CHAPTER 39: Bad Luck Rising.

Five figures moved down the long, twisting, and winding air shaft quickly and quietly, leading directly to the giant bases primary reactor room. Getting out of pod three and into the central hub had been surprisingly easy. While the route that Alex provided Shawn had indeed been longer, it had gotten them to the target area. Although the five had to stop when hurried patrols and attack squadrons rushed by. The only real obstruction the five ran into had been a series of shutters. Either by plasma torch or by acid spray, the shutters, one by one, we're dealt with.

At some point, the large group made it out of pod three, with hardly any resistance, and into the central hub. According to Ghost, a few sporadic firefights ensued with most of the guards turning tail to run, either at the sight of one of their own heavy combat suits turning on them or at the hoard of Xenos fighting alongside said combat suit.

Quietly as he could manage, Shawn made it through the last fifty meters of ductwork before coming to a grill cover. Slowly edging closer, he kept back a few feet and tried to get a good look. All he could see from his vantage was a mess of massive pipes running up and down, the mechanical hum vibrating through the air.

'This is it?' Shadow asked, his massive head hovering just above Shawn's prone form.

'It looks like it, but I can't tell what part of the reactor room it is, though. Got to say, it's a lot bigger than I thought it would be.' Shawn answered, scooting further up. 'Damn,' He swore, 'it looks like we're about a good fifty feet above the main floor. The good thing is I can see a lot of the room.'

'How do you wish to proceed?' Asked Shadow, 'This high up is not a problem for us. We can be out and down onto the floor in seconds.'

'Hang on.' Shawn said, reachinginto one of his small side pouches. He brought out a small pair of binoculars and started looking around.

A low disapproving hiss came from the Xeno with the yellow blisters on his crested head, a "Spitter," as some of Mason's team had called him and the other four like him. Primarily due to the fact that they could spit, or more accurately, spray a vast amount of acid over a long distance at a target, literally dousing the intended target. 'We are wasting time; we should go in there and deal with whatever humans there are and be done with it.'

Shawn turned his head to look at the Spitter, 'You know, going in without a plan is a good way to get yourself killed. Personally, I would like to avoid anyone else needlessly dying if I can. Those humans that are in there, they're not warriors, soldiers, guards or whatever else, their workers, plain and simple, there's no reason to go in and slaughter the lot of them if we don't have to.' Shawn said, turning his attention back to the room. 'Besides, I can't tell if there are any guards in there or not.' He could see a fair number of techs and mechanics, a few system operators working the primary and secondary terminals. It looked like anywhere from two to three dozen total. But no guards or androids looked to be in the area.

Right then, something caught his eye.

'Shadow, you see that guy?' Shawn asked, pointing his finger toward an average-sized man, wearing a white coat, and hardhat that looked to be carrying several datapads.

'Yes, I see him. Why?'

'He looks like the foreman of the operation, the one in charge.' Shawn told him, 'Which means it's a safe bet that he's carrying the access cards that I need to get into the reactor's computer system and prevent anyone on the outside from engaging the safeties.'

'Understood,' Shadow said, 'one of us will capture him.'

The metal mesh flexed back and forth as Shawn pressed on the grate, testing it. 'Metal looks pretty weak, shouldn't have a hard time breaking through.' Shawn said.

Shadow ran his hand along the metal grate. Indeed, it was weak, a poor design on the human's part, allowing so obvious an opening to have such a flaw.

'All we have to do is drive them out of the room, and that's all. Once that's done, and I have the cards from the supervisor, I can lock down the main door, and we can get to work.'

'I will go first. You should back up and get out of the way; one of us will come up and get you when we finish.'

'Alright.' Shawn said, scooting back about ten meters, enough room that each of the Xenos could exit with no problems.

Shadow's body tensed as he slowly backed up, almost coiling like a taunt spring waiting to release its energy. The Praetorian shot forward with a blur of motion, going through the metal mesh like an enraged bull charging through a wall of wet tissue paper. Moments later, a loud metal thud echoed out with a deafening scream. Bursting forward, the three remaining Xenos flew out of the vent, their black forms sailing through the air for a few seconds before landing on the metal deck with a hard impact.

Screams of shock, surprise, and raw terror filtered into the duct as Shawn scooted forward to get a better view. As soon as he peeked out, he saw the four Xenos herding the reactor crew toward the main door. Most of the staff were damn near stumbling over themselves or each other to get out of the room.

The movements of the four Xenos were to that of a well-maintained machine. Coordinated and precise, Shadow and the Spitter took to the outside area of the room while the two warriors kept to the center area, the four almost forming a funnel to drive and heard the reactor personnel out. A few still lingered on the upper catwalks, gawking in horror at what was happening below. The female warrior broke away, vaulting up, bounding from one pipe to another. She landed on the catwalk only a few meters away from the humans. With an ear-piercing scream, she slowly sauntered toward the reactor crew, sending them running full speed toward a metal stairwell a few dozen meters away.

The female warrior looked around to see if any more humans were on the catwalks or platforms. Most, if not all, looked to have left. A piercing scream followed by begging floated up from the level below. Looking down, she saw the male warrior dragging the human foreman. The human kicked and screamed, trying to do anything he could to break free from her brother's tight grip. But as expected, it was a futile attempt.

Annoyed by the human's pointless screaming and kicking, the male warrior let go, reared around, and dropped to all fours. Shoving his face into the humans' own, less than an inch away, his lips peeled back in a vicious snarl. It was a warning for the human to be silent.

The man's face paled, and his entire body froze up in raw terror. A large wet spot quickly formed between his legs. Letting out a hiss of disgust, the warrior grabbed the terrified human by his hands and continued to drag him.

A few of the reactor crew members paused at the door helplessly looking at their boss, knowing that there was nothing they could do, and even if help arrived soon, it would be too late to do anything to save him. One of them slammed his fist into the emergency close button that sent the heavy pressure door slamming down, sealing the four Xenos and the supervisor inside the reactor room.

Perfect. Shawn thought to himself. With the reactor crew driven out in swift order and with no injuries, even sealing the door behind as they left, they could get to work. The female warrior shoved her head into the opening, causing him to jerk back in surprise, interrupting his private musings.

"A little warning next time, jeez," As much as Shawn was around his Xenos, it never failed to surprise him just how stealthy their race could be when they chose to, which seemed to be most of the time.

'Be more observant next time,' she said, as a repetitive hiss erupted from her with a playful hint of amusement carrying over the link. 'Climb onto my back. I will take you down.'

