In the quiet orchestra of humming gravity plates, ventilation and the hushed voices of personnel and technicians communicating with each other provided a kind of calming ambience for Alex to be at ease. He watched through the external camera attached to the shuttle’s nose cone to detach itself from the Krath’let. A puff of moisture entered the lens’ field of vision at first before a slight shake of the camera and the side of the massive freighter slowly drifted out of the lens. The shuttle rotated on its axis and turned toward the asteroid’s gleaming surface.
On another monitor next to it; Fëderov, Connors and Colroy were closing in on the bridge. The trio had forced their way through the elevator shaft that ran the height of the tower, gently gliding up the shaft using their suits thrusters. Fëderov took point and when he could glide no higher due to the elevator obstructing his path, he had opted to use his suit’s enhanced strength to open the doors. Connors proceeded through next, then Colroy, who had clumsily forgotten to activate his mag boots. The lack of awareness made him almost collide with the ceiling had it not been for Connor’s quick thinking to grab her comrade and throw him down to the ground and activate his mag boots. Their rifles raised and their flashlights illuminated the darkened hallways which were absent of anything including its expired crew. Fëderov consulted his Heads-Up Display which showed him the way into the bridge was to turn right ten metres ahead of him in the middle of the corridor. He raised his fist with his middle and index fingers extended and jerked his wrist forward twice to signal to the duo who followed close behind. Before rounding the corner, the Major had crept alongside the wall with his rifle lowered. In one quick moment he quickly raised his rifle and swung it around the corner before rapidly engaging his thrusters to force him back behind the corner.
“Derr’mo!” Fëderov shouted. His voice sounded flat, no anger or frustration was present in his voice. Almost as if he hadn’t intended it to be an insult.
Alex watched as the Major had thrusted himself backwards causing him to collide with poor Connors who lost her footing as she spun out of control before being able to regain it by magnetising herself on the ceiling. Both marines’ heart rates spiked as Alex couldn’t help but watch, was there somebody else on the ship, did the Major nearly get spotted by these individuals?
“Major, report!” Alex said.
“No problem, Captain. I spotted a pair of active turret emplacements outside the bridge.” Fëderov said calmly. “Just caught me off-guard is all.”
“Can you find another way in?”
A brief moment of silence, on the monitor it had looked like he was searching through all of his gear for something he didn’t possess before suddenly replying. “Standby, Captain.”
He turned to face Colroy and spoke to her. “You are still practising your magic skills, soldier?”
“Yes sir.” She nodded.
“Good, I want you to make an Arcane duplicate.” He spoke. He relaxed his body letting his arms fall to his sides as Connors placed both her hands on his helmet. At first nothing had happened, but shortly, the bio-monitors of Connors started displaying rapidly increased synaptic activity whereas Fëderov’s had decreased. Colroy’s camera showed a small sphere of light materialise next to the duo. It grew in size until it had resembled a copy of the Major in his armour made entirely of pure light. The copy walked around the corner while Connors kept her hands on the Major’s helmet. The light continued to bathe the hallway in its benign light. After a minute of standing still, the light grew stronger and the duplicate rounded the corner before it flickered out of existence. Connors removed her hands from her superior officer’s helmet.
The bio-monitors returned to normalcy with its steady rhythmic pulse.
Alex folded his arms over his chest as he spoke. “Report, Major.”
His voice came in with a hint of relaxation before suddenly turning back into cold and steely. “Report, uh, yes. Hmph! The turrets guarding the entrance are not a threat, no more ammunition. Continuing sweep.” He rotated his wrist in a circular motion gesture for his two subordinates to follow. After a minute of walking the trio arrived at the Bridge; the state of the command centre was exactly as Alex had feared. Total vacuum exposure. Bodies rested where they were slain. A balding human male lied limply as his body was secured to the chair by the seat belts. Fëderov’s body camera drew close to the corpse as his hand reached out to grab it. He tugged on the sleeve and the face rolled over to greet the camera. Alex felt sick looking at the bloated face of a middle-aged bald man. patches of dark blue pockmarked his puffy face, trails of coagulated blood descended from his nostrils and ear canals. Crystals of ice glistened off his skin like thousands of stars twinkling off of his skin as the helmet lights reflected off it. The trio wandered around the bridge brushing aside pieces of paper and metallic shrapnel suspended in the cold vacuum. The control consoles and radar equipment had all been smashed. Screens cracked and wires cut, the soldiers looked on at the carnage before turning their attention to the breached windowsills.
