And the sea is eternal

The battle for the Kashkeegee settlement Domes of Europa, had been going on for a great many months... huge numbers, on both sides, had perished.
Sergeant Daniels, his grey chiselled features partially masked by the helmet of his bio-suit, looked to his right and left. They’re winning...he thought sourly, as he noted that the enemy had taken huge chunks out of the ice shelf where his battalion had, over the past twenty months, dug in long lines of trenches. Beyond the trenches were the huge chrome and plasti-glass upside domes; that the soldiers -and the colonist’s- had come to call home.
This had been his forth tour of duty on Europa; and he hated it. It seemed to him that every tour became worse than the tour that had preceded it; and on this tour he had noted that more soldiers had died on this side of the line than ever before. ...For what? He asked himself. ...Was it worth such a loss of life? Especially when ice could be manufactured just as well upon the lunar colonies... was all this sacrifice, this martyrdom, worth the price of a few days of breathable air? He shut these thoughts from his mind, as he saw the Spiders gather once more in the swirling currents of the deep blue-ice eternal ocean. And at that he shuddered deeply. Spiders... The one thing that he hated... no...He corrected himself. The one that that was truly terrifying to him were spiders. Even the name sounded creepy. The fact that their plump bulbous bodies, sped and twisted in the ocean... their hideous mouths all sharpened teeth... their hideous triangular yellow eyes... their legs as they patted and felt their way towards their prey... all of it repulsed him to his core.
*
The Hu’ud swirled about each other, allowing their delicate front tendrils to connect. As they touched they shared their feelings and their grief over the loss of their loved ones. Their eyes became swollen with pain and fear, for they were sacred of these new aliens who had built upon the great white above. Ka’Rell, the commander of the upper reaches, pulsed out calming blue and indigo colours. Despite the fact that she was heavy with pre-birth, she did not want the others to lose hope in the battle so far. She swirled about her friends and family, soothing their fears, confident that soon, the battle would be won. And as she circled, she could feel her children within her womb, start to giggle and play.
*
Daniels looked up into the top right hand corner of his helmet. His air tank indicator had gone from green to amber, just over five minutes ago... Now It was flashing dangerously red. But he saw the weakness in the enemy’s flank and took a chance. He savagely screamed, as he fired twice. The multi barrelled weapon shuddered, as the timed implosion shells burst forth; leaving a spiralling wake of compression bubbles, as they sped towards their target.
*
Ka’Rell, saw the weapon fire; and with a vapid, liquid, motion suddenly slid, left then right; as the others dispersed. She hoped that her actions had caused the shells to miss. But she did not know that they were timed. They imploded then detonated about her; pushing her huge bulbous body first up then forward. There with a sick clacking sound, followed by an agonising pain that seared through her right side. She looked down to see, her blood mix with the ocean, as one of its fragile front tentacles’ crumpled, then broke within a bubble of raised air pressure.
She suddenly turned. Her enormous lidless bright yellow triangular eyes were burning both with pain and a wild savage fury. Her huge lipless mouth, opened into a gaping, cavernous hole, which had within, a mass of spiralling razor -sharp, needle like teeth. She wailed with pain and frustration as they spiralled one way then the other in a pitiless sawing motion. She screamed; both in rage and in pity, for she wanted to protect her children from this foul scourge that threatened to destroy her home.
Daniels groaned with fear as he fired again. This time the second shot punctured through the Ka’Rell’s lower abdomen; buckling her in two. Intense pain rippled though her body. She knew she was about to die, she could feel the new lump within her womb, and her blind young gently touching it... her young... an ache grew within her heart for those she knew who now would never know the peace and the meet the light of the ocean depths. She let out one more whirling scream as she sped as fast as she could towards her enemy and dived upon him. With anger and something deeper, she wrapped a feeler about the creatures’ waist. Grey green polyps extended from the tentacle and punctured through the bio-suit, and buried themselves deep into the creature’s damp flesh. For a fleeting second, they were one. Then with sadness she withdrew herself, and threw the creature to the floor.