Shawn adjusted his weapons and the two bags into something slightly more manageable to carry. Slowly, he pulled himself through the vent opening. The warrior hung to the wall just to the side of the opening, looking like a giant, monstrous, black spider in wait for its prey. Reaching out, Shawn grabbed onto one of her lower dorsal tubes and pulled himself out of the air-duct. For just a second, the feeling of being in freefall assaulted his senses, but only for a second. A moment later, his free hand gripped the other lower dorsal tube, and with a bit of finagling, he hoisted himself up. Grabbing onto the warrior's upper dorsal tubes, Shawn wrapped his legs around her mid-rift, taking care not to impale his face on the protruding blade and spine-like appendage jutting out from just above and center of her shoulder blades. "Ready." He said.

The warrior slid down the wall in a slow descent, her claws digging into the metal, leaving deep gashes in the wall. A few short seconds later, the two were on the floor, with the warrior kneeling down to let Shawn off.

A pitiful whimpering came from the foreman several dozen meters away. The man having already pissed himself looked ready to pass out. Slowly he rocked back and forth; his eyes closed, and his arms pressed tightly into his chest, quietly muttering that this wasn't real and it wasn't happening again. It didn't help that Shadow and the two other Xenos were hovering over the man. The poor guy must have thought the three were going to rip him apart or impregnate him with a face hugger.

"Okay, that's just sad," Shawn said as he and the female warrior walked toward the small group. 'Come on, back up, and give the guy some space. He looks like he's about to have a heart attack.' Shawn wondered if that was how he looked when he first met Shadow. While he had been wide-eyed in stark terror, and he was sure his face went pale white with his skin going clammy. The only thing he hadn't done, somehow, unlike the supervisor, was not piss his pants and go catatonic. Even today, he still wondered how he kept his composure during that first meeting. After all, the Praetorian had been an inch or two away from his face. And when those lips peeled back and the Xeno's toothed tongue came rolling out, Shawn seriously thought he was about to die. Given all the outcomes that the universe offered, he still wondered how he had ended up in this one.

Even as Shawn kneeled a few feet away from the man, the guy never acknowledged his presence, only continuing to rock back and forth. "Hey, hey," Shawn said in a firm tone, snapping his fingers several times. The man only continued to shake his head and whimper. "Crap," Shawn muttered, "This guy has lost it." Leaning in closer, he waved his hand in front of the man's face and snapped his fingers a few more times. "Can you hear me?"

The sound of snapping fingers and a human's voice seemed to bring the guy around to his senses. He slowly turned his head, his eyes still darting back and forth to the Xenomorphs. "No, no, no, no," he whined, tears running down his face.

"Are you there?" Shawn asked, wondering if this guy had really lost it. While he had seen many reactions to the Xenos, most of them had been a stout case of fear and panic. This, however, was the first time that he had ever seen anyone shut down like this. It was almost as if some past trauma was resurfacing.

The supervisor's eyes flickered back and forth, this time between Shawn and the Xenos, obviously not sure if what he was seeing was real or not.

"They're not going to harm you. Just focus on me and don't worry about them. Okay." Shawn said, hoping to coax the man back to reality.

The man looked right at Shawn, sweat trickling down his brow, his face still ghostly white, his chest heaving up and down as he drew in deep breaths, hot tears still trickling down his face. "What?" He asked meekly. Slowly his eyes seemed to become more focused as he realized he was talking to an actual person and not an alien horror. "Who, who are you?" The foreman sputtered out weakly, his mind trying to grasp what he was seeing.

"Like I said, we're not here to harm you, but I need something you have," Shawn said, his voice calm and even-toned. He had lost count of the number of times he tried to consult or comfort one of his fellow miners or techs after a disaster at Darrius station or the mines around Luna city. He always felt clumsy and awkward trying to comfort someone, never knowing what to say or how. Others trained in that skill always made it seem so damn easy. He found that talking to someone in a soft and nonthreatening tone seemed to help anchor them. Here, he wasn't sure if it would help or not.

The man's posture seemed to relax, but only slightly. "What?" He asked in a whisper.

"What's your name?" Shawn asked, trying to put the man at ease, or at least as much as he could, while having four large Xenomorph standing just a few meters away. Their sightless gaze locked on the two of them.

"My name?" He asked, as he started to come back to reality at the question, his fingers clawing into his arms.

"Yeah," Shawn said, "What's your name?" While it would have been easy enough to grab the man's lanyard that dangled around his neck and look at it to find out. Shawn found it was less harmful to ease someone down from something traumatic and help ground them. More often than not, it helped if that person gave their name freely.

He paused for a few moments, blinking several times, almost as if he were trying to recall something he forgot a long time ago. "Jason," he said.

"Okay, Jason, here's the deal, none of us are looking to hurt you. As soon as we get what we need, you can leave. In fact, it might be best to get off this station as soon as you can." Shawn said, the foreman only giving tentative nods of understanding. "I get that you're not used to this; believe me, I get it, so I don't blame you for being scared shitless." Another slight nod came from Jason. "But I need your access cards and codes to the reactor's system," Shawn said.

Jason blinked several times, his eyes fixated first on Shawn, then going to the Xenos. "Why aren't they attacking?" He asked. His mind coming out of its blanket of shock and filtering back to reality. "They always attack."

"It's a long story," Shawn said, wondering what Jason had met by that statement. Maybe he had encountered Xenos in the past? That might explain why he almost shut down like he had.

"My card and codes?" Shawn's request finally seemed to filter into Jason's mind. "Why do you need my cards and codes?" He asked, his voice far less distant and more cohesive, as if he had finally come around.

"Best not to ask," Shawn said somberly, as he had no intention to explain his plan to the reactor room's supervisor.

Long seconds passed by as Jason seemed to contemplate the situation he was in. "I don't have a choice, do I?" He asked with a resigned voice as he looked around, the four Xenomorphs staring at him. While not hovering right over him, the aliens were only a few meters away, still far closer than he liked.

"I would prefer not to make a difficult choice right now. But if it comes down to it, I will." Shawn said in a low voice, hoping that Jason wouldn't make a horrible decision out of some vaulted sense of duty to this organization.

"Fine," Jason said, reaching into his coat and pulling out a small metal cardholder, not looking Shawn in the eye. "Here," he said, his hand trembling so hard that he was close to losing his grip on the card. "I don't want to die; I know what these creatures can do. The code is Seven-Delta-Alpha-Five-Nine-Romeo. Confirmation is Trinidad."