Alex felt a twinge in his gut as he looked at the helpless bridge crew that looked like they were going about their business when the glass cracked and sucked the air out of the bridge. His face showed a hint of worry as he pushed a dark thought of his face bloated and covered in blue spots as lactic acid filled him while his blood and saliva boiled in him. Fifteen seconds is all it would take to end me. Fifteen seconds to embolize my blood, swell my lungs like a balloon and freeze me.
He shook his head and turned his attention to another set of body cameras that belonged to the group of marines who had taken up the task of restoring the environmental controls. The team had begun to enact field repairs on the filters and adjusted some of the cooling systems. Another team in the engine room worked to get the power on. One engineer had been trying to jump start the reactor by using the battery on his power armour as a means to start the engines. Upon an earlier inspection the team had gone over the condition of the reactor, it became obvious quickly that the previous crew who worked there while overseeing the shutdown had organised it to scram poorly as a means of a quick shutdown. The state of the reactor was left poorly and ill maintained. From the external view of the casing, the control rods were not aligned properly leaving several of them to stick out against the flat surface of the casing. The engine had been left dead cold. Petty Officer Lee managed to find a wire that was capable of sending electricity through to the engine from his armour’s nuclear battery. Alex watched as the crewman had ingeniously worked around the dead cold reactor. A proud smile curled on his lips. That’s it boys, let's see that engineering ingenuity I hear so much about.
“Staff Sergeant!” Lee barked out over the radio, he pointed to a workstation that stood alone behind a series of metal railings that was designed to put distance between the operator and the engine. “Check that terminal, tell me if it’s powered on. You should see a small bar flashing.”
The marine Sergeant obeyed but not without muttering something under his breath. Major Fëderov told the Sergeant to pipe down. The camera caught a small flicker of life on the screen. Static and glitching pixels behind the screen flashed a bizarre spectacle as it received power. The Staff Sergeant hollered over the radio to grab Lee’s attention before giving him a thumbs up. Lee had continued to fiddle with the wires until he wrapped the copper fibres of a black wire to a terminal and then grabbed a red wire with exposed frayed fibres and placed it firmly against the bulkhead creating a spark at the touch before the battery’s glow had flickered. The solo workstation lit up the marine as he stared at the blank white screen with a logo of the reactor’s manufacturer. The screen went black but not from a lack of power. A sudden burst of information displayed in bright green lettering, when Lee came over, he had tapped the ENTER key and the monitor rapidly scrolled through paragraphs of code rapidly scrolling up faster than the eye could catch before seemingly running out of code leaving only a single sentence.
Capacitor’s 20% charge. Initiate fusion start-up sequence? Y/N
Lee made his way over to the terminal and tapped on a single key. The text disappeared under the rush of more code before it was replaced by a progress bar steadily filling up. After a minute of loading filling up the progress bar followed by a strange hum that could be heard through the helmet radios. Petty Officer Lee claimed he could feel a gentle vibration through the floor before a blindness temporarily consumed the camera feeds of all the marines in the engine room. The lens soon adjusted and the Engine room was properly illuminated in the absence of the sound of machine parts moving and clanking together the vibrations they caused reverberated throughout the deck plating and into the magnetic boots of the Marines. On Lee’s feed, he began to work on diverting power to the gravity plating on all decks which was followed by a sight of all objects that once were suspended slowly drifted towards the ground. Bodies and tools slowly fell limp on the ground, after they had settled marines had one by one disabled their boots. The middle-aged Petty officer was quick to point out he only had the power working and that the atmosphere inside was still vacuumed. Several engineers that had been working in the Environmental room started up the ventilation.
