The side corridor was little more than a white alcove ending in a similarly stark white door with a head-sized window bored into it. A pair of silvery heat protection suits hung from each wall like abandoned corpses at a gallows.
Plastered in red lettering across the door read the words "Thermal Exhaust 003". There were additional words and caution hieroglyphs warding the door, but I did not have time to read them. Already behind me, I could here the scratching of metal nails on glass back down the corridor, and this time I did not dare to look back at the source.
I cast the blue safety instruction sheets dangling between the suits aside and pulled one of the suits down. There was no time to don it properly, so I instead slipped the protective helmet on, letting the suit lay on my back like a silver cloak. Next, I activated the oxygen supply and cooling ventilator on the attached backpack, then grabbed the asbestos gloves. As I slipped one on, I jabbed at the door's control, hoping Vera had the sense not to lock me out of my goal.
I heard glass shatter down the hall as the door before me finally cycled open. I forced myself through the half open door, wincing as I contacted the scalding interior of the door. Down the hall, I could hear the skittering of metal nails over the metal grates of the floor as the alien dashed down the hall towards me, an angry screech accompanying its approach.
I was already inside the large room beyond and scouring the nearby wall for the controls to close the door as I heard the alien skitter to a stop in the hallway outside. I jabbed the control on the access panel to seal the door as I drew my pistol, but the door sealed itself shut before the black demon showed itself in the hallway.
Safely inside the vast room, I took a moment to glance at my surroundings. The room was at least ten meters across, and consisted of an upright, featureless cylinder. The floor was little more than a metal grill, as was the ceiling several meters above me. Beyond the grill the cylinder continued, but narrowed, then turned sharply towards what must be the rear of the ship. Opposite the door I had entered an airlock reached from floor to ceiling, marked with the gigantic numbers "003".
I realized to my horror that this was not the control room to the heat exchangers, but the purge shaft itself. I turned on my heel to face the door I had come in. Already, I could feel the plastic soles of my shoes melting and sticking to the iron grill beneath me. Wisps of steam were beginning to waft from my previously cold and wet clothing.
A black figure was at the door, the black, helmeted head held against the door's single window. The creature rubbed its jaw against the glass, as if in some way it were sniffing for me.
Just to the right of the door I caught the glimpse of tinted glass - surely, it was the control room. Following the near floor-to-ceiling high window to the right, my gaze brought me to another single door on the right-hand wall of the room.
I made my way over to the other door as the creature watched me with intent interest, its eyeless mask still pressed against the window of the door I had entered. Using my gloved hand, I punched the access button that would take me into what I perceived to be an antechamber to the control room I could faintly make out beyond the larger window.
The door started to open, but suddenly stopped as a ring of recessed orange lights flared to life about the circular chamber. A moment later, the door slammed shut and I could hear the hydraulic hiss as it and the door to the corridor sealed itself shut.
"Two minutes to thermal system purge," a familiar, feminine voice rang out.
"Vera!" I yelled aloud, putting away my pistol, "what the hell are you doing?" Vainly, I attempted to peer through the huge glass window into the control panel, but saw no one there. Once again, a single camera within the control room unwaveringly gazed back at me.
I moved back over to the door near the control room, but a protective plate had slid over the access panel. "Vera! You can't do this!" I shouted, slamming my gloved hand against the door in a feeble attempt to knock it down.
I could see the alien's eyeless skull still pressed against the other door, its lipless maw seeming to smile evilly at my predicament.
"One minute, forty-five second to thermal system purge," the voice rang again.
"Goddamn you!" I cursed aloud, casting about for some way out of the furnace. It was already uncomfortably warm in the room and I was glad I had put the protective helmet on or I would have likely already passed out. I moved over to the door to the control room and started to slip on the rest of the suit, still looking for a way out of my predicament.
I then remembered the bulkhead door to the engine room, and its manual control. Dropping down to one knee, I examined the wall beside the door. Sure enough, I found a small panel, and ripping it away with my gloved hand, found a small manual crank in the recess.