"Thank you," Shawn told him, getting up, "once I'm in, we'll let you go." Jason only nodded, his eyes focused on the floor. Shawn noticed tears still rolling down Jason's face as he headed toward the reactor's primary terminal. There wasn't any doubt that it was from the stress and trauma of suddenly facing one's own mortality so unprepared. One second this man was minding his own business, performing his duties, and the next, almost nine feet of black, chitinous terror was upon him, dragging him away. For all he had known at that moment, he was to be a meal or a host. Luckily for Jason, it was neither. Though what he has said earlier about the Xenos always attacking still stuck in Shawn's mind, or rather it had been the way he had said it, as if he knew first hand.

With a quick swipe of the card and code input and confirmation, Shawn found himself able to access the terminal. After a minute or two of shuffling through the interface, Shawn found what he was looking for. The primary safety and override controls. Once the Xenos finished setting the charges, he would shut down the cooling systems' safety features and disengage the override. When the five of them made their way out of the room and far enough away, he would detonate the thermite. After that, it was just a matter of time before the whole thing went into meltdown.

At least in theory.

Satisfied with how things looked, Shawn walked back over to where Jason was sitting at. "Alright, you're free to go." He told Jason.

Slowly, Jason looked up at Shawn. "You're not going to kill me?" He asked, with a faint glimmer of hope in his voice. Apparently, he had been waiting for the inevitable death blow from one of the Xenos.

"No, that was never the plan." Shawn said, "None of us ever had any intention of killing you. Is that what you thought was going to happen, that as soon as we got what we needed, we were going to kill you?"

"Yes," Jason quietly nodded.

"I get it," Shawn told him, "we come blowing in here like we did and take you hostage. If I were in your place, I would think the same thing. But like I said, we're not here to harm or kill you, and as of right now, you can go."

Not saying a word, Jason slowly stood up. He nervously glanced back and forth between the aliens.

"I'll walk you out and seal the door after you leave," Shawn said, gesturing to the exit. There was something that Jason had said earlier that had him curious, and he wanted to ask him about it. Preferably away from the Xenos as not to have the guy shut down again.

"May I ask you something?" Shawn inquired carefully as the two approached the door.

Jason only glanced over at Shawn for a moment before turning his gaze back to the exit. "What?" He replied coolly.

"Back there, you said you know what they do and that they always attack. You've encountered the Xenomorphs before, and not just on this station, haven't you?" Shawn asked in almost a whisper as the two reached the pressure door. It may have been a baseless guess, but his instincts were screaming at him that this Jason had encountered the Xenos before, and not in a good way.

Jason looked back to where the four Xenomorphs were standing at, before he nodded. "Yes." He mumbled.

"May I ask you what happened?"

There was another long and uncomfortable pause before Jason directly looked at the warrior who had grabbed and dragged him. "Years ago, I lived on a small colony in the outer rim territories." He looked back at Shawn. "One of our outer system patrol crafts found a derelict freighter drifting just outside of the system," he said, his voice now distant, as if he saw the event take place again. "At least they thought it was a derelict at first. The boarding party found the ship damaged and adrift but functional and still had power. It also had fifteen survivors in cold sleep. We thought that the ship might have made a last-ditch effort to make it to a safe port, our colony. No one found anything out of the ordinary on the ship. Most of it was standard cargo, food, medical supplies, building materials, heavy construction equipment, a few cases of light grade weapons and ammo, and other odds and ends, but nothing out of the ordinary."

Jason drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out, his body almost shaking as he did. "We were running low on parts and materials for what few ships we had, and colonial administration wasn't doing anything to help us. So, our colony elected officials decided that if we could claim salvage rights to the ship, we would strip it for parts and fuel. I remember the fifteen passengers being taken to our medical facilities. We didn't even have a functioning bio-scanner; if we did, we would have never brought them out of cold sleep." Jason said, as a horrified and pained look came across his face.

"But we did, and god help us for it." Wiping a tear away, he took in another deep breath. "It must have only been a few hours at most after bringing them out of cold sleep, but even I heard the screams. At first, it was of people dying in agony; but as those ended, something else took their place. It was this high pitch sharp scream that cut right into your soul."

"How old were you?" Shawn asked.

"I was fifteen, maybe sixteen." Jason answered, "What I remember most was how quickly everything happened after that. I made the mistake of sneaking into the medical building to look and see what had happened, and I wish I hadn't. It looked like something had exploded right out of their chests; some of them still had their eyes open, that look of pain and terror frozen on their faces, all these years later, and I still remember it so clearly. All I kept thinking of is what could have done that. And then we found out."

"A couple of days later, both people and livestock started to disappear. Sometimes we would find the remains of someone, either with a hole in their head or ripped apart. We barely had any weapons, mostly sidearms, or hunting rifles. A few of the colonists had some old military-grade assault rifles and shotguns, which was about the best that anyone could come up with. Even the weapons we found on the freighter didn't help." Jason said, trying to regain his focus. "Then about three, maybe four days later, they came for us. I don't know how many exactly, dozens at least. But I remember the big one, a massive black creature, at least twenty feet tall, with four arms and a huge crested head. Its scream was deafening. They came walking into the middle of the colony, the smaller ones surrounding the big one. Then, with a scream, they all spread out and started to grab whoever they could find and drag away. By the end of the night, most of our colony was gone, either dragged off or killed for trying to fight back. Some tried to run and hide in the forest, but they either didn't make it or were found and taken. My family and I locked ourselves into a basement and blockaded the entryway. I remember hearing them pacing above us for hours, just walking back and forth, hissing and screaming. We did everything we could not to move or make a noise; all we could do was wait for them to leave. For me, that was the worst part, the waiting." Jason said, his voice and gaze still far away.

"I think we must have hidden in the basement for a couple of days before we had to come out for food and water. We got lucky and came out mid-morning when none of them were there. About thirty had managed to survive by hiding and were in the process of evacuating by land vehicles. Found out that the aliens had wrecked the ships and killed anyone who tried to take off. It's like the fuckers knew or something. We gathered what we could, food, water, weapons, and equipment, and left around noon. Over a dozen vehicles, and we were going as fast and as far away as we could. A few of the techs were able to keep tabs on the colony remotely by tapping into the camera feeds. Every night the aliens would swarm the colony looking for us; even though no one was left, but for some reason, they kept coming back. There were over six hundred of us at first, and there wasn't anything we could do to stop them. Even after a month, the aliens were still coming to the colony, swarming it, looking through the buildings. And a month after that, things got weird. We saw these sleek black ships cut through the sky and head for the colony, corvette or frigate class from the size, I think, no markings that we could see, but definitely human in design. We thought it was a rescue force that colonial administration had sent; maybe someone had managed to send a distress call. As it turns out, no one did."

