“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” mutters Gottlieb to himself on a constant repeat under his breath, holding the rifle up, as he slowly wanders down the metal corridor, towards the first intersection. “Fuck!” he hisses, quickly popping around the corner and aiming down the empty hallway.
He turns back ahead, continuing his mantra. “Shit, shit, shit -” This goes on for a while. The footprints lead around the station. Strangely enough, they head towards the observatory, but then seem to head back.
Perhaps, whatever it was, had tried to enter the door, only to find it locked.
There’s a new problem now, however.
Gottlieb looks down at the trail of footprints. They ‘end’ here.
It’s not so much that the creature disappeared, it’s just that the dirt that it had on its feet seems to have all fallen off by the time it got here and turned around.
“Shit…” hisses Gottlieb, one last time.
He has to get back to Kai.
Gottlieb contemplates telling Kai to start the alarm again, like he had done when he first woke up. But honestly, what’s the point? Who exactly else is here to react to the alarm?
Nobody, that’s who.
Okay. So, there’s some kind of horrible monstrosity on board along with himself. Good to know. One might question why Kai failed to mention such a thing. Perhaps this is a question worth asking, when he gets back to his station?
It did look like whatever it was had chewed out Kai’s ‘eyes’ back in hydro and in the vents.
Gottlieb lifts the rifle and makes his way back to the orbital gun’s firing pit.
Turning left, he returns to the hallway.
— Something scampers behind him.
Gottlieb spins around, his finger on the trigger of the short bullpup rifle.
The hallway buzzes, humming with the usual electrical workings. But there is nothing there to see.
“Fuck off, aliens!” yells Gottlieb down the corridor, walking backwards. “This is a human station!” he shouts.
Now, obviously, Gottlieb is pretty sure that aliens aren’t real. At least not around here. After all, he’s lived in space for a while and never seen one, so he feels fairly confident in that assessment.
The more reasonable assumption is that, given that he has already identified that this is a magical world of some kind, that there is some sort of… magical creature on board.
— The alternative is that it’s someone’s pet that went mutant because of the cosmic event.
Both are good theories.
Gottlieb narrows his eyes. “Fuck off, mutants!” he yells and turns behind himself to the left, sprinting towards the shaft and jumping down it, not daring to look behind himself, like a child, running up a dark staircase at night.
He soars down the tube, reaching the bottom and then climbs over his makeshift wall of chairs, which apparently wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Kai!” yells Gottlieb, scrambling down past the gun to the console. “We got alien-mutants on board!” he says, slamming a fist against the console.
[Reprimand issued]
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Orbital Gunner Gottlieb - Mental Strain
Context: (Orbital gunner Gottlieb appears to be under a continued psychosis
- Suggestion: Immediate restraining by station security.
“Fuck you, Kai!” yells Gottlieb. “Why the hell didn’t you mention we had someone else on board?!” snaps Gottlieb, looking over his shoulder.
[Request Denied]
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Failure
- Orbital gunner Gottlieb has never asked.
His eye twitches.
“Of course I asked you, smart-ass!” argues Gottlieb. “Literally the first day after this shit happened! When I was in the observatory! Admit it!”
[Request Denied]
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
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Failure
- Orbital gunner Gottlieb asked “Are we alone?”
Station Artificial Intelligence Unit replied with statement: “We are alone.”
“Yeah?” asks Gottlieb. “Exactly?” he says, gesturing around himself to broadly everything. “What the hell do you think ‘alone’ means, Kai?”
[Correction]
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- Alone (Definition): To be without another.
Example: Orbital Gunner Gottlieb has no social life and is all alone.
Suggestion: Orbital Gunner Gottlieb should pursue an active friendship or dating scenario, despite their unlikeliness.
Gottlieb lifts up the rifle, getting ready to shoot Kai’s eye out.
[Addendum]
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- ‘We’ in the statement ‘we are alone,’ refers to the multiplicity of entities aboard the station.
1. Orbital Gunner Gottlieb.
2. Orbital Station Artificial Intelligence Unit
3. UNKNOWN
These are three separate parties.
But they are, collectively, one unit of entities aboard the orbital weapons platform.
Thereby, the statement ‘we are alone’ is correct, as it refers to all parties present.
The entities aboard the orbital weapons platform are all alone in orbital space together.
Suggestion: Orbital Gunner Gottlieb should invest some effort into raising his intelligence.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you could have, oh, I don’t know,” says Gottlieb, lifting his hands and the rifle into the air in vexation. “TOLD ME THERE’S A BRAIN-EATING SPACE-FREAK ON BOARD!” He points at the monitor. “Don’t you give me a smart-ass answer, Kai!”
[Request Denied]
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Failure
- Orbital Gunner Gottlieb is not a security officer.
An intruder aboard the station does not fall within his purview as orbital gunner.
Gottlieb sighs. This is going nowhere. Kai is just going to keep being a dick until the day the lights go out.
— The lights go out.
