Chapter Twelve
The Hunters Become the Hunted
Castle: One small murder for man, one giant mystery for mankind.
Beckett: Even when you whisper, everyone can hear you.
Season 7 episode 18 "The Wrong Stuff"
Captain Kim sat in her seat on the empty bridge, standing watch after her moment of weakness as if it had never happened. She knew she'd needed to purge all of her doubts and fears about herself and whether she was fit to lead them, needed to wrestle them back into their box where they belonged.
Duty to her ship and crew was not an abstract concept to Elise Kim.
Her crew needed her back at her best - at least until this crisis was over - needed her to be the MARINE she knew was still buried deep inside of her. She could do that. She had to. She was the Captain of this ship, and saw it as her responsibility, not one she could foist upon another, no matter how capable Kate Beckett might be.
When she'd arrived on the bridge an hour ago to find everyone huddled there for safety, she'd sent them all back to the galley with orders to eat something and find a way to get some rest. She needed them frosty for what was to come.
She heard the pounding of footsteps from out in the hallway and tensed, rising from her seat on full alert, all senses hyper-aware of every sound - even the swish of the air vents - sensations she couldn't recall feeling since she last suited up for combat. It had been nearly a decade since she'd mustered out, but her muscles remembered, her reflexes flared - combat-ready even after all this time.
When it registered that the approaching footsteps were Banhov and Granger instead of some unknown threat, she relaxed. Her mind and body ratcheted down from battle-stations to a more relaxed, alert status as Banhov dumped an armload of metal tubes into the seat of her chair, each about the diameter of her wrist. They clattered hollowly against each other, sounding and looking more like children's toys than weapons.
"Here you go," Banhov said gruffly, his eyes daring her to comment, "shock batons and two nets ready for action. Granger made one of the shock sticks for each of us, fully tested and charged."
Her eyes flashed indignantly for a moment at the way they had been dumped into her chair like Banhov was rubbing her nose in their brief discussion over the comm, but she let it go. Guess I deserved that for being a bitch earlier, she thought to herself. He got the job done, so she chose to let his impertinence go.
Granger dumped the two nets he had been carrying over one shoulder, onto the floor, holding one corner so one of them unfurled between him and Banhov.
"We're ready to go hunting," Granger said, feeling confident in their work.
Kim nodded.
"I'll call the others," she said, hitting her intercom panel to make the call. While she waited for the rest of the crew to arrive, she looked over the shock tubes with a critical eye.
First came Olivera, then Ash from the infirmary, followed several minutes later by a sheepish looking Castle and Beckett. From the state of Beckett's hair and both of their uniforms it was obvious that they had taken her up on her suggestion of the solitude and comfort the Narcissus could offer.
She'd intentionally not looked in the direction of the telltale light on her chair for the shuttle's hatch after they'd left.
"We're going out looking for that thing armed only with those?" Olivera complained, pointing at the tubes, her tone leaving little doubt as to her opinion.
Kim had her own doubts about them, but she was secretly glad they were voiced by someone else. She didn't want to seem critical of Granger's hard work, in the interests of morale. Olivera seemed to have designated herself the ship's official naysayer and doubting Thomas anyway, so Kim was content to let her run with it.
"Give them a chance," Castle retorted.
"Everybody take one," Banhov requested, sounding oddly polite for a change. Probably just eager to show off, Kim thought to herself.
Granger stepped up to distribute the units, each about three feet long. A barbed electrode at one end, the other bulged with compact instrumentation and a crude grip.
Kim swung the tube experimentally, getting the feel of it. It was neither too light nor particularly heavy and felt well-balanced in her hand, if a bit heavier at the far end. She liked the feel of the device, something she could swing between herself and the alien in a hurry in the narrow corridors of the ship, spurting acidic blood or more direct forms of defense notwithstanding. It felt good.
"I used zero-three-three portable chargers in each of these," Granger explained. "They should deliver a pretty substantial jolt and won't require immediate recharging unless you hold the discharge button down long enough to fully expend the unit." He indicated the handle of his own tube. "You can shock the thing several times if needed, so don't be afraid to use 'em."