Alex leaned closer to the monitors before he drew his breath. “Phoenix to Major Fëderov, come in Major.”
Fëderov’s voice came in almost immediately, “Major Fëderov, I read you loud and clear Phoenix.”
“Major, we may consider towing this freighter. Can you locate the controls to the anchor and disengage them?”
A short pause of silence. The monitors showed the Major looked at the consoles before observing the state of damage they endured before he spoke again. “Negative, Phoenix. All the controls are busted. Bridge is useless.” A hint of annoyance crept into his voice.
“Copy that Major, standby.” Alex said. His head drooped down as he let out a groan of frustration. He switched channels to Milo who responded after the dial tone beeps twice. “Captain, what can I do for you?”
“Milo,” Alex said flatly. “Meet me in the CIC. I need your expertise.”
“I’m on my way.” Milo spoke loudly.
Almost eight minutes later, Milo entered the darkened command centre. His bright orange suit stood out in the dark room, he wiped his hands on his chest leaving streaks of grease where his fingers were and stared at Alex who was slowly pacing around the inner circumference of the CIC.
When Alex spotted Milo he made a gesture to him that made Milo follow him to the Hologram table. After a brief conversation on the progress of the Krath’let, Alex asked Milo if there was a way to retract the anchors. Milo looked down at the controls of the table and tapped away at them to summon the model of the freighter. Using his furry, clawed digits he manipulated the model and examined a section of the freighter that housed the anchor’s motors before stating that the anchor can be manipulated from the motor room.
“Phoenix to Major Fëderov. Do you still read me?” Alex said.
“Major Fëderov here, Captain. What are your orders sir?” A hint of impatience had crept into his voice, but with how heavy his accent was it could have easily been how he sounded normally.
Alex looked back at the holographic model of the freighter and then back at the wall of body and helmet cameras. He hadn’t noticed he was holding his breath so he exhaled loudly before drawing in some frigid air to fill his lungs.
“Major, I will send you the location of where you can retract the ship's anchor, but you will need to go to the anchor's motor control room and manually engage the motors. Report when you are successful. Phoenix out.” And with that, Alex tapped on the Motor room’s location and copied its location and sent the data to Fëderov.
For an hour, nothing significant of note had taken place. Alex continued to monitor the boarding action as the soldiers and engineers moved to seal the open sections to allow the ventilation to be restored. Angel Two landed on the surface of the asteroid. They claimed they had located a bunch of wreckage that had fallen on the asteroid from its orbit, surrounding the grappling arm of the anchor; eventually the pilot, a Lykan called Digor, had found the Blackbox amid the wreckage of hydrazine ballasts and singed bulkheads. The shuttle took off from the surface of the asteroid shortly after locating the Blackbox and was proceeding to meet with the Phoenix to have it examined. When the shuttle did finally dock into the hangar bay, the engineering team led by Milo took it to the machine shop near the engine room. Throughout the entire time, Angel One stayed silent for the most part of the journey and through their cameras it was seen that they were performing mild repairs on their shuttle’s inner workings. One of the pilots had left the shuttle to scavenge parts from the nearby machine shop. When Alex looked down to the floor to give his eyes a momentary rest from staring at the screens, he let out a heavy sigh when suddenly a loud screech disrupted the radio signal followed by a monotonous high-pitched alert. Several of the officers in the CIC gasped quietly as they watched the screen with shock on their faces. Alex looked at their faces before turning his head to see what had caused the commotion which caught his attention. The source of the noise came from a flatline alert which did not come from any of the Marines, but the pilot of Angel One. Their camera was showing static, very unusual and their bio monitors had read the pilot as deceased while another warning came up; internal depressurisation of their suit. Alex stepped closer to the screen and stared at the static as if getting closer would show him a faint afterimage of what happened.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He whipped his head around and looked at all the officers who were standing at their posts staring at the screens. “What the fuck? What just happened, are we under attack?” he asked the CIC. None of them said anything, they all looked at each other as if somebody else would know. “Seriously? Were none of you paying attention!?” he shouted.
