of her. She was close to the main deck that was sealed from the rest of the ship, as it should be. The only two people to have access to it was her and her second in command, Amarilla. But when her partner had been taken, Flaire had given the permissions to Major Kristan, who she had been training to be the next leader of Ascension.

Flaire placed her palm on a console next to the entrance of the main bridge and the door shot open in front of her. The first thing she noticed was the oil like spots all over the huge space, especially on the middle of it, where the system switch was. It looked like a fight had taken a place in the room, the spots were everywhere, the walls were dripping with the oil, and the drops reaching the floor, made Flaire uncomfortable. She grasped behind her and pushed a button on the console on this side of the door, the room immediately got sealed once more.

She spoke for the first time, through her helmets comm, informing her crew to proceed as planned even though there was a threat on the ship that would have to be dealt with before they could go any further than the planets orbit. She did not know how many there were, but they should be careful and stay on the lover levels. Then her voice froze and the team on the other side seized to hear anything anymore. They were trained for a situation like this, but still, all of them held their breath. Waiting for their leader.

Meanwhile Flair was in a situation that rendered her speechless. She saw the figure move, around a corner, when she spoke, but she wasn't preprepared to see Amarilla, covered in black sticky oil. The creature was still fighting to consume her partner, and it was not giving up. It stopped and for a second Flaire and Amarillas eyes locked with each other. Flairs hand slipped away from the comm button and they stood in silence. Finally, her second in command spoke, in a screechy voice.

-- You took away my permissions. I wanted to help you to stay on the planet forever.- it was clearly not Amarilla talking, but somehow the creature had the knowledge from her partner.

-- Yeah, Amarilla died, I revoked her permissions, you creatures are killing my people.- Commander was reaching for her knives slowly, she was assessing the situation. The creature was right next to the main console, in the middle of the room and the console itself was covered in more oily goo that Flaire wanted to touch.

-- Oh, she is still in here. The puny creature never shuts up. She is filling my head with all of those thoughts of how she loves you and how she is sorry and just wants to be with you again. It is messing with me. I should have taken my creatures with me. This one is strong.- the thing seemed to ramble to itself, just like her partner usually did, and Flaire had the chance to take the knives before the thing finally looked at her again.

Her partner was partly covered in the creature, her eyes were black where they should have been white, her heart and head was covered in the things body, and the oily liquid was dripping on the floor. The creature looked at her and the knives, Amarillas eyes narrowed. The commander knew that it was hard to kill it, but not impossible, she just had to cut the parts that connected the brain to the heart, they were located on the back of her partner, the partner she loved more than herself. She had not let herself grief, and she knew she could not do it yet.

-- Is she still in there? Amarilla, I love you, too, I am sorry, I have to do this, but I will always love you.- the Commander leaped forward, the creature was far enough to have time to react, but it did not have any training, just the parts it had taken from its host that was still fighting against it. It was not easy for both of the parties, the creatures strength was its asset, but Flaire knew what had to be done. She knew that the creature could not disconnect from its body until it had finished feeding, so she had no fear to be taken.

She let the thing kick her blades from her hands and lean over her body in the fight, over the main console. She saw the eyes of her partner, still begging, hoping to be released from the trap of unknown. Their faces were close to each other and the creature was smiling at Flaire thinking it had won. Its tongue darted out, almost touching the Commander.

-- I will finish on your friend now and jump on to you, to get that precious information I need, to feed my people.- Amarillas eyes got covered by the black substance and it was moving closer to her nose and her mouth, the thing was going in for a kill. It was the moment to act, the Commander reached for the two swords on her back and puled them out in less than a second. Then she hugged her partners body and made the cut.

There was a short scream as the creature let out its last breath through Amarilla. Then the body of it flapped open, away from its host. Two blobs fell down on the ground and the second in command collapsed on top of the Commander. Her eyes were black and her breath shallow. She looked in the last eyes she knew she would ever see.

-- I love you. Kill me, it took almost everything, I will not survive anyways.- Flaires partner coughed, a blob of blood and oil came from her throat. The Commander saw it in her eyes, and she felt the body, the host without its parasite was going to die a slow and painful death. So she closed her eyes, counted her blessings and prayed to Amarillas gods before driving a blade through her lovers heart. Another life, gone.

Only then she realized that there was chatter in her ear, her people were trying to reach her. She looked around before answering, she looked at her arms covered in red and black and left out a sigh. She had seen way too much in her life, she had lost enough for a lifetime. The body on top of hers lay heavily, so she gently pushed it off and got on her feet. She wiped the console with her uniform and put a code in it.

-- Welcome back, Commander, how may I serve?-** A crisp voice of a computer awoke everything on the ship. Flaire looked at the body at her feet once more and gave the cleanup orders, the orders to contact the closest stations and warn them, the order for her people to be assigned to their posts. She had no time for grief, even though the mother of her children had just passed, there were things to be done to reassure the survival of her crew.

---

So their laws are that they inhabit uninhabited planets and make colonies, when one colony is stable, the arriving Commander becomes the leader of the colony and a person she/he chooses takes the ship that belonged to the Commander and explores further with a new team from the planets inhabitants that do not wish to stay. The new leader becomes a Commander and so the cycle renews. It takes at least 50 years before a ship takes off and when it does an emergency ship gets built.

The creatures have numbers, billions of them live under the planets surface, they are sleeping most of the time, but once the planet develops new life forms that somehow manage to get in contact with the creatures, they wake up an have a feast.

This is a dream I had a couple of days ago, but it was actually following the Alice story, so I had to prioritize of a story to put on paper first.

Have a great day, week and life,
Linda