“FUCK!” yells Gottlieb, watching as the monitor, showing a live feed of the sun, darkens, as the light of the core star pulses out of existence once again.
The station does of course have a small battery reserve, for emergencies. But it is minimal to say the least. After all, under ideal circumstances, one would expect that the sun sort of just… doesn’t ever go out?
The emergency lighting kicks on, a trail of hisses shooting down the walls of the station as the high-efficiency, low-energy bulbs kick in.
‘High-efficiency’ of course means that they only light up a distance, measurable by the station’s most common unit of measurement, up to a single ass each.
Gottlieb clutches the rifle. “Horror movie bullshit,” he mumbles, trying to make himself feel better as he stares down towards the long darkness.
There’s nothing to do but to hunker down and wait until the sun flips back on, he supposes. It’s usually been pretty quick the last few times.
He moves to the elevated desk platforms for the geo-spatial coordinators and aims the rifle down over the railing, towards the open shaft, staring at it with intent, nervous eyes.
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There’s a problem.
Gottlieb rubs his tired face on his sleeve, returning his gaze down the rifle’s sights towards the dimly lit shaft.
— The lights still haven’t come back on.
Obviously, this is very unusual. The last time the sun went out, it was only for a flicker of an instant. But now, the lights are still off.
Gottlieb isn’t the brightest man, but he is fairly certain that, if the sun was out for good, he’d have frozen to death by now. Or would at least be in the process of doing so. The station is, of course, insulated, in whatever manner that term is applicable in space. But still, the sun being gone would be a real problem.
This all leads him to one conclusion.
The sun must be back ‘on’ again. It’s the station that’s off.
Somewhere, something must’ve have… burnt through or whatever when the station powered down and now it won’t power back on. Some circuit or a cable or whatever.
He’s fucked.
Gottlieb can feel it in his bones.
This is it.
The lights are out for good.
There’s a monster on the station.
He’s never going to get to shoot the orbital cannon ever again.
And worst of all, he never got to get payback on Kai for everything.
This is just how he’s going to die, eaten by some demon after stewing in the collective marinade of ten-thousand ass-blasts for the last year of his life.
There’s only one way out of this if his, until now, tried and true method of ‘waiting and doing nothing until the problem fixes itself’ has failed.
— He has to fix it.
But fix what?
Honestly, he has no idea. It could be anything, couldn’t it? He doesn’t have the slightest clue how the station is built, how it runs. Hell, he still doesn’t know the difference between the green and the blue nutri-bars and he was in the place they’re made.
Gottlieb lowers his eyes towards his arms, visible in the emergency lighting and he flexes his bicep, not lifting his hand from the gun.
At least he’s jacked. That’s something, right?
Actually. Hell, what is he afraid of? Some tiny hydroponics gremlin? He’ll tear it apart with his bare hands!
Gottlieb nods to himself, shouldering the rifle, having successfully given himself the pep talk in his mind that he needed.
The man jumps down from geo-spatial instead of taking the stairs, because he wants to look cool, and heads towards the shaft. He floats up it, a steeled look in his eyes.
If whatever is on the station with him thinks it has him on the ropes, it’s going to be in for a nasty surprise, thinks Gottlieb, stepping out of the tube and back into the upstairs corridor, confident that he has what it takes.
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He does not have what it takes.
Gottlieb’s paranoid eyes scan the darkness as he slowly wanders through the station, taking quiet, measured steps in order to make as little noise as possible. The rifle has left its sling and is back in his objectively, very strong, hands.
If the solar-panels are on the fritz, he’s just boned. There’s nothing he can do about that, even if he puts on the suit and goes outside to look at them, he wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start.
But maybe there’s something in here?
Maybe there’s just something…
— There’s something…
Gottlieb stops in his tracks at the central intersection.
He can hear something.
Around the corner, there’s something making noises. They sound somewhat feverish and wet and he can only imagine the face of the twisted demon waiting for him around the bend. Given the dampness of the noises, it must be a huge, disgusting mess of a creature.
He has to kill it, before it gets him.
Gottlieb places his finger on the trigger and takes one final breath of assy air and then spins around the corner, looking at the monstrosity that awaits him.
The two of them stare at each other in confusion for an awkward moment, as he looks in confusion and as it, sitting down on the ground, lifts its head to look his way.
It’s an odd, small, hominid creature with green skin and yellow eyes and sharp ears. Its hands clasp a wall panel, its mouth full of wiring and threaded cables.
“FUCK! KAI! ALIENS ARE REAL!” screams Gottlieb, pulling the trigger.
The man almost thinks he’s shot himself as his senses spin immediately, a deafening ring piercing his skull as the rubber bullet discharges from the rifle. He wobbles on his feet.
(Gottlieb) has shot (Goblin) for {9} damage with his (Normal)[Mark IV NGE Rifle] Applied status: Stunned
The small creature flops over, the cables it was chewing on releasing.
The lights turn back on.
Gottlieb carefully wobbles over towards it, keeping the rifle aimed at the entity.