Granger seemed unusually pleased with himself. It had obviously been a long time since he'd built something from scratch. It led both Kim and Castle to secretly wonder what quiet shenanigans he'd gotten up to in engineering school. Castle's mind wandered through possible scenarios of battle bots or Rube Goldberg style devices, before Kate nudged him in the ribs with a raised eyebrow and an eye-roll, silently admonishing him to pay attention.
"They're fully insulated at the grip and partway down the tube," Granger continued. "You'll drop it real quick if you touch the non-insulated section when it's switched on, but the super-cooled conductive tube inside it carries most of the charge. It'll deliver nearly one hundred percent of that power to the electrode at the far tip, so be goddamn careful not to touch it."
Castle flipped the end of his tube up, his curiosity piqued, nine year old on a sugar rush on full display, only to be cuffed on the back of the head by his wife with a look in her eye that said, "Don't even think about it."
"How about a demonstration?" Kate asked, her eyes still scolding Castle.
"Yeah, sure," Granger replied, eager to show off his handiwork. He touched the end of his tube to a conduit running across the nearest wall and depressed the discharge button. A blue spark leaped from tube to duct along with a satisfying loud crack and the faint smell of ozone. The demonstration was all the urging Castle needed to point his back down and away from himself as quickly as he could.
"I tested each one after I finished them," Granger explained, his eyes going from Kate to the Captain. "That's why it took so long. They're all fully charged and good to go."
"Any way to modulate the voltage?" Kim asked.
Banhov shook his head.
"We tried to approximate something punishing but non-lethal," he replied. "We don't know any more about this variety of the creature than we did the other one, and under the circumstances there wasn't time to add current regulators. Each tube generates a single, unvariable charge. We're not miracle workers, you know."
"First time I ever heard you admit that," Kate added mischievously.
Banhov ignored her as Granger carried on with the explanation.
"This charge setting shouldn't damage the little bastard - we're as sure of that as we can be - unless its nervous system is a lot more sensitive than ours. Its parent was smaller, though, and plenty tough for its size. Of course, it won't break my heart if one or two jolts from these succeeds in electrocuting the little darling."
"Okay," Olivera commented, relaxing a fraction. "So that handles the problem of capture and containment. What about the problem of finding it?"
"I've taken care of that," Ash stated.
Everyone turned in shock to see Ash holding a small, pistol-shaped device.
"Since it's imperative to locate the creature as quickly as possible," Ash stated calmly, "I've done some tinkering of my own. Our intrepid engineers have done an admirable job cobbling together a means to trap and capture the creature. Here is the means for finding it."
"A portable tracker?" Castle asked, impressed.
Kate couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship of the compact instrument, amazed Ash had been able to put together something so elegant-looking in the Nostromo's science lab.
Ash nodded. "It's range is somewhat limited, but when you start to get close, it starts beeping. The display shows you how close any source of movement is, as well as its approximate location in relation to the device."
Kate took one of the compact motion trackers from the science officer's hand, turned it over, and examined it with a professional eye. They'd been testing something similar in the NYPD for use by ESU to safely sweep rooms and crime scenes before she'd left.
"How does it work?" She asked, "How do we tell the alien from one of us?"
"Since we can't detect the creature directly," Ash replied, "I incorporated a very sensitive air- density monitor along with a physical motion tracking device. Any moving object within its range will effect it and you can track multiple targets at once at different ranges. The screen attached over the grip will let you keep track of them. You can tell from the screen which direction each object is moving and how close to you they are, just keep it pointed ahead of you."
Ash paused a moment before continuing to let his words sink in.
"As I mentioned, the range is pretty short, but that works to our advantage since now, two groups can work in relatively close proximity without one group setting off false readings on the others' trackers.
It's not nearly as sophisticated an instrument as I wished to have, but it's the best I could come up with in the limited time available."
"That's incredible work, Ash," Kim stated, looking at the tracker in Kate's hand approvingly. "This should allow us to coordinate our efforts and increase our chance of success. How many did you make up?"
"Two," Ash replied, placing a duplicate of the device Kate was holding into Kim's hand.
"Good," Kim replied, "we can sweep simultaneously with two teams on separate decks to maximize our efforts."