Daniels, was thrown backwards, against the wall of the ice trench. Instinctively, and for no real purpose, he covered his face, and he let out a scream as the detonation wave shuddered outward. Ka’Rell and her young dissolved into a broken pulp like mash.
The compression wave hit Daniels full on, sending him flying from the ice ledge and away from the safety limit of trenches. He looked down. Below him the warm blue ocean beckoned...its darkness slowly becoming brighter as he stared... but that was the beautiful paradox about this planet... he thought absently, as the last of his air finally began to dissolve. Everything was reversed. That strange light shone which from below, and the ice above that led to the stars... and home... it all seemed insane... but he felt that light seem to reach out...to call to him as he stared... He felt a slight drag from behind, before everything went warm and dark.
He had no recollection of how he returned thorough the air lock. He simply opened his eyes and found himself in the white tiled walls of the sealed med-lab; in a narrow cot, with to his left. Lt. Stern, smiling gently down at him; and to his right, a narrow nosed, rat faced looking doctor, with large pale blue eyes. The room smelt of strong disinfectant, and sharp lemons. Stern reached for his hand; but then sadly thought better of it. Her damp auburn hair -tussled dry- added to her elfin looks, and cat like green eyes. He was glad to see her, and wanted to tell her how much she meant to him. He had a flash of a memory of the R and R they shared on Mars, and a conversation that nearly but not quite, had ended with them sharing a bed together. But the words wouldn’t come. They never had, and he wondered sadly if they ever would. They were partners in war before partners in love; and that he could see never changing, despite how his heart felt.
‘Your one lucky son of a bitch you know that?’ She said in her light delicate liquid tone that he found so sexy.
Daniel’s groaned, and put a hand through his crew cut, as he felt a headache begin to rip though him. The rat faced Doctor, smiled, as he made some adjustments to the drip going into his arm.
‘The way that your suit was compromised-‘
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘The spider grabbed you by the waist before it blew. We all thought you were pulp; till I found you almost out of reach.’
Daniels recalled his last tour when a gunner named Watson imploded in his arms after his suit was compromised. The memory made him ill. Nausea over took him.
‘I’m gonna...’ he began, but he didn’t finish his sentence, as he vomited over the side of the bed.
That night, Daniels started having bad dreams.
In the dream he was in the warmth of the deep. The white light shone all about, making the ocean the most beautiful shade of blue he had ever seen. In the warmth of the light, he could make out fantastic coloured creatures, creatures, the like of which he had never seen before. And standing over them were the spiders... their mouths open He could feel their thoughts, and their fears... the words everything is connected floated about his mind. He tried to look at his hands. But instead a feeler came into view...... he had changed.
With a scream Daniels awoke.
A slender nurse, with large round amber eyes in a stiff white uniform came into view from behind the closed curtain. ‘Are you alright?’ She asked concerned. ‘Your EEG results just hit the top of the graph.’
‘Fine...’ he said quietly, just a bad dream, that’s all.
She smiled gently as she disappeared.
The next day the curtain was removed, so Daniels had a better view of his surroundings. He was in a long narrow white rectangular eight bedded room with curved walls. White tiles and covered the floor and the ceiling which had large spot-lights over the eight beds. At the far right was the door out. To His left and almost out of view rested a desk where two people, a man and a woman, both wearing white, sat, laughing quietly. The doctor came back through the door to his right.
‘Now I don’t want to alarm you.’ He began. ‘But we have to make some further tests upon your blood results...’
‘What do you mean?’ He asked anxiously.
The Doctor smiled gently. ‘It may-be nothing...’ He began falteringly, his voice just too off-hand and dismissive, for Daniels to believe him. ‘...but if it’s not...’ He gave his most friendly Doctor smile, his rat face would allow. ‘...Then, well, we need to be sure, so, let’s be sure..?’
