Prometheus Expedition 2
Chapter 4
David continued into the vent despite Dr. Shaw's protests. His self-perseverance was overridden by curiosity and data acquisition protocols. Shaw saw him disappear into the vent and her radio started to be disrupted with static.
"David, stop. I command you to get out of the vent now!" She yelled into the mic starting to panic.
"I'm fi…doctor…just re…I'll…"
"Get back here!"
She waited for a response. She bounced on her feet to try to stay warm. Twenty seconds passed all she heard was the mic static and the alarm still sounding off. Then a loud blast came from the vent followed by two more shortly after. Another went off and her mic received a louder continuous stream of white noise.
"What happened? David! Can you hear me?"
"Shaw…advise retur…to the main control…quickly."
She saw the dark object dash out of the vent towards the lift below. Her stomach sank and she turned to run down the corridor from which they came. Behind her loud screeches echoed down the ice cold corridor. She didn't know how to operate the main elevator they came down in. She was running towards a dead end.
"I don't know how to interact with the elevator David! I can't make it back to the control room without you!" She checked over her shoulder but couldn't see anything approaching.
"Defend…I'll be…soon mum." David's fading mic sounded.
Shaw made it to the elevator and let out a scream as she tripped and fell forwards. She sat up and scurried backwards until she had her back against the elevator's wall. Her feet and hands were numb yet she managed to point her weapon ahead at the entrance while frozen in place sitting on the floor. Shaw pulled her knees close to her chest and struggled to hold the weapon up.
Shaw whispered into her mic between deep breaths, "David, can you hear me? What's happening down there?"
"I can hear you better now Doctor. The creature ran towards one of the other vents and disappeared. Seems it wasn't able to climb the walls or use the lift. It displays a low level of intelligence. I'm on my way up the lift now." David replied.
"I heard your weapon go off multiple times. Did you shoot it?"
"I tried to scare it off. I purposely missed each shot and then it knocked me aside and escaped to the other side of the vent system. Neither party received any injuries. I think it had fallen down to the floor and damaged one of its arms."
"Just get back here ASAP. We need to discuss what to do from here. I'm not going looking for it any time soon." She said still covering the door. "I'm keeping my helmet on in case that life form has contaminated the environment. I'm very low on oxygen though."
"Look at your wrist scanner. For me it shows that it is perfectly safe for humans."
"I'm not about to trust this tech. We do not even know what type of biology or chemistry we're dealing with here. It could have some nanotech that we can't pick up."
"Of course Doctor, I'm almost at your location. Coast is clear."
Shaw released the tension in her body slightly but didn't let her guard down. She didn't feel safe anywhere now. She probably wouldn't for a long while. David made it to the elevator and saw Shaw still sat on the floor.
"Are you hurt Mum?" He extended a hand.
"No, just shaken up. We need to decontaminate you David. Not sure how we're going to do that." She accepted the help and rose to her feet.
"If you are so worried about contaminates shouldn't we both be cleaned as you were in a similar setting?" A rhetorical question.
"You're right. If we don't find a way to do so in the next forty minutes it won't matter anyways." She said looking at her oxygen reserves on the wrist scanner.
"Then let us get to it. We should stay away from the ventilation openings around the ship as that creature may be able to traverse its entirety."
"If it's still bleeding it may destroy more valuable components. Need to sort that after we search."
"Understood."
They regrouped at the main control room which they set up as a headquarters bringing supplies from the maintenance room and medical bay which included more sealant past and jars of stasis liquid. They had searched for a half hour before giving up as David had a theory that the ship self-decontaminated the atmosphere they were breathing, similar to the terraforming technology that was being used on LV-223. No sighting of the creature was made.
Shaw paced around the control center object that rises from below. David sat in the seat. His body encapsulated and continued to break into the ships systems hoping to make contact with other distant Engineer ships, outposts and maybe even Earth. They hadn't communicated with each other for what seemed like hours. David could only hear Shaw via his onboard mic receiver from her suite due to the Engineers strange head piece.
Shaw put her helmet on and talked through the mic, "Any updates or progress?"
"Negative."
"Copy." An awkward pause later, "Care to elaborate?"
"Negative."
"I'll just talk to myself then."
"I love you too Doctor."
She took the helmet off and dropped it to the floor. She was stuck on a foreign ship with a sarcastic android which refused to share information and an alien life form roaming freely. Things couldn't get any worse.