Kim looked at Kate then nodded. "Since Beckett and I have the most experience with this sort of thing, we'll each lead a sweep team. We'll seal off "A" deck and I will have MIRA do regular motion detector sweeps since her sensors are fully operational here. She'll know which ones are caused by us using our sub-dermal tags, at least up here. Olivera and Ash will sweep "B" deck with me. Beckett will take Castle, Banhov and Granger to sweep "C" deck and engineering."
Everyone turned to Kim as they settled around their respective team leaders to await further instructions.
"My instructions aren't fancy. Stay in constant contact. Whoever bags it, gets it into the lock and blows it into space as fast as the hatches will function. Kate, if you find it and aren't sure you can net it, coordinate with me and we'll set up an ambush for you to drive it into. I'll do the same."
Kate nodded in understanding, her eyes darkening with intent. She always felt better in a situation that called for her to take direct action, and this was as direct as it came.
"For starters," Kim added, "let's test our equipment." Kate handed Castle the tracker she was holding and he turned it on, sweeping it around the bridge, his full attention on the small screen.
"Seven displacements," he announced, "all accounted for. Providing this thing functions properly, the bridge is clean."
"It works," Ash stated, not seeming to take offense, "as you've just demonstrated."
Kim surveyed the men and women of her crew, as proud of them as she could be while each one shouldered their respective gear and assembled into their search teams. They hadn't trained together for something like this, but they were working together to get it done. She'd make them honorary Marines if she could, she was so damned proud of them all.
"Everybody ready?" Kim asked firmly.
There were a couple of whispered, sullen 'nos', and the shuffling of feet. Kim was not satisfied, she needed them fired up.
"I can't hear you," she bellowed, borrowing a page from her DI. "Everybody ready?"
"Yes Captain!" came the more confident response and everyone smiled. This time they were prepared for the alien and, hopefully, armed with the right tools for the task. She needed them to be confident in their purpose, ready to work together to defend their ship and each other from this invader.
"Channels are open on all decks," Kim stated. "Remember to stay in constant contact, but if you sight the creature, your priority is to capture it and get it to the lock. Notifying the other team to coordinate an ambush is a secondary consideration. If you have the opportunity and think you can corner it, don't hesitate. Let's move like we have a purpose, people."
They filed out of the bridge and sealed the door, closing every door between the bridge and the main companionway, then that hatchway as well and split up into their assigned teams at the landing for "B" deck. Kim's team moved out into the corridor and sealed the hatch behind them as Beckett and her team continued down to "C" deck.
Olivera held one side of the net along with Ash on the other. Between the two of them, they kept the net open on opposite sides of the deck as Kim swept each room with the motion detector and sealed it behind her as she pronounced them clean.
"Anything down there?" Kim asked over the comm. "We're clear up here."
Banhov and Granger reset their grips on the net while Castle and Beckett paused ahead of them. The married couple exchanged a silent look between them after Castle consulted his tracker.
"Nothing here so far," Kate reported. "Continuing our sweep."
The tracker in Castle's hands suddenly started beeping and a small dot appeared on the screen at the outer perimeter of its scanning range.
"Hold it. I've got something," Castle said, moving a few paces ahead to make sure it wasn't a false reading. It was still there, drawing gradually closer with every pulse of the device.
All four of them began looking up and down the corridor from floor to ceiling, mindful of how the last alien had dropped from a ceiling light fixture to land on Kate's shoulder. None of them were willing to take the chance that this one couldn't climb as well, not with the claws they had seen on its hands and feet. Kate was especially vigilant, not keen to repeat the experience of that creepy hand-shaped thing landing on her shoulder. It had taken Rick nearly an hour to pull her fully back together after that.
Though they saw nothing moving toward them and no sound of approaching small feet, the tracker's screen still showed the contact slowly converging on them with each pulse.
"Where the hell is it coming from?" Granger asked quietly as Castle frowned at the tracker.
"I don't know," Castle replied, "but if this thing is right, the little bastard's in the next room."