"One minute, thirty seconds to thermal system purge," boomed through the room as I seized the crank with my gloved hand and started to turn it. Slowly, inexorably, the metal door began to slide upward.
Thirty seconds passed as steam began to filter into the area preceding the purge. The door was about a quarter of the way up and resisting my efforts such that I had to switch to using both hands to keep the door from slipping back shut. The space was too tight to fit both gloved hands into the scalding hot recess, and with a grimace I had to cast the glove aside and grasp the wheel with both unprotected hands. I couldn't slip through the opening with the backpack and helmet on, and needed to get the door higher so I could slide through it before it wound shut when I released the manual wheel.
That was when the door to the corridor lurched, and an inch of light from the outside hall broke into the purge chamber. My hand slipped and the door I was working on slipped downward an inch before I caught the wheel, gritting the teeth as my blistered skin tore on the metal wheel. To my left, the corridor door began inching upwards, moving faster than my own pace. Somehow, some way, the alien was mimicking me, manually forcing the door open. It was determined that I did not escape.
"Forty-five seconds until thermal system purge," I heard when I finally managed to get the door to the halfway point. Suddenly, loud klaxons sounded and I heard the seal on the ten-meter tall airlock door release. At the door to the corridor, black steel-tipped claws wrapped about the bottom of the door and began forcing it upwards as the alien hissed with the effort.
There was no time to utter even a curse. I released the manual wheel and dashed through the half-way open door. I collapsed against the opposite wall as the door slammed downwards behind me. There was the distinct sound of the alien's bony exoskeleton dashing across the grillwork, but it was not fast enough. The door sealed behind me, trapping the demon in the purge chamber.
Breathing heavily, I slid up the wall to see its black, elongated skull pressed against the small window in the door, the jaws stretched wide and slathering the glass with thick saliva.
"You lose!" I spat at it, pulling myself up and drawing the pistol, just in case it tried to pry the door open. To my right, a glass door like the one from the water flooded room stood between me and the control room. On this side of the tinted glass, I could see that the lights were on in the control room, and the computer consoles within flashed with activity.
"Thermal system purge aborted," the feminine voice of Vera rang out. "Resetting systems; disengaging safety locks. Ten seconds to system reset. Please wait."
"No!" I retaliated, knowing that as soon as the reset occur, the door before me would open for the beast just beyond. I turned the gun in my blistered hand at the glass door to the control room and let loose the final two shots. The glass spiderwebbed as it absorbed the bullets, and then covering myself with my arms, I leapt through the door and into the control room.
"Six," the countdown continued as I came to my feet and stared at the controls before me.
"Four," the countdown reached as I found what I was looking for. Without hesitation, I jabbed the control. There was a pause as the count stopped at two.
"Thermal purge reactivated. Safety protocols still in place – reinitializing," the annoyed feminine voice announced.
Before another second had passed, I had reached under the console and pulled at the mass of cables running to the wall. With all my might, I severed the connections to the rest of the ship, isolating and locking the room's controls.
"Countdown resuming at forty-five seconds until thermal system purge," the voice announced.
I looked up from the control panel to gaze out the tinted window into the purge chamber. Slowly, like a hunter approaching cornered prey, the towering ebony demon stepped from the door to stand at the window. As I watched its movements, I shuddered. As it moved, its motion and body language, I realized, was undeniably that of Fox's. "No, it can't be," I breathed as I watched it regard the dark tinted glass, as if it were analyzing the structure, just as Fox might have once done. As it reached the point in the window where I stood on the opposite side, the creature slowly turned to face me, its lipless maw curled into a hateful snarl. It drew its left arm up above its head and rested its hand on the glass as it leaned forward, its eyeless gaze locking onto me. I shuddered, as I had seen Fox take the same stance so many times in the past as he watched Brensen at work.
