He activated his Shadow King skill as he drew closer to the settlement surrounding the crashed ship. He hadn't used this skill very much, and had only a very vague idea of how it worked, but it was supposed to give him the ability to slip into shadows, which was exactly the sort of skill he needed right now. He could only use this skill for fifteen minutes a day, but unlike Night Vision, the countdown timer was only active when he was actually using the skill and actually cloaked in shadows; it paused whenever he stopped actively using it. This allowed him to quickly duck out of sight, vanish into darkness, and step out again as soon as the danger had passed, without wasting too many minutes at a time.
Silence would have been helpful, too, but that skill had a time limit similar to Night Vision, and he had already used it up while trying to sneak past the zombies in the Vroom.
He spotted a few of the Desert King's guards, patrolling the streets, but most of them looked bored and none seemed to be taking their duties all that seriously. Stu crept past them, making his way to the building at the foot of the Vroom -- the building where he had battled the zombies earlier, in the cage. He had no trouble entering the building, and the interior was dark, which allowed him to sneak about using Shadow King.
He finally found himself facing the door to the filthy room where he had been imprisoned with Eldon and Carmine. There were no guards here, nor any surveillance cameras that he could see; they probably figured the steel door was enough to contain the prisoners.
The lock was built into the door, so to unlock it, all Stu had to do was to give it a quarter-turn. He did this, quietly, then looked into the room. The florescent lights were still on.
"Eldon?" he called.
Eldon, who had apparently been sleeping, immediately sat up and turned to look at him. "Stu?" he blurted, a little too loudly.
"Shh!" Stu said, putting a finger to his lips. "It's a rescue. We're getting out of here. Carmine! Wake up!"
But the young man shook his head. "Carmine's not waking up."
The old man was lying on the floor in the corner of the room, his hands crossed neatly over his chest. Stu regarded the man uneasily. "What do you mean?"
"He's dead."
"Dead? How?"
"I don't know. It was after we watched you kill the zombies. He said he was feeling sick, and then...I don't know. I think he might have had a heart attack."
"Damn. Are you sure he's dead?"
"Yeah."
"There's nothing we can do, then. Let's go."
He didn't need to be told twice -- he got up and followed Stu out of the room. "Where are we going?" he whispered.
"To find Luna."
He said nothing in response to that, but he gave Stu an uncertain look. "How did you kill all those zombies before? And what happened to you after that?"
"I'll explain later. Right now we have to find Luna, and Berly, too."
"Who's Berly?"
"Never mind."
Sticking to the shadows, they made their way through the building and through the dark walkway that connected the human-built building to the alien-built spaceship. Stu was pretty sure that Luna and the rest of the women were being held here, in the Vroom itself, though he had no idea where to start looking -- the ship was gigantic, after all.
He did have his Sniffer skill, however. The alien ship smelled like metal, dynamo fluid, burnt plastic, and something he couldn't quite identify, but he could detect some humans as well. He drew in a few deep breaths through his nose, and picked up what he thought might have been Luna's scent, which he had become accustomed to during the time he had spent with her. But it was hard to know for sure. The Sniffer skill had boosted his sense of smell immensely, but his ordinary human brain, unused to these olfactory sensations, sometimes had trouble interpreting the data.
Nevertheless, he followed his nose through the ship's long, dark corridors, with an increasingly fidgety Eldon trailing just behind him. "This is crazy," Eldon whispered at one point. "They're going to find us. They're going to catch us."
"Calm down," Stu told him, although he was growing more than a little apprehensive himself. They couldn't afford to spend all night wandering around this gargantuan spaceship; they needed to meet up with Millie at the eastern gate. And despite his very conservative use of it, the counter was ticking down on his Shadow King skill.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Eventually, however, they found themselves in a section of the ship which seemed to have more of a lived-in feel than the other sections, and which contained many more furnishings. Turning a corner, they spotted a pair of men standing guard before a large pair of double-doors; Stu quickly pulled Eldon back, before the men could see them.
He had a very good feeling that Luna, and probably Berly and the other women, were behind that door. He handed Eldon the chainsaw and said, "Wait here. I'll take care of the guards."
"By yourself?"
"I can handle them. You saw me take care of those zombies, didn't you?"
"The zombies weren't carrying guns."
"Trust me."
Stu took a breath to steady himself, then, without preamble, rushed out of hiding, utilizing his Speed Freak skill to close the distance between himself and the rather sleepy-looking guards in a fraction of a second. The goal here was to take them out as quietly as possible, and that's what he did, swooping in and delivering a pair of hammer-blows to their chins -- blows which immediately caused them to crumple to the floor, before they could raise their guns or, indeed, even cry out. He had only intended to incapacitate the men, but choosing the Paladin class had boosted his offense and made him even stronger than he had been before, and he wondered for a moment whether he had gone too far, and accidentally killed them. He decided he didn't much care.
