Bobby frowned and crossed his arms. Maybe Joseph was right. He whipped out his own sonic brush and dialed up to the proper setting. Joseph snagged the side of the cargo pod, so he walked around to clean to rear. Bobby failed to grasp space terms like aft or starboard. He didn’t know what they meant, though he heard pilots using them from time to time. One surely stood for the back of a fighter like this one. Bobby reached forward, about to scrub when his eyes lit up.
“See,” he shouted. “I told you it was a space alien! Come look over here!”
Joseph walked over and grimaced while Bobby showed him a tiny tear in the lining of the pod. The crack looked massive, considering, big enough to fit a small person through if it needed.
“It’s been there,” Joseph said.
“I know,” Bobby stammered. “But it’s bigger this time.”
“Bigger?”
“Yes, by about ten centimeters up the seam.”
“You keep track?” Joseph asked.
“Not all of them.”
Bobby examined the damage done since his previous examination. About ten centimeters exactly. Ms. Kirsch let this pod go for two weeks on guts alone, but if she collected anything at all, she wouldn’t have flown in with much remaining at this point. Another trip and Bobby feared not much would remain of the junked hauler. The problem was, it took cargo to burst out from the inside, but Helene never brought back anything.
“Look, cracks get bigger. It’s nothing special.”
“Let me have a look inside,” Bobby stammered. “Just for a minute.”
Joseph knocked on the pod a few times to signal both his frustration and that he’d allow it. Bobby nodded and climbed up the railing in back to twist off the console cap. A few screws and the cap fell off, hanging by a loose, sturdy wire. He looked down at a pin pad that reminded him of a calculator. Bobby memorized the cargo pod manual release codes for each ship. He had to. It was part of his job.
His fingers jittered from the excitement as he entered in the four-digit pin, and the back dome of the cargo pod swung open on a hinge to his left. Bobby jumped down and switched his sonic brush to a flashlight as he ran around. Once in a decent position, he pointed it at the interior.
“Joe, you need to come look at this.”
His flashlight illuminated scars and oddly cut grooves marking up the interior of the pod, leaving it a torn mess that made Bobby’s heart thump. A mixture of excitement and fear coursed blood through his veins and made his fingertips tingle. Joseph, having finally walked over, dropped his sonic brush and froze in place.
“This isn’t good,” he said. “We need to tell Hammond … now.”
Chapter III
Geared Up
Helene bolted through the station’s halls at break neck speed in her regular orange and red jumpsuit. She left her quarters without a chance to suit up into anything refined, but Hammond wanted her now. She glanced down at her watch to check the time, 2:00 AM. She ached from lack of restful sleep and her poor positioning prior to her attempt at sleep. This was getting old, and her paycheck was still late.
She stopped in front of the command deck’s metallic door and waved her hand across the width of it. The titanium monolith slid open to reveal Hammond and some armed crew working ahead. She ran over to Hammond with shortness of breath, and she sucked in some air while he paced in a circle with his arms crossed. Hammond didn’t appear to notice her until he turned in her direction. He looked up with a shocked expression and shook her hand.
“Good, you made it,” he said. “Please, take a seat.”
“I prefer to stand,” Helene said. “What’s all this about?”
Hammond ran his fingers up over his scalp to slick back some hair that had fallen across his forehead. She glanced around to see more of the command deck lit up than usual. Some of the service crew she recognized toiled away at computer terminals. A bit out of the ordinary for hardware people, though the techies weren’t awake yet. Hammond must have pieced together a working team from willing participants in the mess he scraped up.
“Something’s loose on Solus,” he said.
“Some … thing?” Helene asked.
“The extremophile you encountered. It climbed aboard your spacecraft, and now it resides somewhere on this station.”
“That’s not likely. I never saw it climb aboard.”
“Perhaps there were two,” he said. “One to guard the gems. Another to venture out and find them.” Helene caught her second wind, having a hard time believing him. “Take a look at these pictures.”
Hammond held up a fist-sized tablet and scrolled images of the inside of her fighter’s cargo pod with his thumb. The imagery was striking because the markings reminded her of the rip in her EV suit. She glanced down and pressed her hand against her wrist, and Hammond shot her a serious stare as well.
“If that’s the case, then we need to put the staff on alert. The thing is dangerous.”
“I’ve already informed those awake. I asked everyone to remain in their quarters until we’ve dealt with the issue.”
“That’s a start,” Helene said. “Suit me up. I know its kind best, so I’ll deal with it.”
Hammond gestured over to a pair of service crewmembers, and they took to it, moving on to the weapons locker toward the leftmost nook of the command deck. The wall there contained assorted battle grade EV suits and boasted a wide variety of laser weaponry in the unlikely case of invasion. The munitions stashed away could supply a team of trained soldiers, but Solus lacked willing volunteers. This Station floated on the outskirts of ordinary civilization, though pirates and rogue elements lurked in all corners of the galaxy.
“You know you need to pay me on time from now on,” Helene said. “No more extensions, you hear?”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Hammond explained.