The hiss of the pressure doors on the airlock opening in the purge chamber was unmistakable. I stood in the control room, my finger hovering over the system's controls. The thing turned its head slightly towards the mechanical grating of the opening airlock. As I could start to see the first signs of the shimmering heat within the room bend towards the slowly opening airlock, it took a step back. Then, with all its might, it shoulder-charged the window – to no effect, other than to make me start at the viciousness of its movements.
A howl from the escaping air began to grow in the chamber and the tall, biomechanical monster again heaved itself against the heavy glass window. The glass shook from the force, but held. For its efforts, a bead of greenish blood drew along the needle-like teeth and it spat the caustic liquid against the glass. The substance hissed slightly at the contact and the black demon regarded its effects unhappily. It knowingly looked from the smoking section straight at me as it again rested one arm on the glass wall.
"Thirty seconds to thermal system purge," sounded, and the creature crouched, hissing loudly as the growing gale pulled at it. With all its might, the creature lunged at the glass. Not only did it rebound off the indestructible wall, but the growing gale lifted it of the ground, spinning it before whisking it towards the still-opening airlock.
The creature's tail lashed outward, catching the grill of the floor. But the strength of the vacuum's pull on it caused the lashing barb to rip through the thin metal, continuing to drag it towards the outside. It slowed the creature's exit just enough that it managed to grasp the edge of the airlock door. Fighting to hold on, I could hear it screeching against the howling wind that intended to drag it into space.
"Fifteen seconds to thermal system purge," sounded above me as I continued to watch the creature edge along airlock door, straining desperately to pull itself back into the chamber. Within the purge chamber itself, the damaged grills rolled back into the walls, leaving a barren, featureless shaft behind. I watched the creature loose its grip on the door, sliding into the square shaft beyond. Only three meters more, and it would be expelled into the inky blackness of space.
"Ten," the count reached as the last of the air expelled from the chamber. With the chamber now exposed to pure vacuum, the creature found its footing. It paused for a moment in the square shaft, catching its non-existent breath. I marveled that the creature could withstand pure vacuum when its gaze swung to stare once again directly at me. A snarl formed on its lips, and it took a tentative, slowed step towards me. I realized then that the shaft was zero-G as it slowly seemed to begin swimming towards the open airlock door.
"Eight," the countdown announced, and the lighting in the purge chamber flicked off, leaving the only illumination coming from the control room and the pinpoint lights of the stars in the void beyond. I lost sight of the creature.
"Six," was accompanied by a loud roar as the direct vents to the engine began to open. Streams of superheated plasma began to funnel into the chamber and outwards towards space. Though exceedingly bright of themselves, they left the surrounding areas of the chamber pitch black. I could see no sign of the alien creature.
When the last digit was announced, a flood of brilliant fire flooded the chamber and the protective tinting to the control room darkened. Even with the room's protection, I covered my eyes and could feel waves of heat as the exhaust roared through the other room like the shockwave of a nuclear blast. The ship itself lurched as the exhausting gases pushed its vast mass forward.
The ship's exhalation seemed to last forever as waves of fire flooded into space. Then, as abruptly as the final breath had started, it ended. It was followed by several more seconds of white-hot plasma streams that slowly tapered into nothingness. The lights of the purge chamber finally came back up, revealing a charred, red-glowing room whose walls smoked from the fiery breath. Moments later, the vast airlock doors began to cycle close. I spent several seconds gazing past the smoke that twisted off the glass of the control room, ignoring the slight scar caused by the alien's acidic blood on the glass. There was no sign of the black creature – it had clearly been annihilated in the furious blast. Satisfied that my foe had not survived, I glanced about the room. As I had suspected, there was another door to the control room, most likely one that led back into the corridor Vera had led me into, and which bypassed the purge chamber.
First though, I scavenged the room for a first aid kit to treat my wounded hands. With the alien threat gone, my thoughts turned dealing now with Vera's remains and regaining control of my ship.