"We couldn't clearly see what was happening with the ships, even with the camera feeds still going, but the ships didn't land, at least not at first. Then, thirty minutes later, one did. It was large, different from the others, maybe a heavy freighter or transport of some kind. It landed right at the edge of the colony and opened up these massive doors on the ship's front. I remember seeing a couple of what looked like either large armored synthetics or armored combat suits exit. At first, I didn't understand what they were doing. They just stood there, then some kind of smoke or mist started coming out of their backs. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, they came. It was like this black swarm that was moving as a single force right toward the ship."

"Then the suits backed up, and the aliens just followed them. They didn't run, didn't pounce, and never once attacked. They just walked up the ramp, following the two. I don't know how many went inside, maybe four, five hundred at least. We realized they weren't there to kill the aliens. They were there to capture them. I guess they got what they needed because the ramp closed, and the ships took off. And five minutes later, several mushroom clouds erupted where the colony was, and that was it." Jason said. "My home was dust, and almost everyone I knew was dead."

"Christ, I'm sorry," Shawn said, "I really am. How did you get rescued?"

"A merchant ship that would stop by two, maybe three times a year, arrived a few weeks later. We managed to get a short-range transmitter tinkered together with parts from the vehicles and equipment we had. Within an hour, we were off that planet."

"Some of us tried to piece together what happened. But the only logical conclusion we came to was that our colony was used for some kind of experiment. By whom we don't know. Accusations went wild, ranging from the government itself to alien sympathizers. Almost all the survivors filed grievances and reports on what happened and expected some kind of response. Only a few of us didn't. Not surprisingly, in less than a year, everyone who had filed a report of any kind or went public with what happened disappeared. Those few of us that were left changed our identities and went into hiding." Jason said.

Jason glanced back over to the four Xenos, who had not moved but were looking in their direction. "How do you do it? Control them?" He asked.

"I don't. They've never been under my control or anyone else's. They've always acted on their own." Shawn answered. Jason's eyes widened with fear at the reply. "I think that Mason inadvertently did something to them, made them smarter, or maybe changed the way they think and process information. Honestly, I'm not really sure. We found some Xenomorphs on one of the supply depots close by in cryo sleep from an old hive. When we woke them up, one of them tried to kill me. If it wasn't for Shadow protecting me and pinning the drone to the floor, I would have wound up with a fist-sized hole through my head." Shawn said, nodding over to the Praetorian.

"Then you are far more fortunate than we were," Jason replied.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to go through this; I don't know if that really means anything, but I am sorry," Shawn told him as he pressed the release button, the large metal door opening up with a powerful mechanical hum. "Do yourself a favor and get yourself and anyone you give a damn about as far away from this station as possible."

Jason said nothing for a few moments and then locked eyes with Shawn. "And where the hell am I supposed to go?" He asked.

"Anywhere but here," Shawn said, ushering Jason out. "Just get as far away from here as you can." With that, he hit the large red push button off to the right side of the door, sending it down with a loud metallic hiss. For a few moments, he stared at the massive pressure door that stood in front of him, his mind running rampant with this new bit of info.

Jason's colony had been wiped out by the Xenomorphs. Possibly from a hive that was running on pure instinct or had never seen humans and viewed them as a resource and nothing else. Yet, according to Jason, they had been smart enough to damage the ships and kill those trying to use them to escape. Not exactly the actions of creatures that were running on instinct alone. No, that act showed intelligence, even possible motivation.

Then it clicked in Shawn's mind, or at least a possibility. The drone from the supply depot had tried to kill him to protect her hive mates. Believing he was a thrall for the creators, an agent as it were, and that he was attempting to corrupt the other Xenos. Maybe those Xenomorphs saw the human colonists in the same way the drone had seen Shawn. Thralls made to serve the creators and, by extension, an enemy to the hive. Not that it mattered either way; the colonists were now long dead, killed outright, or used as hosts.

There were also the black ships that Jason claimed to have seen, and the willingness for most of the Xenos to board it. Ships used to capture Xenomorphs, possibly hundreds of them. That one he couldn't figure out. A queen had been there, so why would most of the hive abandon her and board so freely. As a rule, the hive would answer to its queen and to her alone. Smoke or mist, Jason had told him, coming out of the back of suits. Maybe a lure, something that compelled them to follow. Was that even possible? Shawn had seen enough of the hive-memories to know that a queen's control over the hive was absolute, and that any hive member could live or die by a single command.

But to be able to break that control, to him that sounded like a weapon. And a weapon like that in the hands of someone both competent and ambitious would be devastating. A legion of Xenomorphs under someone's control was a terrifying thought. In Shawn's mind, there was already the obvious list of suspects. Was it this organization? Mason was primarily tasked with working on the eggs, modifying the facehuggers, not the actual adult Xenomorphs, so if not him, then maybe someone else in the organization. And if not, then maybe Weyland-Yutani, they were always on the lookout for something they would lord over the general populous and give them an edge for controlling everyone. Much the same could be said for colonial administration and whatever shadow organizations were funded by them.

Finally, there were the colony survivors; those who spoke out disappearing shortly after, no doubt dead. If it was all true, Jason's life after that must have been a living hell for a long time afterward. And for all he knew, still was. Nightmares and inner demons never truly left, they just got shoved down and sometimes forgotten about, but they were never truly gone. Always waiting in the back of the mind to burst out and remind you why they were there. In hindsight, it didn't help that Jason's demons had been of real flesh, blood, claws, and fangs.

Shawn's entire body slumped as guilt and unease washed over him. His encounter with the Xenomorphs had been the polar opposite of Jason's encounter, nothing but pleasant and beneficial. He had been greeted with almost open and welcoming arms, becoming a part of their collective and hive. So why had he been the one to luck out and not Jason and his colony? Why had so many died so needlessly in such a horrific manner?

The whole damn situation seemed wholly unfair. But then again, when had the universe ever been fair? It wasn't and never would be. You worked with what you were given and hoped for the best.

"Shit," Shawn muttered to himself, taking out his plasma cutter and igniting the torch. Slowly he ran the cutter down the seams of the door, welding it shut. Now there was only one way out.

'Are you alright?' Shadow asked, 'You are uneasy. I can feel remorse coming from you. I assume it was something the human said to you?'

'I'm fine,' Shawn replied through the hive link, not wanting to shout across the room. 'I'll tell you about it when we get back to the ship.'

"McNeal, what's your status? Do you copy, over?" Alex's voice boomed through the comms, a slight strain to it. Shawn had to give it to the man, his timing on calling was almost impeccable.