Helene placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen, I’ll clean this up because I brought it aboard. We can talk about payments after this is over.”
Helene smiled at him before casually walking past. To say Hammond and his crew on Solus were financially lacking would be putting it lightly. However, Helene liked her job and harbored no thought of leaving any time soon … but if she spotted an opportunity to nudge along her paycheck, she’d jump on it.
Chapter IV
Close Encounter
Helene walked slowly down a narrow hall within Solus. The boots of her EV suit clanked on the flooring and sent vibrations through the walls and rooms beyond. The ringing from each step drove tiny spikes through her ears, so she only imagined what it must be like for the extremophile.
The alien creature, at least the one she first encountered, didn’t see like a normal animal. It had no eyes to speak of and instead relied on a form of tremor sense. Its long arms and tail slid on the ground or a wall and picked up vibrations. Using all three, it gathered a rudimentary location of anything that moved or breathed for that matter. The accuracy was uncanny, and she understood for good reason.
“Has it moved yet?” Helene said, tapping her earpiece.
As she spoke, Helene wrestled to wield her massive rifle. The EV suit boasted thick padded armor able to stop just about anything except a plasma bolt at least once, but what it granted her in defense, it lacked in mobility. The suit restricted the movement of her limbs and torso. She didn’t like it.
Helene put up with the limitations, however, for two reasons. Primarily, donning the armor kept Hammond and the crew in high spirits, thinking a human tank would mow down the alien menace. Sure thing boss. Second, to be frank, she had no idea how fast the extremophile moved. If it were anything like back on the asteroid, her quickness wouldn’t count for much in a straight fight.
“No,” Hammond said. “Camera feed shows it nesting for now.”
“It’s like warming the eggs until the mother returns,” she replied.
“That is a likely scenari
o. It’s been making frequent runs to gather precious stones from empty quarters.”
Helene paused in thought for a moment. Strange. She almost expected there to be at least a few casualties by now.
“Has it been intentionally avoiding occupied rooms?” she asked.
“Seems so,” Hammond said. “There must be a reason, though as of yet, I’m in the dark about it.”
“Let me know if you figure anything out.”
“Hold on, Madame Kirsch,” Hammond said. “You’re coming up on the cleaning room. Two doors down on your right.”
Helene held up her rifle and slowly walked over, her eyes and ears scanning for changes in the environment. A changing in shadow. A sudden noise. She imagined a creature living in space didn’t make noises, but a slithering tail and bony arms did. The cleaning room’s door appeared cracked open. She reached over with one hand and gently pushed it aside. Somehow, she felt that if she made as few vibrations as possible, the creature might not sense her. At the least, it might not consider her a threat. She didn’t know if her method would work, but so far, it hadn’t jumped at her.
Helene brushed away the door with her hand and peered into the deep, dark room. The dim light from her rifle casted a soft glow reflected in the many precious gems nestled at the base of the beast. A long white spiny tail swatted the jewelry, as if bathing in them. She couldn’t make out the details or the form of the alien from the weak light on her rifle. A pitch-black fog covered the depths of the room where it slept.
“Hammond, it’s too dark to make my shot,” Helene said.
“Hold on a moment. I’ll turn on the lights.”
Helene gripped her rifle and peered down the sight, ready to fire once Hammond flipped the breaker. She eyed a spot deep inside with her finger hovering above the trigger, and she exhaled one long breath as the lights flickered on. Helene fired once she caught wind of a moving form, but the creature jumped as soon as the humming electricity coursed through the bulbs and fixtures. It lunged at her and struck before she had a chance to fire a second shot.
Chapter V
Narrow Escape
The creature pinned her down on the floor, her rifle nestled between its powerful jaws. The teeth secreted a thick ooze she hadn’t noticed during her previous encounter. Helene wrestled to break her gun free, but it jerked her weapon from side to side with almost spasmodic movements. Her EV suit did little good besides protecting her vitals as it slashed at her rib cage and carved notches in her chest armor. The blasted thing was too cumbersome, and that was the reason she fell flat on her back.
“My, you’re feisty,” she said, finally shoving it off.
She shambled to her feet, trying to acclimate herself to the battle armor, and gripped her rifle. The creature landed about two meters from her and jerked up to claw her a second time, but Helene fired two bursts from the rifle that cleaved neat holes in the alien’s shoulders. The injury caused one of its arms to give way, and it fell to the floor, skidding a few meters with a body like a rag doll. Helene jumped out of the way, though only barely.
She readied her aim again and took fire, but the creature jumped and slithered around her with a series of movements she couldn’t accurately observe, slinking its tail like a whip as it flew across walls and ceilings. She caught a glimpse while it slithered past, and she fired three bursts that burned holes through titanium.
“It’s getting away!” Hammond yelled through her earpiece.
“Don’t you think I know?” Helene shouted back.