"That's the access corridor for the internal cargo holds." Kate reminded her husband, "On the way out from Earth we shipped supplies for Thedus station in them. Since we're pulling a refinery instead of shipping cargo for the return trip, we took on extra maintenance supplies and empty cargo containers as spacers to keep from pressurizing the empty holds. It's gonna be a messy place to search."
"Banhov, you and Granger take point," Kate said after a short pause. "You two know this level better than I do, I just coordinate with station control and handle the shipping manifests."
Carefully, keeping the net ready between them, Banhov, and then Granger slipped into the cargo area, which was poorly lit compared with the rest of the Nostromo. Nobody was supposed to come in here when the ship was between ports so only basic illumination was necessary. They paused at the door to the small access corridor to let their eyes adjust to the dim light.
When they finished this run, Kate promised herself she'd request a transfer to a liner or get out of the service. She'd made the same promise twice before, but this time she'd stick to it. Nobody sent a liner to do this kind of dangerous shit, they had important people aboard.
As the comm officer on a liner, Castle could people-watch to his heart's content when he was off-duty and soak up inspiration for his books, perhaps even entertain guests with his tales - not to mention how much kids loved him. Getting out and settling down with Castle, or maybe going back for her law degree suddenly didn't seem like such a daunting prospect anymore. It was time to stop running from her life and get back to living it. The thought of dragging the man she loved into even more danger than she already had turned her stomach.
She watched Castle point the tracker down one side of the corridor, the other to get a bearing.
Castle stated, pointing down the access corridor, "signals coming from this way, let's go."
"We'll hit a split in the corridor soon," Granger cautioned them. Sure enough, a few paces later, the corridor split in two directions. Castle moved out front with the tracker, sweeping both one fork and then the other.
"Down this way," he whispered, pointing in the direction of the signal and they moved out again.
"Captain ought to demand an inspection," Banhov muttered. "They'd condemn forty percent of the ship and the company would have to pay to bring her back to spec."
Castle shook his head. He was no stranger to governmental and corporate conspiracies, given his many and varied wild theories over the years.
"Wanna bet?" Castle muttered, eliciting an eye-roll from Kate. "Be cheaper and easier for them to pay off the inspector."
Though another of his ideas had been shot down, Banhov couldn't refute Castle's logic, almost in awe of both the writer's active imagination and his devious mind. He was beginning to understand what Beckett saw in him. It was hard not to like the man.
"What's wrong with the lights?" Kate stage whispered. "I may not be very familiar with this part of the ship, but I'm pretty sure illumination shouldn't be this low down here. I thought you guys fixed twelve module?"
"We did fix it," Granger protested. "Trust me, I was the one down in the maintenance shaft for most of it."
Banhov stepped aside to squint at the access panel near the door.
"Circuit breaker probably tripped locally after twelve module blew out," he supplied. "MIRA would have cut power to non-critical systems when she came back online. It's hardwired so we don't overload the grid when power re-starts. She puts non-critical systems in standby mode then brings them back on gradually. Just gotta close the breaker and re-start manually. Wait one."
Banhov opened the access panel, closed the breaker and pushed in the manual override. Almost immediately, the overhead lighting began to power up, causing the room to grow gradually brighter. After he closed the panel and took up his section of the net again, they moved deeper into the room, but Castle raised a hand, bringing them to a halt.
"Wait," he said, as he took another reading.
"We close?" Banhov whispered, straining to see into the next dimply lit room as Castle checked the screen on the motion tracker.
"According to this, it's within fifteen meters," Castle replied.
The two engineers tightened their hold on the net without prompting as both Kate and Castle brought up their stun batons and turned them on. The married couple moved into the room and split off taking opposite sides of the room, their shock batons at the ready. Castle's eyes darted from the small screen, to Kate, to the point in the room indicated on the tracker, all four trying to make as little noise as possible. By silent agreement, the two engineers had positioned the net to cover the door so their unwanted guest couldn't get out, while they advanced to drive it back toward the door and into the net.
The closer to the signal contact the married partners went, the more cautious they became. Kate had dropped to a half crouch, ready to spring into action the instant any shadow in the room moved wrong. They came to a stop across from each other adjacent to the location of the contact.