"Inside primary, we're about to place. What about you, over?"

"We're engaged with station defense squads, pinned down, but holding."

"Understood, we'll hurry."

"Please do," Alex said, cutting the comms off.

"Got a comms burst from Alex. He's engaged the station defenses. We need to hurry and get these charges placed." Shawn said, bolting back over to the four Xenos and opening up the large duffle bag. "I'm starting to think there won't be enough; this whole setup is a lot bigger than I first thought.

"Tell us what you need doing, and we will do it," Shadow said.

Quickly removing the thermite bricks from the bag, Shawn laid them out in several neat rows. Grabbing the charging caps, he carefully placed one in the center of each brick and flipped a small switch on the cap. A tiny but bright green light lit up, indicating that the cap was now primed and ready.

"Shadow, you remember the layout for where we need these placed?" Shawn asked, doubt now setting in. He honestly didn't know if there would be enough charges. Looking over schematics, even holographic ones, rarely gave an accurate idea of just how large a structure or ship would be. The size ratio always seemed deceptive when viewing the prints compared to the finished work. In this case, it seemed to be almost a dozen times larger than what he had in mind.

'Yes,' Shadow replied, 'it will be enough, you went over this countless times; it will work.' The Praetorian said, trying to alleviate Shawn's fears. 'We can weaken the metal at other areas with our acid if you believe it will help.'

Shawn thought about that for a moment. Yes, not enough acid to melt all the way through, but just enough to weaken the joints. "Good idea. If you weaken the joint areas close to where the charges are, that might work. It doesn't need to be enough to melt a hole in the metal, just enough to help weaken it and cause some extra damage when the thermite goes off."

'What is thermite?' The Spitter Xeno asked, hunkering down, gently poking the bricks with the tip of his claw.

"Simply put, it's a substance that will get hot enough to melt right through most metal and almost all known materials when activated. These bricks will burn for about twenty to thirty seconds, but it'll be more than enough to burn through those pipes."

'And this will help us how?' The Spitter asked.

"Most of these pipes carry coolant under very high pressure, which helps keep the reactor core stable and from overheating. If the coolant supply gets cut off, the core will overheat and will go into meltdown, releasing a ton of radiation, which will force the humans to abandon this station." Shawn said, "No more station, no more experiments."

The female Xeno picked up a pair of the bricks and looked over them, 'How do we attach them to the pipes?'

"The bottom of the charge has an adhesive that reacts to metal and most plastics, but not skin," Shawn said, grabbing a brick and flipping it over, touching the bottom to show the warrior. "Just place it on the metal and give it a gentle press, and it'll stick without any problem."

'Grab what you can carry and remember to only put enough acid around the joint areas close by to weaken them.' Shadow said, picking up a few more of the bricks.

"I'm not sure what effect coolant will have on your race, as tough as you all are, probably nothing, but for us humans, that stuff is lethal. If we're exposed to it, it'll liquefy us. And while a little won't kill us immediately, if we breathe any of it in, that'll be it." Shawn said.

'We will be careful.' The male warrior said, grabbing several of the bricks.

The Spitter looked right at Shawn as he picked up several of the bricks. 'And what will happen once this thermite burns through these pipes?' He asked.

"In theory, with the pressure that pipes like these normally have running through them, I imagine they will rupture wide open, filling this room up with coolant gas. Some pipes might even collapse, causing collateral damage."

The Spitter continued to observe Shawn for a few moments, then tilting his head slightly to the left, then to the right. 'You do not fully know what will happen, correct?' He stated more than asked.

"No, not entirely," Shawn said, closing his eyes, a slight headache forming at the center part of his head. "I'm going mostly on guesswork with this system. But with my experience of older but similar equipment and basic physics, I can tell you this; if you have something under very high pressure and introduce a sudden breach, you usually end up with a violent reaction of some kind. At the very least, the coolant will spill out, but I'm guessing that we'll have something more chaotic happen." Shawn told the Spitter.

'Let us go, brother,' the male warrior said, as he scampered up one of the pipes and headed toward a spot Shadow had shown him through the link.

The Spitter observed Shawn for several moments, then giving a slight nod. With a few of the bricks in hand, he quickly made his way up the pipes; toward the intended targets.

After pocketing the detonator from the bag, Shawn returned to the console. He didn't need to look up to see the four black forms making their way along the pipes. In the back of his mind, he could feel what they were doing. Shadow guiding his hive mates to the targeted spots, placing the charges and weakening the surrounding joints with small amounts of acid, then returning to grab more charges and repeat the process at different areas. What would have taken him and Shadow almost an hour to do themselves, the four Xenos completed in less than fifteen minutes.

Quickly, Shawn worked through the reactor terminal's commands, overriding the safeties and shutting them down. He was sure they would have emergency backups that would kick in due to a catastrophic failure, but what those were, he didn't know. For all he knew, it could be something like jettisoning the reactor core itself and switching over to small auxiliary reactors to keep things going for a while. Whatever it was, it wouldn't matter.

"I'm almost done," Shawn said, not even looking up at the four Xenos that now surrounded him. "Just a few more things," he muttered, resetting the foreman's code and inputting a random and overly complicated code of his own. Restarting the terminal, he backed up as the monitors went blank and a second later came back requesting a name and password. "Overrides offline, coolant and core safeties disengaged, and with the passcode reset, it'll take them a while to undo it all, provided they have time." Backing away a few meters, he brought his pulse rifle up; with a loud burst, the rifle roared, spraying dozens of deadly rounds into the terminal, sending it up in a shower of sparks and fire. "Let's go."

Shadow kneeled to allow Shawn onto his back. The five were back into the large air duct in seconds, putting as much distance from the reactor room as they could.

"We should be far enough away," Shawn said, stopping, reaching into his pocket, pulling out the detonator. Once he armed and pressed the button, that would be it. A few months ago, he would never have even dreamed he was doing something like this, but now he was neck-deep in something he still didn't understand and, for all he knew, never would. But for now, none of that mattered. All that mattered was putting an end to this place, getting out and as far away as they could.

With a flick of his thumb, Shawn popped off the safety cover and extended the small antenna. Pushing down on the small yellow button, a green light lit up, indicating the detonator was primed. His index finger rested on the trigger. All it would take was a couple of ounces of pressure. Closing his eyes, he pictured the reactor room, the pipes, and the placement of the thermite charges.

'End it.' Shadow's voice glided through his mind. Needing no further prodding, Shawn pulled the trigger.

