Dark Planet by Charles W. Sasser

warned through the intercom. “Barf bags are built into your helmets. Listen to the bell. It tolls for thee.”
    He fired the pod after a final systems and safety check. It shuddered, the lights dimmed. It shot away from the Stealth like a bullet from the muzzle of a Grav rifle. There was minimal gravity at this altitude above Aldenia and no atmosphere, resulting in little discomfort for those of us strapped into the projectile. About an hour of weightlessness followed, filled with some idle chatter but mostly with quiet as we riveted our attention upon the viewscreen.
    “Piece of cake,” Atlas quipped. That was one of the grunt’s favorite lines.
    The ride really began when the pod touched the edges of Aldenia’s thick atmosphere. The “pilot” flew like it was insane. That was in case the Blobs were watching. It was programmed to execute random barrel rolls and flips and to make flaky course changes in order to simulate a meteor entering the atmosphere. It tumbled, yawed and skittered first one way, then the other, slamming us against our restraints. Heat shields armored the vessel, but the temperature inside rose anyhow to the steamed-seafood level.
    “Vomit … comet!” Ferret moaned. He sounded sick.
    Plastic wings sprouted from the landing pod once we hit good atmosphere. The viewscreen showed us flying through high storms, which gave us another good jostling. Lightning cracked and popped. A wind tunnel caught us and sent us plummeting and spinning wildly toward Aldenia. We were out of control.
    “Aeeeiiii …!” Ferret gasped.
    We struck the ocean with the impact of a can of processed vegetables dropped from the top of the Triple Trade Towers on Galaxia. Splat! I shook off a moment of unconsciousness. The craft was being tossed about like a small boat in a gale, which was precisely what it had become. A monster that resembled some kind of eel with sharpened teeth the size of pickaxes loomed so suddenly on the viewscreen that Sergeant Shiva recoiled from it with a grunt of surprise and Maid emitted a startled scream. It sank again into the sea, leaving the screen filled with savage mares’ tails whipped by ranks of demonic clouds among which lightning engaged in firefights.
    “What the hell was that?” Atlas exclaimed.
    “I think we’ve been properly welcomed,” Team Sergeant Shiva said and began a head count.
    “Captain Amalfi?”
    Captain Bell Toll gave him a look.
    “Kadar San …?”
    “Yes.”
    “Gorilla …?”
    “Uh … Whew!”
    “Atlas …?”
    “
I
was wrong. That was no piece of cake.”
    “Gun Maid …?”
    “I’m with you.”
    “Ferret …?”
    “… sick.”
    “Blade …?”
    “Fu-uck.”
    “Very well,” Captain Amalfi acknowledged, taking over the ship from the auto pilot. “All accounted for. Crew, prepare to dive.”
    Gorilla checked his panel. “We have watertight integrity, Cap.”
    “We’re still picking up no signals, sir,” Maid reported.
    “Nothing?”
    “That’s what I said, sir.” She sounded testy. “Not even static.”
    “Very well. Dive …”
    That was as far as he got. A throaty voice whispered into the intercom, indistinct and hollow like it was belching out of the black depths of the planet itself. A shudder wracked my body. I not only heard and felt the presence, whatever it was, but an image of something otherworldly and indescribably hellish, of death and torture, perversion and brutality, flashed for an instant in my brain. I almost cried out.
    “Who said that?” Captain Amalfi asked.
    We all looked around, half-expecting something to have entered the pod with us. Something beyond the worlds any of us knew.
    A barely audible chuckle slithered through the intercom. A chuckle without humor, dry and raspy. It would have possessed scales if it were visible.
    “What’s so fuckin’ funny?” Blade challenged.
    A single explosive burst of sourceless, maniacal laughter. Then, only silence and the lingering odors of ozone and rot.
    Maid was the