Even in the dim light, it was clear that nothing cowered in the shadows in the spot indicated by the tracker. Castle slowly, quietly turned the tracker to get a new bearing and was rewarded with a blip on the screen a few meters away. He looked up at Kate and silently indicated a small maintenance locker with its door slightly askew near the back wall. Kate nodded her assent and motioned for Banhov and Granger to bring up the net and position it nearby.
When Banhov and Granger were set, and Kate had her shock baton at the ready, Castle took a deep breath, set the tracker on the floor and grasped the handle of the locker with his free hand. Raising his own prod, he depressed the button on its handle, slammed himself against the wall and jammed the metal tube inside the locker.
A squalling sound echoed loudly in the room as a small, orange creature exploded from the locker with bulging eyes and flashing claws. It hissed and spat, but landed neatly in the middle of the net. The frantic pair of engineers wrapped it in as many layers of the net as possible.
"We got him!" Banhov exclaimed triumphantly. "We got the little bastard, we…!"
Kate felt something was wrong as she looked down at the net with great surge of disappointment.
"Oh, damn it," she muttered tiredly. "Relax, you two, take a look."
Both engineers let go of the net, letting it fall to the deck when they saw what they'd caught. A very annoyed cat shot out of the entangling web then bolted, hissing and spitting back up the corridor before anyone could react.
"No," she shouted an instant too late, as a flash of orange fur vanished out the door. "Don't let Charlie get away."
"You're right," Banhov replied. "We should wring the little bastard's neck before he confuses the tracker again."
Kate glared sharply at him, but said nothing, then turned her attention to the less homicidal Granger.
"Go get him, Granger," she ordered. "Try not to hurt him, but your partner is right, it would be a good idea to keep him penned up in his box so he can't confuse the trackers again… or us. I'd hate to hurt him by mistake. The Captain would be heartbroken."
"Right," Granger whispered as he headed out into the corridor, then turned and trotted up the passageway where charlie had gone. Castle, Beckett and Banhov returned to their sweep, Castle doing his best to manage his shock tube and the tracker while taking up Granger's half of the net at the same time.
Granger looked up and down the corridor, but caught no sign of Charlie before slipping through an open door to the large equipment maintenance bay. He knew from his foray down here earlier to gather the materials for the shock tubes and nets that the loosely stocked chamber was full of ideal cat hiding places and was a logical place for Charlie to take refuge from his encounter with Castle's shock baton.
If I don't find Charlie in here, Granger thought to himself, I'll go back and find the others. He'll come back up for air when he gets hungry.
Granger ignored the rows of stacked, sealed instrument pods labeled by their luminescent identification tags, the carelessly bundled containers of replacement modules and dirty tools, remnants of their repair job on the sub-light engines and twelve module. It suddenly occurred to him that the others were probably well out of earshot, making him jittery. The sooner he got his hands on Charlie and back to the others, the better he'd feel.
"Charlie…" he whispered, drawing out the syllables of his name, trying to sound reassuring. "Here, kitty, kitty. Come on, Charlie-boy. Come to your good buddy, Granger... here kitty, kitty."
He bent to peer into a cat-sized space between two crates, but there was no sign of Charlie. He wiped the sweat from his brow and continued his search for the recalcitrant feline.
"Goddamn it, Charlie," he muttered sweetly, "you little bastard, where the hell are you hiding?"
He heard a scratching sound from deeper in the bay, followed by a low but unmistakably feline yowl and sighed in relief as he moved toward the source of the cry, his shock baton at the ready... just in case.
Castle gazed tiredly at the tracker screen, but there was nothing within range. He waited for several pulses, but still nothing. At a glance from Kate he shook his head.
"That's it, we finished our sweep and nothing besides us and Charlie," she stated.
"Let's go back," Banhov suggested. "The least we can do is help Granger find the fucking cat."
"Don't badmouth Charlie," Kate snapped, automatically defending the cat. "He's as frightened as the rest of us."
They turned and headed back up the corridor. Castle kept the tracker on, just in case. If nothing else, it would help them find Charlie. He felt positively awful that he'd shocked the poor cat with his baton.
