De Silva sent quadcopters in to sweep Aux Two first, but they found no trace. His team then went in on foot. They had secured the unnecessary machinery to make the task easier, but reducing the ambient noise hadn’t yielded any benefit and the ambient temperature was now dropping faster. They quickly swept through all the outside spaces, but without result. And they searched and isolated the main equipment cubicles, barricading the converging service ducts in System’s Access.
He was now convinced it was in the ducts. It had always been the best place for the alien creature to hide. They lay all across the Gate because everything came to the Aux Systems Gates. Water had to be purified, solid waste had to be treated before made into compost, lubricating oils had to be conditioned, the ship’s air had to be refreshed, and more. And it was all done here. He turned to Stocky for final confirmation. “Do you smell anything?”
He shook his head.
“Man, you don’t smell a body?” Garvey asked.
“I’m sure I will if I get close to it,” he said. “But the temperature isn’t high enough for rapid decomposition. And the waste treatment plant has a strong smell of its own.”
Almost as if it knows how to hide. De Silva hoped it was coincidence, but his gut told him it wasn’t. Surviving in the cold derelict and escaping Sci-Med wasn’t coincidence either. This creature was clever. “We’re going to have to do what we planned then. Stocky, get in the trunk. Take a couple people with you for backup.”
“I’ll go,” Patterson said. “We work well together. You come too, Chandna.”
Chandna silently nodded and then followed her. He couldn’t tell whether Chandna was afraid. The man showed too little emotion to read. Stocky and Patterson, however, were clearly unafraid. He wondered whether that was a good thing, and whether he could show the same focused determination.
He looked at Fuller who seemed calmer than before, but all sweaty. He knew about his nervous fit in Sci-Med but thought it might make it worse to confront him about it. Fuller was understandably afraid, and needed encouragement. “We have this. I’ll go straight for this animal. You position yourself to keep it from flanking around me. We’ll drive it either into the airlock team or Stocky.”
“I’m ready,” he said.
He recognized Fuller’s attempt to control his fear, and it made him proud. He tried to encourage him further. “Your flamethrower has a lot more range than this thing’s bite. Backup to keep distance if you need to. Use Samoylova’s remotes as scouts.”
He turned toward Samoylova. “I need you one hundred percent focused on driving the remotes and keeping this thing from getting around us.” They wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to retreat if the monster snuck up on them. If they couldn’t fight it off they would die.
“Aye Captain,” she said. He saw that she wasn’t afraid. But she wasn’t going in the ducts. Still, he was glad she had a sound mind.
“Alright, I’m going,” Fuller said. Samoylova’s resolution seemed to give him more confidence.
He momentarily regretted not showing the same attention to Stocky that he did for Fuller. Sure, it was clear that Stocky was not afraid, and so no need for encouragement. But he could have shown appreciation. He quickly buried it away as he knew it was pointless. The same conditioning that made Stocky so obedient and reliable also made him unconcerned about such slights and injustices. Dwelling on it would waste time and disturb his focus.
He divided the team and then he took his group with him to access 4. Garvey unbolted the access plate and they shined lights in the tunnel with their gun barrels pointed in. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the dark shaft. But he thought he felt a slight chill. Garvey apparently did so too.
“I think it’s a few degrees colder in there,” Garvey apprehensively said.
They were all starting to realize that this thing was smart. He tried to spin the comment into a positive. “That might be good the way we’re bundled up.” He looked up and said, “TURING, report if the heating system is functioning normally.”
“All controllers indicate that the heating and ventilation system is functioning properly,” TURING replied. “Heating coils are operating at maximum to counteract the observed temperature drop over the last several hours. Atmospheric conditions are safe for work.”
“Moussa,” he said over comms. “Can you suggest any equipment for us to look at? See if we can find the cause for the cooling?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Moussa replied. “We can troubleshoot that after we’ve killed this thing. Just watch your tail.”
You’re probably right. I was thinking that it might point to where it’s hiding. But it could be a distraction.
The small, tracked robot with them surged forward and entered the duct. (Spider like robots had gone in earlier.) Its sensors scanned around as it started driving down its path. De Silva looked at the rover’s film as it played on their tablet. The composite image looked good. The coloring was a little uncanny, but he could easily distinguish between objects.