He looked back to the co-pilot still inside the shuttle and opened up a channel. “Angel One, this is Captain Rowan, your co-pilot’s bio monitor has flatlined, please confirm!”
The pilot shot up from his repairs and searched the shuttle. Alex guided him to the pilots last known location as he helplessly watched the other pilot follow the trail. He pulled out a side arm and primed it as he rounded a corner to where spare parts would have been. Inside the darkened parts room the pilot had activated his helmet flashlights and he scanned the room. Checking each aisle of shelves until he found his partner's remains. He cursed under his breath as he approached the idle corpse that rested on the ground, he could see multiple lacerations and evidence of being impaled. Ruptures in the suit’s integrity showed itself as the fabric flapped from the escaping air. Alex leaned closer to study the damage before realising the consistency of whatever killed the crew of the freighter. The camera suddenly jerked as the biomonitor of the co-pilot started erratically beeping while pained gasps could be heard from the pilot’s microphone. His body stood still for a moment before collapsing to the ground, his helmet camera went dead while the bio monitors flatlined and the attacker did not show themselves to the camera.
A moment of stunned silence later, the body camera, which rested on its side, jerked around before the helmet of the pilot rolled into view.
Alex’s eyes widened; his subordinates did the same. Gasps could be heard as they watched the decapitated head roll on the grey panelling. Alex watched with horror as the monitors continued to flash red and beeped.
“W-whuh… Can anybody get a fix on the assailant!?” he barked at the CIC. Alex opened a communication channel. “All marines, this is Captain Rowan. We have lost the flight crew of Angel One, I repeat; we have casualties in the machine shop, both K.I.A.”
“Major Fëderov to Phoenix. Say again, did you say we have casualties?” The Major shouted
“Confirmed, two KIA.”
“What are your orders sir?”
“You are in charge, Major. This is now a military operation. Phoenix will stand by and provide any fire support.”
“Copy that, Phoenix.”
The captain took a second to look away from the bright monitors to rest his eyes, he pitched the bridge of his nose while he thought about how to put this into his report. An unknown assailant got the jump on two pilots? No, that sounds unprofessional. An unknown aggressor who had been hiding from marines had taken the opportunity to attack? That sounds a bit better. I’ll have to work on it.
His train of thought was interrupted by a call chime from his wrist pad, he let out a sigh and looked at the caller ID: CMDR. Hammer. Alex accepted the call and brought his arm up to his face. “Captain Rowan here.”
“Sir, we have completed our diagnostics of the black box we found. Can you come down to the machine shop?” Milo reported.
“What’s going on, can you not tell me over comms?”
“It's better if you come down here and examine for yourself, sir.”
Although hesitant, Alex complied and made his way into engineering. His trek through the length of his ship was uneventful, crewmen saluted him and he saluted back when they encountered him. Once inside the massive open engine room, Alex walked down a flight of steps. The reactor of his ship was cylindrical in shape. Made up of pipes large and small zigzagging each other before being merged together or being split to go into two separate directions. The engine's rear was attached to two smaller cylindrical machines that had two pylons encased in heavy metal plating with hazard stripes and warnings decorating the chassis. Alex stepped onto the catwalk gantry which hovered above the engines pipes and narrow crawl spaces in between, further down the length of the gantry led to the entrance of a small closed off room dedicated to the maintenance and repairs of whichever parts could be taken into the room. Many engineers saw it as a private workspace to work on their ideas to upgrade engine performance wherever possible but for now only Chief Engineer Milo and another officer was with him in the machine shop. Inside the small room, the back wall was covered in tools and small spare parts that could fit on the racks that held everything. Opposite the tool wall was the workbench which had the Blackbox on top. Alex was mildly amused when he first saw that the box was a bright orange colour and rectangular. On the side in faded white painted on lettering it said: V.R.O Procyon Lotor. It had scratches adoring its surface and a massive impact crater to the side. One corner of the box was missing which had exposed the internal workings of the device. A wide cable jack was plugged into the port on the side of the device and connected it to the computer terminal next to the bench which the younger officer had been manning. Alex looked at them and threw his arms out as if to say “Now what?” But instead he said.``Care to tell me what it is you couldn’t tell me over comms?”