Having knocked out the guards, he waved Eldon over and together they pushed open the double-doors. The room beyond was dark, but Stu still had a few minutes left on his Night Vision and could see everything within it plainly. It was a very large, expansive room, full of beds, blankets, dressers, mirrors, and other pieces of furniture; the room was carpeted as well.
The room was occupied by over a dozen women, most of whom were sleeping in the beds. A few were awake, however, sitting on divans and gathered around a dim lamp, and apparently having some kind of conversation. These women immediately rose to their feet when Stu entered the room.
"Stu?" one of the women asked tentatively.
It was Luna, but he almost didn't recognize her at first, because she was wearing a gauzy nightgown-looking thing which left very little to the imagination. In addition, her hair had been styled and she was wearing some kind of eye makeup. He blinked at her. "Luna? What have they done to you?"
"Don't ask," she grumbled, stepping forward to meet him. She looked lovely, he thought, or lovelier than he had ever seen her, but the fact that she had been placed in this "harem" and dolled up for the purpose disgusted him. "What's the situation? Where's Lucky?"
"Millie's working on that."
"Millie's here, too?"
"She followed us after we were captured. Are you all right? You haven't been hurt or...or..."
"I'm fine. What about you? You're covered in blood."
"What else is new?"
Other women who were now beginning to gather around them, including Berly, who was looking at him with some amazement. "You're really here."
"Do you two know each other?" Luna asked.
"We met earlier," Stu explained quickly. "But we don't have time to talk. We've got to get out of here."
"What about the guards?" Berly asked.
But her question was answered a moment later, by Eldon, who was now dragging both of the unconscious -- or possibly dead -- guards into the room, in order to get them out of sight. Luna reached down and unholstered the revolver one of the guards had been wearing on his belt, and immediately spun the cylinder to check whether it was loaded. She nodded at Stu. "I'm ready."
Stu turned to the other women. Some of them had not even climbed out of their beds, while others were watching sleepily and still others -- having quickly apprehended the situation -- were already getting ready to leave. Stu recognized the young woman from Delta, who had been captured with them; she was one of those already preparing to depart.
Stu spoke to the women: "We're getting out of here. We're leaving the Vroom. Anyone who wants to is welcome to follow us."
"We'll be killed," one woman said doubtfully.
"He'll come after us," another said, her voice full of fear. "The Desert King."
Stu frowned. He had expected the women to jump at the opportunity to leave this place, but some of them clearly had no desire to leave, or at least, had no desire to risk their lives in the attempt. Steckler had made them into his slaves, but if the choice was between safety and security on the one hand, and taking their chances in a zombie wasteland on the other...well, he couldn't exactly blame them for choosing the former.
Ultimately, seven women, including Berly, elected to escape with them. Stu, with Luna and Berly and the other women following behind him and with Eldon guarding their rear, started making their way down the ship's long, featureless corridors, their weapons held at the ready. Presumably because of the late hour, these hallways seemed to be empty; Stu was beginning to suspect that, apart from the Desert King and some of his immediate followers, not many people actually lived in the ship itself.
Berly sidled up to him. "You must have cut a deal with Steckler," she whispered.
"What makes you say that?"
"You're still alive."
"I didn't cut any deals with him. He tried to kill me."
"Tried?"
"He turned into some kind of monster," he said. "A giant tarantula, it looked like. He choked me until I passed out. He must have thought I was dead, because he had one of his men dump me in the underground section of the ship afterwards."
"And you got out of there? How?"
He held up the chainsaw. "Well, this helped."
She shook her head in disbelief. "You're lucky he didn't rip you to pieces. I have a feeling he can't always control that thing."
"The thing on his arm, you mean? What is it, anyway? You told me before that he had some kind of power, but..."
"I've only heard rumors."
"Tell me."
She shrugged. "They say he found some kind of alien creature in one of the laboratories here, after he killed the soldiers and took over the base. It sort of bonded with him -- attached itself to his arm like a parasite or something. I've never actually seen him turn into the monster, but I've heard stories, and I've seen him kill people, using that thing." She shuddered. "Scares the hell out of me."
"It must have been one of the aliens on board this ship," Stu said. "They took it out to study it." But the idea that this incredible alien ship had been piloted by bloodthirsty, parasitic spider-monsters didn't make much sense to him, and he wondered what the truth of the matter might be.
"You used that chainsaw-thing to escape the ship?" Luna pressed.
"I sawed through the hull," he said. "It was full of zombies down there."
"That's why you're all bloody?"
"Good guess." He sighed. "It's been a very long night."