Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

Silence checked them out from a cautious distance with the limited sensors built into his suit, but the coffin shapes gave up no information at all. He couldn't even tell what they
    were made of, never mind what might be inside them.
    "That's the crew, isn't it?" said Cross quietly.
    "Could be," said Silence. "The numbers are about right. Only way to find out is to open a few. Investigator…"
    "Way ahead of you, Captain," said Frost, striding forward pugnaciously.
    Silence gestured for Cross and the two security men to stay with him. "Take it slow and easy, Investigator. There's always the chance those things are booby-trapped."
    "I'll bear it in mind," said Frost. "Now, a little quiet, if you please. I have to concentrate."
    She stopped just short of the first outer rank, tried her sensors again, and sniffed disgustedly as they failed to provide any useful information, even at close range. Each cylinder was seven feet long, and the correct proportions for a coffin. Plenty of room for a body inside and any number of unpleasant surprises, too. Frost knelt down by the nearest cylinder and got her first surprise when she realized the mirrored surface wasn't showing her reflection.
    She examined the edges of the cylinder carefully and got her second surprise.
    There was no sign of any seals or openings. The entire cylinder seemed to have been produced in one piece. Perhaps… formed around something. The word cocoon occurred to her, echoing in her mind with a significance she couldn't pin down.
    She straightened up and looked at the rows of cylinders stretching away before her. She had been intending to open one by force, with her gun if necessary, and trust to her hard suit to protect her, but she was beginning to think that was what she was supposed to do. More and more, the whole place felt like a trap.
    The cylinders were too tempting, and there was too much light, as though the
    cargo bay was a stage, waiting for the action to begin.
    Frost reached out cautiously with her gloved hand to tap the lid of the coffin, and her hand sank through the shining surface as though it was some silvery liquid. And inside the coffin, something grabbed her armored hand and squeezed it hard. She lurched forward, caught off balance, and her arm plunged further through the lid and into the coffin. She quickly braced herself against the steel floor and pulled back, but whatever had hold of her wouldn't release its grip. She could feel the pressure, even through her armored glove. She gritted her teeth, snarling under her featureless helmet, and pulled back with all her strength. The suit's servomechanisms whined loudly. Her arm slowly reappeared from the lid, and then her glove, clasped by a dead white human hand.
    The weight on her arm was suddenly lessened as a dead white face appeared through the shining lid like a drowned man's face surfacing in a river, and then the dead man was out of his coffin and standing before Frost, smiling, still holding her hand in his. Her first thought was that it was a Fury, one of Shub's killing machines in a human skin, but then she saw the marks of drastic surgery unhidden on his shaved skull, and she knew at once what had happened to the Champion's crew. He was a Ghost Warrior. All around her, dead men were emerging from the silver coffins, like vile gray butterflies bursting out of shimmering cocoons. The man before her wore a dated fleet uniform, torn and stained with long-dried blood where his death wounds had been. His skin was dead-white, and though his smile was inhumanly wide, there was no emotion in his face and no life in his unblinking eyes. She could hear Silence shouting at her to get away from the dead man, but his gaze held her like a hook she could wriggle on but not escape. The dead men were rising everywhere now, silent and calm, their movements filled with an implacable purpose.

    And then the blast from an energy weapon tore away the head of the man before her, and the headless body slumped to its knees. She was suddenly herself again, freed from the dead gaze, and she fell back a step, tugging at her captured hand. The pale fingers still gripped her firmly, despite all her struggles.
    Frost drew the sword on her hip with her left hand and hacked savagely at the pale wrist. The blade sheared clean through, and she staggered backward, released. The dead hand still clutched at her glove, and she had to cut it away finger by finger as she hurried back to rejoin Silence and the