She whirled around in time to see the remnants of a spiny tail curl past the end of the hallway some meters ahead. Helene reacted with her hand on the trigger, but she held her finger back with force of will. It would do no good to put more holes in the ship. Hammond might dock it from her paycheck. Besides, she wounded the alien.
“Sorry. I lost it,” Helene said, gasping for air.
“We’ll investigate camera feeds around the station. It’ll show up soon,” Hammond said.
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” Helene replied.
“Why?”
Helene grinned as her eyes followed a trail of icy blue liquid running around the bend. The color was different and some patches were thicker than others were, but she knew.
“I made it bleed.”
Chapter VI
Bare Essentials
Helene broke into a light jog a few hallways back, though it was best she could do sporting her armor. She was used to zero gravity and took to three-dimensional fighting like a fish to water, but this method of combat proved far too limiting for her tastes. Worse yet, the gravity on Solus dragged down her EV suit and crippled her movement speed.
Helene stopped, decidedly fed up with her current predicament. She lacked the raw speed to keep up with the monster on foot, so she uncoupled her chest armor from her suit and threw it on the ground. Afterwards, she reached down to uncouple her leg fittings. Then the boots.
“What are you doing?” Hammond asked.
“You want me to catch it? This is the trade off.”
“One swipe will tear through your suit,” Hammond said. “You can’t fight it as you are now.”
“Maybe I won’t have to.”
“Come again?”
Helene took mental notes the alien’s behavior and had contemplated a few patterns along the brunt of her jogging experience so far. It stayed clear of occupied quarters and chose a dark cleaning room as its nest. It seemed to indicate the fact that it preferred an environment similar to its former asteroid dwelling, though there was more to it.
“I think it hates the light,” Helene said. “It only ventured to dark places and any place with active lighting makes it go berserk.”
Hammond paused.
“I doubt that’s correct for a life form with no eyes,” Hammond said. He paused again. “But you may be onto something. It may be sensitive to the electric fields created by current.”
“Is it worth a shot?” Helene asked.
“No, probably not. The creature can withstand a lit hallway, so I doubt anything exists on Solus to more than anger it.”
Helene grabbed hold of her rifle, the only piece of her armaments she cared to carry with her. She bolted down the hallway, following the trail of murky blue drips until she came to a T-junction. The liquid ran up the wall to her left and into a ventilation shaft. Those air ducts ran all across the station. If it could fit inside one of those, then it pretty well had free access to any portion of the station. Helene frowned and leaned up against a corner while she eyed the shaft.
“Wait a second,” she said. “What about the command deck?”
Chapter VII
About Time
Helene sunk back in the corner of the command deck with her finger poised on the trigger of her rifle. Hammond sat beside her, most of the crew having left the confines of the steel prison. They switched the lights off and powered down each computer, a process that took long enough that it wasn’t finished by the time Helene arrived.
The main entrance was sealed shut and she eyed the vents on either side of the room through a haze of darkness. Her eyes eventually adjusted to the lighting, though not enough to see more than general shapes and not very far into the depths of the room.
The plan was simple. Hammond and his crew juiced up the station’s power reserves and lit up the extremities one by one to drive the extremophile deeper into the heart of Solus. Eventually, it would slither its way into the room with the least amount of running current. When it did … Helene was prepared to handle the situation if their plan deviated from the outline.
A faint sound echoed from farther down, followed by the crashing of a metal vent grating that fell on the floor. Second came the crackling thud of four limbs landing on top of it. Footsteps trampled the grating and thick knuckles scraped across the floor as the alien made its way to the safest location. Helene squinted, but she couldn’t see it f
rom where she sat.
“I don’t like this,” Hammond said.
“You stay put.”
Helene stood up and walked forward. The creature twitched at the sound of her own footsteps, though it seemed occupied by other matters, since it didn’t slink toward her, at least not yet. This was a new environment and even the dark of Solus seemed to overload its senses. Helene stared down the sight of her rifle once she caught glimpse of some movement, but she waited a few more seconds. Slowly, she eased in and began to make out a tail and two long arms with bony-clawed knuckles. She spotted the wound on its left arm, though the trail of blood eluded her.
Helene raised one hand and shouted, “Now!”
Hammond flipped a series of breakers one by one, and the room’s computer terminals and fixtures lit up with a blinding ferocity as the alien jerked in reaction. Helene fired volleys of bursts ripping through its skin and a single shot severed its arm. The alien laid paralyzed from the shock, and maybe the electricity was doing the trick, though that was irrelevant by now. She continued pumping bolts into the creature’s hide until it stopped moving, a moping mass of severed flesh that leaked a murky blue ooze.
Hammond walked over and peered down at it. He slicked back his hair and nodded, placing a hand on Helene’s shoulder.
“Well done,” he said. “It’s a shame though. I would have liked to study it.”
“You don’t pay me to keep things alive,” Helene replied with a smirk.
Hammond sighed and shoved his hands through his pockets. He took a step back before turning tail and walking off, but he let one phrase slip past his lips.
“I’m thinking after this, you deserve a raise.”
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