At first, there was no sound, nothing, but in Shawn's mind, he could almost see it happening. The thermite charges igniting, as bright as a sun, burning and melting all the way through the massively thick coolant pipes, then falling and burning into whatever lay below, the coolant spewing out and flooding the reactor room, filling the area with its deadly content.

For a few more long agonizing seconds, there was still nothing. Opening his eyes, Shawn looked right at Shadow, "Did it…" His question answered as the whole station violently rocked, throwing the five into the sides of the vent, Shawn having the wind knocked out of him as Shadow's body forcefully slammed right into his.

Klaxons blared off in the distance for a few seconds, then went quiet. With the onslaught of silence, thick blackness engulfed the area; the only light source now came from the small lamp mounted to Shawn's armor. Stifling moments crept by as Shawn tried to get his bearing, Shadow's stout body still pressed into his own, making it difficult to draw breath. It was only a second later the familiar sense of weightlessness gripped Shawn. At first, he thought that it might have been from having the wind knocked out of him. It was then he realized he was weightless and floating a few inches above the metal deck.

'Are you injured?' Shadow asked as he shifted his weight and pushed away.

"I'm fine, just had the wind knocked out of me, that's all," Shawn said as he tried to reorient himself to where he was upright. "Shit, gravity is out." He said, stating the obvious.

A low hiss came from one of the Xenos, which one Shawn couldn't tell. Blindfolded and sitting in a dark room, he could easily identify a hiss from Shadow, Ghost, or Alese, but not from these three new Xenos. 'Was this supposed to happen?' The male warrior asked.

Shawn shook his head. "No, it wasn't. I think something else happened when the thermite went off. Maybe a portion of the coolant ignited somehow." A list of possibilities rattled around in his head. None of them seemed likely. Doubtful it was the coolant. That stuff was non-flammable, so the possibility that it could ignite was nil. Maybe one of the thermite packs had fallen while ignited and breached the reactor. That seemed the most logical and likely, but the packs should have burned out before reaching the reactor core itself. In mid-thought, another violent jolt shook the area, sending the group tumbling weightlessly through the vent. The four Xenos quickly gripped the metal structures, securing themselves. Shawn felt something wrap around his chest and pull him in tightly. At first, he thought it was Shadow, but glancing up, he saw it was instead the male warrior.

Several seconds later, the weight of gravity gripped Shawn and the Xenos. A muffled female voice, tight with controlled tension, echoed through the hallway and into the vents. "To all personnel, this is a level one emergency, I repeat, this a level one emergency. The primary reactor has sustained a breach and is offline. Auxiliary backups are engaging. All D.C. units are to report to the main reactor room. All non-essential personnel are to report to emergency shelters immediately. I repeat, all non-essential personnel are to report to emergency shelters. All fireteams suit up for combat deployment."

"Well, that went south quickly," Shawn muttered.

'Explain?' The female warrior asked.

"I guess the thermite must have somehow burned right into the reactor core or the shielding around it. That wasn't supposed to happen."

As the male warrior released Shawn, something caught his attention. Leaning forward, his head pointing in the reactor room's direction. 'Something is moving toward us.' He said with a mix of curiosity and alarm.

Shawn panned his light down the shaft. Nothing, as far as he could tell, was there with them. "I don't see anything." He said, squinting his eyes.

'It's moving toward us, shapeless. It looks like a cloud.' Shadow said.

Immediately Shawn turned his light off. An icy chill raced down his spine as his heart pounded away in his chest. Shapeless, like a cloud, Shadow had said; he didn't need to be told what he already knew, but he hoped he would be wrong. At first, there was nothing; then, as his eyes fully adjusted to the dark, he saw it, a sickly, pale, green glow far away in the ductwork, creeping closer and getting brighter. Dense pale green waves rolled over each other as gaseous tendrils extended out in front. Outreaching wisps that appeared like gnarled and grossly overly stretched fingers glided against the metal surface, each one looking like it was reaching out to grasp a victim and drag it back into the pale green miasma. "Shit!" Shawn blurted out, "That's coolant vapor, move!"

All five hastily scrambled, moving as fast as possible through the twists, turns, and floor level dips of the air shaft. Occasionally Shawn would glance back. While they were doing what they could to keep ahead of the glowing cloud, he could tell it was closing on them. The station violently shook again, tossing the group around in the tight confines of the vent. "We need to get out of here." Shawn groaned, trying to pick himself up again as another massive shutter happened.

'Keep him back.' The Spitter ordered, opening his maw, a torrent of yellow acid sprayed out in a tight stream, melting a large hole in the duct's flooring.

'You two go first.' Shadow told the two warriors. Both dived through the hole, landing with barely a sound. 'Now you,' Shadow said, grabbing Shawn and lowering him through the hole, trying to avoid the still melting edges. As soon as Shawn was down and out of the way, the Spitter dove out, followed by Shadow.

'Which way?' The female warrior asked.

"Anywhere but here," Shawn told her. "We need to get away from that hole; if anyone breathes that shit in, their lungs will liquefy." The five had barely made it a few meters away when the sick green gas spewed out of the vent hole and quickly spread out. "Fuck, go, move it!" Shawn yelled, running as fast as he could down the hallway, the four Xenos following his lead. For a fleeting moment, it felt like he was back on Darrius station again, trying to survive some kind of disaster or catastrophic event.

"Emergency, emergency, a coolant leak has been detected, this sector will be sealed off. All personnel will evacuate the area immediately. I repeat, a coolant leak has been detected; all personnel will evacuate the area immediately." A computerized voice announced through the P.A. system.

Another rumble shook the hallway, followed by a jarring lurch that sent the small group tumbling to the wall and floor.

"Sealing off area." The computer voice piped through the speakers. A deep mechanical hum started up. Dozens of meters away, a pressure door began its descent to seal the area and trapping anyone within to meet a horrific fate.

Shadow bolted toward the closing pressure door, the Praetorian nearly galloping on all fours. 'NO!' He screamed, reaching the entryway in a few seconds. Nearly colliding with the half-closed door, the Praetorian wedged himself underneath, trying to prevent the door from sealing them in. The door groaned in protest as it continued to inch further down. Straining with all his might to push the door back up, the hard, metal sill cut into Shadow's chitinous, black flesh. Acidic, yellow blood slowly trickled down his shoulder and back, dripping onto the floor, sending up whiffs of smoke from newly formed holes.

Shadow's legs quaked and buckled as the door continued to push down, trying to close. 'Hurry, I can't hold it!' He screeched as the metal tore and buried itself into his shoulder and back.