Granger worked his way around the stacks of equipment until he reached the struts and supports for the Nostromo's superstructure, which formed an intricate criss-cross of metal above him. He was about to give up his search when he heard Charlie yowl again. He peered around a metal pylon, and saw two small, greenish-yellow eyes shining back at him in the dark.
Another meow made him feel a little better. Charlie and their quarry may have been about the same size, but only a tomcat would produce a noise like that. He moved closer, bent to clear a beam and was met with the familiar sight of Charlie's fur and whiskers.
"There you are…" Granger muttered, relieved. "Nice to see you, you furry little bastard."
He reached for Charlie, but the cat hissed threateningly and cringed, backing deeper into his hiding place.
"Come on, Charlie-boy," Granger whispered. "Come to your good buddy Granger, there's no time to fool around."
Granger did not see the long-fingered hand, with six inch claws that reached downward toward him, the arm attached to it nearly the width of the beam he'd passed under. The massive, seven foot tall creature unfolded itself from the beams above Granger's head without so much as a whisper of sound, its muscular body rippling with tremendous power held in check.
Granger neither saw nor heard the creature's movements until the powerful hand wrapped completely around his neck and the fingers crossed over themselves at his throat.
Granger shrieked, both hands dropping everything to snap reflexively to his neck. He clawed and scratched at the fingers around his throat, but to no avail. A single twitch of the thing's heavily muscled wrist snapped his neck, his legs twitching in empty air as the creature effortlessly drew him up into the crossbeams with it.
Charlie bolted from his hiding place and shot past Castle, Beckett and Banhov as they plunged into the equipment bay at Granger's strangled cry, arriving just in time to see the thing's tail twitch in the air as it hauled Granger's body away, his still-twitching legs dragged behind.
Staring up into the dark recesses of the ceiling, they had a last brief glimpse of dangling feet and twisting torso being dragged upward. Above Granger's twisting body was the faint outline of something large and bipedal, but definitely not a man. A black-tinged creature both huge and malevolent, barely visible in the shadows, followed by a split-second beam of light reflecting off its huge, domed head before both alien and engineer vanished into the upper reaches of the Nostromo's hull braces.
"Pakhshalsta!" Banhov muttered, followed by incomprehensible curse words in his native Russian. "It grew."
Kate looked blankly down at the shock baton in her hands, then back up into the support struts where the massive creature had gone, casting a baleful look at her husband, her eyes bulging in terror.
"It grew fast," she muttered. "While we were busy hunting something Charlie's size, it grew... into that."
Kate suddenly grew hyper-aware of where they were standing, the shadows, massive crates, even the walls pressing tight around them. The support struts for Nostromo's hull loomed above, dark places where a creature that size might hide. She could feel the first stirrings of a panic attack begin to surge within her.
"What are we still doing here?" Castle exclaimed, his voice shocking Kate back to reality, like ice water down her spine. "That thing might come back."
Kate hefted her shock baton, fully aware of how useless it was against a creature that size. As one person, they turned and ran from the bay, Granger's last strangled scream still echoing in their minds as they fled.
Banhov paused in the hatchway to look back. He had known Granger for a long time. They had worked together and been partners longer than Castle had known Beckett. Granger had met his end in that room, alone in the dark with no chance of rescue, left to the tender mercies of that... thing.
The dark pit in his soul that Granger had helped him keep at bay for the better part of a decade welled up within him. He swore to himself that when he saw that creature again, there would be a reckoning if it was the last thing he ever did. Curses he had not heard outside of the stories in his great grandmother's kitchen rose from the darkest depths of his soul. He whispered them into the darkness before sealing the hatch closed.
The thing that had killed his partner had become a focus for all of his hate and for one shot at it, he would gladly let the looming darkness festering within take him.
**Author's note** And so it begins. The creature has wrested the role of hunter from our intrepid crew, and now they are the hunted. Whatever shall they do? Bear with me dear readers, only a few more chapters to go.
I would once again like to thank my long-suffering Beta, Cofkett for all of her hard work on this story, I have been sending her some really long chapters for this story and she has come through like a trooper with all of them. Especially when you consider my atrocious typing.
Take a bow, Cofkett. ;-)
Mark