“I am sorry, sir,” Milo said apologetically. “ The black box is badly damaged; its data is massively corrupted. We were able to pull something out of it however and we did manage to recreate the data using probability algorithms and reconstruction protocols.”
“I figured you did not call me down here just to tell me the files were corrupted.” Alex interjected.
“But, sir, you see the thing is when we examined the data we found it to be mildly disturbing.”
Alex raised his eyebrow. “Disturbing, how? In what way?”
“I’ll let you see for yourself,” Milo continued.
His eyes went soft, Alex knew him for a long time to read his emotions even when he hid it well. His ears had pointed down and his tail was lifeless, Milo tapped on a few keys on the keyboard and it quickly filled the room with crackling static as data was interpreted into a discernible output. Static continued to permeate the room as minute bursts of noises broke through, at first it was barely garbled but the longer it persisted the easier it became to understand.
“...-gage… -ling… coordina…-spond…” the audio went silent.
Milo looked back at Alex with his worried expression. “We have been able to salvage the computer logs which claim that the audio you heard was time stamped on the day the Procyon Lotor found the Krath’let, Alex.” Milo continued. Suddenly, Alex’s attention grew more intense. Milo may have been his friend, but they rarely used their first names on duty unless it was serious. “Let me show you the next part.” Milo continued. He tapped on another set of keys on the terminal and static noise returned. Words became coherent and voices understandable, the audible mess of sounds soon took on the form of dialogue that had become crackly.
“...Captain Sekler to-...-fort teams!...-zhgoing on!?...Mr. Danes, disconnect us fr-... Sir, it's on the umbilical…-t’s in-...-ock. Blast it open!.. Seal deck se-... Sir, its heading for us!.....grryzzzzzz….-ead for the escape pods!...-Captain Selker… -andon ship, Abo-….. Its slaughtering us in the launch bay!”
Throughout the chaotic audio, Alex felt a twinge of fear inside him. Something about the fear in those voices sparked something primal inside him, almost as if the fear itself was a contagion. He grew hot under the collar, his breathing and heart rate elevated however he tried to calm himself down. He looked over to Milo who Alex had caught glimpsing at him, however the Lykan chose not to say anything as his eyes were full of understanding.
“...-tain Sekl-... disable coolant feeds and… exhaust into the primary engine…-self destruct… NOW!! BZZZZTTT.” Milo tapped a key on the terminal to end the data.
“According to the logs that we recovered, the Procyon lotor was destroyed by the commanding officer: Captain Sekler, disabling the primary and secondary coolant feeds and back channelled the ignited fuel back into the primary engine along with pumping in excess hydrogen from their backup tank which caused an explosion massive enough to destroy the tug.”
Alex thought about what he had heard and processed it. Suddenly, something in his head clicked. “Commander, what kind of engine did the Procyon Lotor utilise and what fuel would it have used?”
Milo shrugged. “I’d say it is very likely it had a Delphi class engine that probably used Class C fuel. Why do you ask?”
“The unusual gamma radiation.” Alex recalled. Class C fuel always utilised a powerful Uranium and Hydrogen mix, if the engine overloaded then that could be why the area is dangerously radioactive.
“Thank you, Commander,” Alex continued. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Do whatever you can to salvage more data. I will be in the CIC if you need me.” Milo then stiffened himself as he and his young naga subordinate saluted Alex who returned the gesture before leaving the engine room.