All three Xenos bolted at a full sprint, with Shawn trying to keep up; every second, he fell further and further behind. In just a few quick seconds, the two warriors and the Spitter flew past the threshold underneath the pressure door. Sliding to a halt, snapping around, and bolting toward the door, the Spitter grabbed the bottom of the door and strained to help keep it up. 'Hurry, human!' He roared.

At the moment, what would have been a relatively short distance seemed like a vast expanse as Shawn pushed himself to go faster to reach the door. He saw the acidic blood flow down Shadow's back and arm. The smoking holes growing bigger by the second as the blood continued to flow. The Spitter straining to help Shadow keep the door from closing for just a few seconds longer. His left shoulder and upper back ached to what felt like a massive cold force pushing down on it, trying to crush bone and rip flesh. In the back of his mind, he could see it playing out over and over, a dozen times in a dozen different ways. Shadow's legs giving out, his heavy bulk collapsing to the floor, the pressure door coming down, and crushing the life out of him; his final death scream ripping through Shawn's mind; then there would be nothing. Ignoring the visions in his mind's eye, pushing ahead, all he needed was a few more seconds.

Only a few more meters away, Shawn leaned forward and dove as he reached the door. Crashing down, he rolled over several times, coming to a stop. Shadow's pained voice echoed through his mind, 'Let go,' The Praetorian ordered. Looking up, Shawn saw Shadow tear away from the pressure door and stumble back; as the Spitter released his grip, the door sealed shut. The last thing Shawn saw on the other side before the door closed was the sick green mist billowing toward them.

"Shadow!" Shawn yelled, scampering to get back up. He was about to see how badly Shadow's injuries were when the Praetorian held up his hand, stopping him. A thin stream of yellow blood continued to run down his back and chest. However, he could already see the blood flow start to lessen. "How bad is it?" He asked, still feeling a hard ache in his left shoulder and upper back. Thankfully, the crushing weight, now gone, only left a sharp ache in his shoulder and back.

'I'm fine, nothing is broken,' Shadow told him, 'the injury will heal soon.'

'Even sooner once we tend to your wound.' The female warrior said as she and the other warrior came up to Shadow and applied an enormous amount of life jelly to his wound, thoroughly coating it. Shadow let out a hiss of relief as the pain eased up, and the blood stopped flowing.

Shawn reached up to rub his left shoulder; he immediately felt a sense of cooling relief flow through the area. He continued to watch as the two warriors finish applying and spreading out the life jelly over the wound. Walking up to Shadow, he placed his hand on the Praetorian's dome. A wave of sudden relief passed between the two. Another close call, it was now too many to count; he wondered how many more close calls they were going to have before their luck ran out.

The station violently shook again with even greater force than before, tossing the five against the bulkhead as though they were nothing more than rag dolls. Blackness masked the area, followed by a few seconds of weightlessness before the lights flickered back on and the artificial gravity retook hold.

A high-pitched Klaxon blared through the ceiling speakers, lowering in volume for a few seconds, then increasing. The sound carried on for about fifteen more seconds before a tense man's voice came over the speaker system. "This is Commander Snyder to all station personnel, evacuate the station immediately; I repeat, evacuate the station immediately. This is a priority one alert. The primary core has ruptured, pods two and three have suffered catastrophic containment breaches, all combat personnel are to seal off infected areas and assist in evacuation procedures, rendezvous site is supply depot alpha."

"Fuck this, it's time to go," Shawn said, getting up. "Alex, do you read me? Come in." The headset stayed silent for a few moments before Shawn spoke up again. "Alex, come in, Ryan, are you there?" The comms remained silent; not even background static came through. 'Ghost, Alese, Tank, I can't get through to Alex or Ryan, I think the comms are out or blocked.'

Tank's voice shot back through the link, stressed and borderline with rage. 'We're in a battle, can't talk.' He said, cutting off the connection.

'I wonder who they are fighting.' The Spitter asked.

"My guess is they're either fighting the station forces or something else. If the other pods have breached, that means whatever was inside those pods is out and possibly on the hub now."

'Do you know where we are at?' Shadow asked, padding up next to Shawn.

"I have no idea," Shawn said, looking at his data-pad, quickly bringing up the station's layout. "We went down several levels, but I'm not sure how far off course we are." In a few moments, the data-pad adjusted, showing their location. "It looks like we're not that far off the original planned path, a couple of levels down and a few sections over." He said, zooming out and following the layout of the hallway. "So, according to this, there's an elevator at the end of the hallway. If we take it all the way down, it'll get us close to docking bay two. We'll still need to make our way down a few more levels before getting to the docking bay, and on top of that, I don't know where Alex and the others are at."

'What about the Saratoga? Can you still get it to the bay?' Shadow asked.

"I think so," Shawn said, flipping through a few screens on the pad; while the signal strength was low, it was still strong enough to get a signal out to summon the massive ship. "But the signal is fairly weak." Reaching into the duffle bag, he fished around for a few seconds before pulling out one of the signal amplifiers. Activating it, he handed it to Shadow. "Can you put this on the ceiling?" He asked, watching the signal strength increased significantly as Shadow attached the amplifier to the ceiling.

"Alex, Ryan, if you can hear me, we're proceeding onward. Contact me when you can." Shawn said, tapping off the comms and moving on.

Cautiously, the five proceeded to move down the hallway; now and then, they would spot someone who would glance at them, then bolt away. "No guards or security, and only a few people in this area," Shawn whispered, "it feels like we're walking right into a trap." Nervously, his finger touched the trigger. If something was about to jump out at them, he wanted to be as ready as possible. He just hoped that it wouldn't be some damn fool who wanted to play the hero and try to stop them.

'How far are we from this elevator?' The male warrior asked, his head panning from left to right, his senses fully alert as if he too was expecting something to jump out and attack them.

"From the pressure door, it's about a four-hundred-meter stretch." Shawn said, looking down one of the side hallways and saw for a moment what looked like a single maintenance personnel hurriedly hauling equipment out of a room. A lone soul doing a thankless job for an organization that probably didn't give a single shit about any of them. Get the hell out of here guy, going down with this place isn't worth it. Shawn thought to himself as the group silently passed by without drawing attention.

With nothing impeding their way, the five picked up their pace and made it to the elevator without any incidents. Shocked glances from afar by those who would see their group, at one point a lone technician who stumbled across their path only to turn back and run the way he came in a full-blown panic. The worse to happen was a few power hiccups and station-wide rumbles that grew worse every time.

With more force than he intended to, Shawn slammed the call button, glancing at the elevator doors, half expecting them to open right up. Only nothing did happen. He hit the button several more times when he saw that the call light did not light up; in fact, the floor display that typically would indicate what level the cab was on remained blank. "No, no, no, no, no." Shawn said, slamming his fist into the door, "fuck you!"