“Looks good,” Ginting said. “I hope the rovers can keep the transmission going.”
“Be warned,” Moussa said over comms. “There are places in there where you can’t connect to the ship’s wireless.”
“Thanks.” I was expecting that. “Fuller, keep a rover nearby in case you lose contact with the team. We’ll daisy chain our signal.”
Fuller radioed his agreement as the rover disappeared in the dark tunnel. De Silva watched Ginting work with the tablet, making sure he was familiar with their tracking program. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, Captain,” he said, still messing with his tablet. “We’ll watch your back.”
He acknowledged with a nod. “Samoylova, how are you coming with our drones?”
“All types are in the ducts and operating properly,” she said. “Signal integrity is good for now. I’m as ready as I can be.”
“Stocky and Fuller, are you ready?”
They both replied in the affirmative and he told Stocky to enter the trunk. Stocky replied with a simple “Aye sir!” He held his breath. He knew it was safest to send Stocky in first. He could sense things the others couldn’t. But it felt wrong. He was bearing the most dangerous obligations. And this was dangerous even for a high-grav optimized replicant.
He’ll know it if there is danger in the trunk. He’ll know it. He believed it. But he was uncertain whether that was just because he wanted to. And he silently prayed for the Lord to give them success.
“The air is strange, Captain,” Stocky said. “It’s stale, acrid, and slightly sickly-sweet. I don’t smell anything that will hurt us. I’m climbing into the trunk now.”
He breathed with relief.
“Any sign of the Creature,” Patterson said.
Stocky didn’t answer right away. “It’s not nearby,” Stocky said. “It’s been here though. There’s a foreign gelatinous substance in the trunk. It’s dripping down from the overhead.”
“Don’t get it on exposed skin,” Patterson said. She didn’t sound overly concerned.
“Do you know what it is?” Stocky asked. His voice indicated a calm curiosity. He sent an image to the team. Of course, with the discoloration inherent with their goggles it was impossible to have a firm idea of what it was.
“No, I’ll collect a sample for analysis when you’re done,” Patterson said.
“Samoylova,” De Silva said while looking at Stocky’s video feed, “There might be more of whatever that is inside. Try to adjust the imaging so that it stands out better. I’d like to avoid it.” They had planned only to hunt the alien creature and he wanted to avoid any unplanned discoveries.
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“I can do that,” she said. A short while – that felt like a good ten minutes of heart-thumping stress – later she asked, “How does that look?”
He looked at the image on his tablet again. The goo was now shaded with a bright checkerboard pattern. “I like it,” he said, feeling better. He looked over his team. Qureshi looked tired, and sick with fright. Her condition reminded him of Fuller. And it reminded him of the urgency to resolve their crisis now. They had all been pushing themselves without rest for well over a day. But this would work, and then they would rest. “I’m going in. You got my video feed on your tablet?”
“We see it, Captain,” Garvey said. “May God go with you.”
“May He be with us all.” He ducked his head and stepped into the duct. The goggles he wore showed him a very detailed, even if clearly computer generated, layout of the darkened interior. He unsnapped the button for the strap of his pistol holster, readying it for a quick draw. And then he fired the pilot flame of his flamethrower. The fire showed up bright in his goggles, but it didn’t blind him to his other surroundings. He was pleased with it.
“I’m heading in now,” he said as he began to crouch-walk through the tunnel, awkwardly moving by a couple of pipes which constricted him even more. The metal plating bent and buckled under his weight. They hadn’t anticipated that. Although Moussa was certainly aware that it would buckle, he hadn’t thought about its impact on the hunt. He wished that they had found a way to make less sound.
It was too late to back out though. Besides, he had a coordinated team supporting him. The creature couldn’t possibly avoid them all. And it couldn’t hide from their technology for long. “Fuller, go in once your team is ready.”
“Aye, sir,” came the reply.
“All the connections to the trunk are clear,” Stocky said.
“Good, let us know if you gain any sign of it.”
“Will do, sir.”