Back in the CIC, Alex crossed his arms watching the Marines rally in the mess hall, save for the trio working to get breathable air working again. After being told it was now a military operation, the Major had taken to telling his subordinates to break up into teams of four before they all scattered in multiple directions in the bowels of the freighter. After ten minutes of the marine fireteams scattered around the ship, Fëderov’s team had successfully retracted the anchor from the asteroid and back into its motor room. The entire machine rumbled and caused the vibrations to be felt through the walls. Closely followed by Connors and Colroy, Fëderov had entered a large room with an atrium that dipped into the floor below in the centre of the room. The signage on the floor said this room was the Starboard Observation lounge. The room was devoid of any signs of anybody being here in their final moments. Luggage and personal effects were scattered on the benches that faced out the window that occupied the entire wall, some suitcases and duffel bags were scattered around on the floor but no evidence anyone was hiding here. Connors carefully walked down the ramp to the lower part of the Observation lounge, her rifle raised as she swept the area before turning her attention to the potted palm tree in the centre. Her rifle mounted light scanned up the plant’s stalk sparkling from its exterior layer of ice.
The final breach was sealed and the team in Environmental activated the ventilation which prompted the pressure to start making the ships framework settle, much to the unease of the Marines. Some looked at their wrist pad and watched as the pressure increased and the air mixture was slowly approaching a safe level. Shortly after achieving a safe atmospheric pressure some marines had cascaded their helmets to the back of their head to save their own supply. Immediately they groaned in disgust after inhaling their first breath.
“What the fuck died?”
“Fucking hell, that’s rancid!”
The offensive odour assaulted their senses, prompting some of the soldiers who removed their helmets off had immediately put them back on. Fëderov started to chuckle to himself before breaking down into a full manic laughter at the misfortune. “That’ll teach you to take your buckets off without my say-so!”
The sound of metal settling and the clanking of machinery rattled about in the Observation Lounge, the lighting suddenly shifted to bright red while alarms sounded off causing all three to look around them. The doors sealed themselves automatically. Another layer of thickened metal closed down in front of the sealed doors. The faded paint on the door was of three yellow crescent moon shaped circles with a smaller complete one in the centre. Biohazard.
“Biological anomaly detected; Quarantine activated.” The ship's computer announced in a cold feminine voice over the speaker system.
Colroy looked around him as he tried to pin the source of the voice. Panic crept into his voice. “What the fuck is this!? What’s going on?”
Fëderov pressed his middle and index fingers against the radio unit of his helmet as he shouted over the alarms. “Environmental, what the Hell is going on!? The room is sealing us in here, something about a biological hazard!”
Alex’s arms fell down to his sides as he watched the chaos unfold. The engineers spoke about how the environmental systems had been glitching all over the ship, he whipped his head around to face Milo as his eyes darted over the holographic Krath’let model. True to their word, entire sections and corridors had shifted to a red colour and flashed their bright warnings of an impending hull breach. Milo opened up a channel to one of the engineers and talked them through how to bypass the warnings. Alex looked back to the monitors of Major Fëderov, Corporal Connors and Private Colroy.
“Marines, this is Captain Rowan. From what we can see, entire sections all over the ship are going into lockdown and could be detecting something in the air.” He said with reassurance in his voice.
“b-but there’s nothing in here! We are fine and this room is trapping us!” Colroy blurted out.
“Calm your nerves, private. Don’t lose your head at a time like this.” Fëderov hissed. He let out a low groan as he returned his attention to Alex. “How long are we going to be trapped in here?”
Alex turned to face Milo. He mouthed ten minutes then returned his attention as he guided an engineer to solder some wires together. Alex turned his head back to the monitors to see Colroy’s face occupying the entire field of vision of Connors body camera. His pale face mixed with his nervous twitching made him look like he had just seen a ghost. “Engineering estimates ten minutes for them to trick the sensors that everything is normal. They just need to figure out which one is located in your area.”