A week passed by, then another and then another and still the doctor hadn’t come back. Hospitals have a habit of eating time, as each day become’s a routine of bed shower, exercising and eating. So he had no real knowledge of how many days, or weeks had passed. It was only when he got up to have a shower one morning three months later that he saw something about his body that disturbed him. His body had gained weight, he had expected that, after all sitting about all day will, but he hadn’t expected to get as large as he had. He sat up, feeling his feet warmed by the under-floor heated tiles, then he walked past the empty nursing desk, and turned left. The shower room door curled open, he stepped into the shower, and waited for the water to start to flow.
With slow arching motions, he began to rub his body down, as the warm water stung his body. It was as he was looking down at his stomach that he saw something underneath his skin suddenly move.
Cold fear gripped him as he started to scream. The nurses, through the door as it opened.
*
‘There’s something in me!’ Daniels screamed at the Doctor.
The Doctor stared down with compassion upon Daniels. Daniels could see that he was held down securely to his cot by two metal wrist restraints. He couldn’t see his legs, but he guessed that they were held in the same, as he couldn’t lift them.
‘There’s something else living inside me!’
‘Now calm down John’. The Doctor said soothingly.
‘How can you tell me to calm down!’ Shouted Daniels, feeling the fear rise inside of him like a cold black wave.
‘There is nothing inside you.’
‘Just look at me!’ He retorted. ‘I look...’
He saw his stomach move again, then again and again, in sweeping curling motions, and screamed once more.
‘Oh fuck me!’ He screamed in terror. ‘I’m fucking pregnant...’
‘...What’s inside me..?’ He bellowed. ‘...Don’t tell me its fucking spiders I hate fucking spiders they eat their parents and devourer their husband’s...’ slowly Daniels began to become calmer as the medication began to take effect.
‘They are not spiders, they call themselves the Hu’ud and they have been here a lot longer than you.’ Said the doctor gently, and you’re not pregnant...’ he shrugged his shoulders, before he continued. ‘...well not in the way you would understand the term.’
‘What other way is there to understand the term?’
‘You shot and killed Ka’Rell, she was considered the birth mother. Birth here is complex; simply because of the environment. The female and the male who wish to be joined, meet with the light, the light imparts the soul to the male and the body to the female and in an act of joining, chosen at a later date they share and intertwine. Both parts are united within the mother who becomes Ka’Rell for the family... You have to give back their souls or we lose our tribe... Life here is all connected and collected as one. As one... You have to understand that...You have the Sharkra of her young inside you.’
‘What?’ Daniels asked dreamily.
‘You have their souls.’ Said the doctor; a cold smile curled upon his face; as he tapped him in the centre of his forehead.
Daniels opened his eyes and the white light of the ocean shone about him; it completely disorientated him. The first thought he had was that he was dead. He was about to say it, when he heard spoken inside of him a word that sounded like no.
Within his body, he could feel them move now, moreover, he could read their thoughts, as they happily played.
I don’t understand what’s happening, he thought.
‘That’s because you’re separate from your light.’ He heard the Doctor say around and within him. ‘Your species is alien here, it doesn’t understand. The light guides us, it gives us strength, and we give to it. Life cycles... Death turns to rebirth. And all are connected and collected as one.’
As Daniels stared at the light, he became aware that it was more than just one light, it was a spiral... a spiral of light that itself was made up of millions, no billions of smaller delicate orbs with flowing glowing delicate tendrils, that glowed with a delicate golden hue. Each one that shone and glittered and turned and twisted and turned once more both clockwise and then anticlockwise, within the turning arms of the larger spiral, that itself twisted and turned about and upon itself.
Perfection. Daniels thought with an envy he never thought he knew existed within him. He could feel his arms and legs begin to tighten, he looked up and saw nothing there, in this almost drugged state, Stephen felt the ocean itself was tightly holding him as suddenly his body began to convulse, and as he shook, the partially formed young slowly began to leave. To then unite with the light once more.