He could feel the stress in his lower back and in his knees. They would throb later. And there was constant danger of banging his hip against one of the pipes. He paused every couple minutes and scrolled through the video feeds that the other members and the rovers observed. He saw no sign of the creature. He was thankful for that at first, but it soon began to worry him. Where was it?
“Samoylova, are there any signs at all? Does anyone hear anything?” He wished that they had also fitted sound sensors to the rovers. Maybe even sonar – some sort of echolocation would probably work in these.
“Nothing yet,” Samoylova said, “but we’ve covered less than twenty percent of Systems Access.”
“Understood. How are you doing, Fuller?”
“I’m doing the best I can,” he said. “It’s hard to move fast in these. But we’ll find it; I know it’s in here.”
“Any sign?”
“No. No sign.”
His answer seemed almost defensive. Could he be imagining things out of fear? Fuller rarely performed the general engineering work on the ship, and his unfamiliarity with his environment could be exasperating the stress from hunting the alien. He briefly considered that he should have chosen Patterson for her cool calculation and confidence. But he knew he couldn’t risk her. “Just stay methodical. We can’t let it get around us.”
De Silva soon stopped and listened. He heard a low whirring from a distant rover beside the low rumblings from distant blowers and his pilot flame. Nothing seemed strange, although that fact itself might become unnerving in time. He didn’t smell anything either, but he felt a cold breeze. Maybe he should have waited longer to allow Soliman to decompose. He again cycled through his team’s video feeds. They showed nothing, and they had to have now covered 25%. He moved further into the ducts hoping that the creature was simply retreating into the rapidly diminishing empty space.
He saw a cluster of electrical junction boxes – with their covers opened – as he approached the first vertical shaft on his route. “I got something up ahead,” he said.
“I see it,” Samoylova said. “Be careful.”
“I’m watching your footage,” Moussa said.
“Good, let’s find out what it’s been up to.”
“I’m sending one of the rovers your way to back you up,” Samoylova said. “I still don’t have any sign of the creature, but I’m seeing more of the slime that Stocky found. It looks like it’s running all through these service tunnels. And primarily on your level.”
That last part increased the tension he felt. Still, it was better for him to engage the alien creature vice Fuller.
“That’s how it’s been staying out of sight,” Moussa said.
De Silva gained a better view of the cluster of junction boxes and his curiosity spiked, merging with his fear. It looked like deliberate tampering. He looked around and verified he was alone as he crawled in front of the cluster, and he focused where the glitter texture was showing. He pulled out a flashlight and, flipping his goggles up, looked at it with his own eyes. The slime on the panels glistened before him. It looked like tiny metallic particles were suspended in the substance.
“I can’t see anything with your goggles up,” Samoylova said. “You too, Fuller, it’s too early to take a break.”
He looked up and saw slime dripping down from the steel plating above the vertical shaft which dropped down into an equipment cubicle on the lowest deck. He shined his light down the shaft to make sure he was alone. The isolation plate, which was a grating vice a solid slab of metal, looked to be intact for the cubicle. The creature couldn’t squeeze through that to get out.
He could see his breath within the light’s beam. “It’s spending a lot of time on the ceiling,” he said. He rested his flamethrower beside him and looked around. He heard the whirring of an approaching rover but nothing else. He then pulled a shop rag out of his thigh pocket and began to wipe up the slimy mess within a junction box full of relays.
“Hey, Captain,” Moussa said. “I need to see what you’re doing. TURING is showing a bunch of new alarms coming in.”
“What kind of alarms?” He flipped his goggles back down over his eyes so that they could see what he was looking at.
“Some of the heating coils are registering as non-functional,” Moussa said.
“Are you sure you’re alone up there?” Samoylova said. “It has to be spending a lot of time where you’re at.”
“Yeah, I’m alone.” He was confident that he would hear it if it came his way. It was very quiet at his current location. He processed these new developments in disbelief. “How can it affect our systems? I thought we were dealing with an animal.”
It immediately occurred to him how irrational it was to assume that the alien creature possessed a limited intelligence similar to earth animals. They had found the thing in a spaceship, not in a forest.
“We don’t know that,” Patterson said. (Apparently having a similar realization.) “Fuller, how are you doing?”