“Tell them it’s the one in the Starboard Observation lounge!”
Connors pushed Colroy off her, letting out a growl. “Goddammit, Colroy. Get a fucking grip!”
Colroy took to pacing around the lounge, he jumped at every creak and groan in the metal infrastructure surrounding them. Fëderov kept reminding him it was the metal settling in a pressurised environment, it seemed to help the young inexperienced soldier keep calm as he tried to slowly patrol the lounge in pattern. He would walk down to the descended part of the lounge, circle around the flash frozen palm before walking up out of the depression and crept along the walls. He would hear an occasional clatter or creaking sound in the ventilation above them and his shakes would return along with him aiming his rifle at where the source could be from. After ten minutes had expired Alex asked for an update from Milo. The Lykan walked up to him and leaned in close to Alex’s ear, hearing his friend’s breathing.
“Sir, my men cannot get that area out of lockdown.”
“What are you talking about?” Alex said, raising an eyebrow. “How hard can that be?”
“That’s just it, sir. They disabled the lockdown in almost every other part of the ship but they cannot take care of the starboard observation room. They have already rebooted the sensor and fed it false data but it is genuinely convinced something is in there with them.”
Alex sighed heavily before it turned into a groan. Pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration he explained to Fëderov what he had been told. He acknowledged and Alex soon rallied some of the Marines to cut them out. Several had the cutting tools from their combat engineer and the engineers from Milo’s staff. Over the radio, the sound of metal scraping could be heard, Alex wondered about the noise before the scraping sound had turned into a cacophony of something impacting the thin metal vents above them. He furrowed his brows. “Are you positive those noises are not from the ship settling?” Alex demanded.
Milo was about to open his mouth when the sound of metal cracking had diverted his focus. Another crack of metal followed by a shriek of metal that made Alex cringe from the sound of it. Colroy, over the radio let out a high-pitched yelp.
“You fucking girl!” Connors spoke.
Fëderov gestured to Connors to go investigate and she complied with an appropriate hand gesture. Her body camera investigated the source of the sound which had originated from the small depression in the centre of the room. The wall that was shared by both floors contained the air vents except the one in the bottom had been broken. Connors slowly approached the scene of the damage: bits of metal from the vent guard had been snapped in half and splattered all over the floor, the three bladed fan that rested behind the vent grille rested on the floor with wires sticking out of the centre, Connors quickly raised her rifle as she aimed it toward the exposed vent shaft. She slowly put one foot in front of the other before relaxing. There was no way anybody could easily fit in there, let alone have enough force to damage the vent grille. She chuckled in relief.
“Must have been clogged up with pressure or something. ” She stated over the radio.
Colroy’s teeth chattered loud, his shaky voice barely managed to eek out a whisper. “Behind you.” Was all he could manage. Alex turned to face his monitor. Colroy’s heart rate spiked to almost dangerous levels and his synaptic activity showed his mind racing.
Connors barely made out the words he uttered. She growled in anger as she backed away from the vent, she grew tired of dealing with his weakness. “God. Fucking. Dammit, Franklin!” she muttered. “I’m going to have to fucking teach you how to be a fucking man- “Her voice trailed off as she turned around to be greeted by a creature that stood taller than her even in the suit of power armour. Its massive bulbous eyes and intimidatingly large appendages that draped over where the creature's supposed mouth would be had trembled with tiny, deliberate movements. It made a fast-clicking noise as it looked down on her. Alex stared in horror at the creature and in the corner of his eyes he caught the officers standing up with their mouths and eyes wide open at the spectacle. Colroy’s and Connors heart rate monitors spiked tremendously. A small picture underneath their bio-monitors showed a small red pill capsule as the suits onboard medical software had injected a small sedative into the occupant’s blood stream to calm them down.
Connors gasped for air as she stared at the towering thing before her. “Oh god.” She barely uttered. The thing made a loud screech when it lunged towards her.