“Is the only thing you did was to clean up that relay panel I see on your vid?” Moussa asked, not waiting for Fuller to answer.
“Yeah.”
“Look at the box that’s second from the bottom on the left side,” Moussa said.
“I see it. What do you want me to do?”
“Pull out one of those circuit cards and let me look at it.”
De Silva pushed in the rackout tab on one which disabled the latch and then slid it out. The card was covered in the slime.
“Bag it for Sci-Med,” Moussa said. “I want to know how it’s changing our control circuits.”
De Silva retrieved a small plastic bag from his chest pocket and sealed up the control card.
Patterson warned the team that their assumptions about the creature did not appear to be correct. She suggested withdrawing from Systems Access and gathering more information before continuing a hunt.
He didn’t like that suggestion and the sighs he heard on comms showed that neither did most of the others. “We’ll have to search the whole Gate again if we pull out.”
“Captain,” Patterson warned. “If this Creature is intelligent enough to modify the control circuits for the Gate’s HVAC then it’s smart enough to create traps and maybe weapons.”
“She might be right, Captain,” Moussa said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the heating coils have been both bypassed and sending out a fake status signal.”
“Will that modified bacteriophage work for us again?”
“I’ll handle that, Captain,” Patterson said. “Just get out of there. Fuller, are you alright?”
De Silva groaned. He did not want to start over in the ducts. And he really didn’t want to ask his crew to do it again. And he knew they didn’t want him to order them back into the ducts. Even the best crew can only be pushed so hard. And boy had he pushed them. He felt guilty.
But how could he go against Patterson? She understood the threat better than anyone. LookingGlass did black ops research – including formulating contingencies for occurrences such as this. “Alright team, we’re cancelling this exercise. We’ll get all the equipment running to keep the temperature up in the Gate and we’ll figure out what this slime is before coming back. Stocky, you keep your position until we’re out. Fuller, double back. And don’t waste time.”
“Fuller, come in,” Samoylova said.
“His signal must have cut out,” Moussa said.
“How? He should be just about directly below me.” He looked down the accessway to see if he could see a flicker from his torch. The pilot lights were small, but they would travel far in the darkness of the access ducts. “We’re almost on a perfect line of sight.”
“You’re right,” Samoylova said. “Signal strength is good. His RF comm unit must have failed.”
He didn’t think it was possible that both Fuller’s primary and backup comms unit had failed. But he was in grave danger if it had happened. “I’m going to him.”
“No, I’m sending a rover,” Samoylova said. “I can use encoded infrared to give him a text message when I have a line of sight. I don’t have far to drive.”
That sounded like a better plan. “I’m heading back then.” He picked up his flamethrower and began to crouch walk back through the tunnel, leaving the junction boxes open. He felt tense and nervous. He didn’t have safety behind him this time, and his knees and back were starting to ache. He didn’t get very far before Samoylova called him again.
“Captain,” she said, “you need to speed up. Fuller’s dead.”
He froze, stunned. How? We never heard a sound?
And then he realized he was now the only target for the Creature. He increased his pace. “Are you sure he’s dead.” He toggled through the video feeds of the various rovers until he saw him in the flash photo Sam had taken. Fuller was sitting curled up. His face was puffy to the extent that his eyes were bulging from their sockets, and his neck had swelled to a bloated tube. He saw a single wound – an elliptical patch of raw subcutaneous flesh on his neck with a concentrated pattern of deep pinholes. Blood and pus trailed down the front of his coveralls. But his eyes looked as if fright alone had killed him.
“Stop looking at the feed,” Samoylova yelled. “Use your own vision and move.”
“I’m getting in the trunk, Captain,” Patterson said.
“That’s too dangerous,” Chandna said.
“I can take care of myself,” she said. “Drop down a level, if you need to, Captain. I’ll cover you below and Stocky will cover your level.”
“Thanks, I’m moving toward you ASAP. I’ll stay on the top level because I’m familiar with it.”
“I can come to you, Captain,” Stocky said.
“No, you stay there. That’s an order.” There was no way he was going to endanger another member of his crew. And Stocky would have far more trouble squeezing around the pipes.