'What's wrong?' Shadow asked.

"I don't think the elevator is working," Shawn said, taking a deep breath to try to calm himself. He didn't like where this was going. "Maybe it's shut down, or maybe it's damaged, either way though, we aren't using it."

'What now?' The Spitter asked, 'Use the air vents again? How many levels do we need to go down?'

"Fifteen levels to the bottom of the elevator shaft and another two levels after that." Shawn told him, "I've got a really stupid idea that I don't want to do, but it'll get us there."

'Which is?' Shadow asked, having an idea of what his mate was about to suggest.

Shawn tried to force the doors open, but to no avail. It was right then he noticed how warm the doors were. A stupid idea just turned into a downright idiotic one. "Go down the elevator shaft until we get to the bottom, open the doors, and hope that Alex and the others are close by."

Without saying a word, Shadow shoved his claws into the tight space between the doors and effortlessly pried them open. A stifling blast of heat poured out of the shaft and into the hallway. While clear in appearance, the air carried a heavy and putrid smell of burnt metal, plastic, and paint.

Shawn glanced up to see how bad things were in the elevator shaft's upper area as he scooted underneath Shadow. Surprisingly, no smoke billowed overhead, and there didn't seem to be any visible signs of a fire. Despite that, however, the heat and smell told him a very different story. "This is a stupid idea, a really, really stupid idea," Shawn said, berating himself.

'Do you know of another way?' The Spitter asked.

Shawn could only shake his head, as he looked down to see if there was a fire at the bottom instead of the top, but nothing he saw gave any indication. "No, I don't." He said.

'Then the stupid way it will be.' The Spitter said with dry sarcasm in his voice.

Lovely, Shawn thought to himself, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and reaching in to grab the maintenance ladder, he half pulled, half jumped in. "We go down quick; we get to the bottom and get those doors open up as fast as we can." Letting out a breath, he started to climb down. "Christ, it's an oven in here." He gasped as the heat smothered the air, making it hard to breathe; even the ladder rungs were hot and uncomfortable to the touch.

The four Xenos poured into the shaft, each one clinging to the wall; all of them seemed unaffected by the heat. The five had gone down two levels when the Spitter spoke up, his question directed to Shawn. 'Why Shadow?'

"What?" Shawn asked, surprised by the sudden and unexpected question. Even Shadow seemed surprised. The whole time the Spitter had been more than a bit standoffish, and when he expressed himself, he seemed to be overly blunt more often than not. Not that Shawn could blame him. Hell, he was sure that a few of the Xenos he had helped free would have liked nothing better than ripping him apart just for being human. The fact that Shadow and the others vouched for him didn't seem to impress those few.

'Why did you choose to name him Shadow?' The Spitter nodded his head toward the Praetorian. 'I see and experience what he and the others choose to share through the hive link, but not what you experienced yourself. So why Shadow?'

Shawn chuckled to himself at what seemed like distant memories now. "After we got introduced, and I became more accepting with the situation we were all in, he always seemed to be right next to me or behind me without me ever knowing until I would back up into him. I think he did that on purpose." Shawn said, shooting Shadow a playful look of mock annoyance. Shadow slowly stuck his toothed tongue out at Shawn returning the display of mock annoyance. "At the beginning, it was more of a nickname that just stuck."

'And now you are here, willingly putting yourself in danger's path to help us.' The Spitter mused, 'I doubt many of your kind would have done the same.'

'Perhaps there are more than you give credit for.' The female warrior spoke up, 'Did not the human Elizabeth try to help; did not the human Ryan help us. And were both not punished for their acts.' She said, a hard edge taking to her voice.

"My race can be cruel, sometimes unnecessarily so, and arrogant and blind to want and power no matter the cost." Shawn stated flatly, "but I want to think that most of us are at heart half-decent people that just want to live a peaceful and happy life with some measure of meaning to it and would do the right thing when it comes down to it. You would probably have better results dealing with a single individual or a few of us than a large group. Unfortunately, it seems like the more of us you stick together at once, the dumber we get."

'Both of our races are guilty of committing horrific acts of cruelty and suffering to others.' Shadow said, as he continued his descent, 'Despite that, I want to believe that we have a real chance to start something new, even if it is small and far away.'

'The humans carry too much of the creators in themselves.' The Spitter retorted back, 'they would walk the same path and make the same mistakes; it will be those same desires that dooms them. I would like to think that something between our two races could be given form and life, and maybe it can, but we know it would only be temporary at best. In the end, they would destroy it, or worse, corrupt it and make it into something twisted and warped.'

As he stopped his descent and gripped tightly around the heated rungs, Shawn looked over at the Spitter. "I get where you are coming from, I really do. You experienced some of the worst that humanity has to offer. And maybe that's all you and the others have to go off of, so I don't blame you for having doubts-". A metallic grinding scream reverberated down the shaft, cutting Shawn off in mid-sentence. He winced in pain as the noise pounded spikes into his head. Looking up, the blood all but drained from his face, and despite the heat, an icy chill ran down his spine. Fire, black smoke, and metal came plummeting toward them.

"Out, now!" Shawn said, gripping the side rails and placing his feet on the outside of the ladder. Immediately he started to slide down, using his feet to slow his plunge and stop until he was level with the doors. In a black flash of movement, Shadow was in front of him, prying the doors open. In the next moment, Shadow grabbed Shawn by his waist and all but threw him into the hallway, his sleek form following right behind.

In what seemed to be almost an eternity but was nothing more than seconds, the two warriors and the Spitter leaped through the opening, landing on all fours, and bolted out of the way. A second later, a glowing red box bursting with fire screamed by leaving a trail of floating embers and sparks. Shawn thought he could see vague human forms still in the cab, wildly flailing around through the fire for a fleeting moment. Seconds later, metal collided with metal, tearing, and sheering rung from below, and a column of smoke and fire rushed up the shaft then flowed back down.

Instinctively Shawn reached over until his fingertips touched the familiar slick chitinous form, his hand tightly gripping onto Shadow's arm. His mind didn't even register the sharp, burning pain pulsating through his hands. "There were people in there," he said, as his stomach knotted up, a sick, tingling feeling overtaking his body, his grip tightening even more.

'There is nothing we could have done for them. If they are fortunate, they died quickly.' Shadow told him, knowing that there was nothing he could say to ease the discomfort that his human felt. In truth, he also found the scene disturbing. It was a horrible way for anyone to die.

"I've seen a lot of people die in some horrific ways, but burning to death like that is a shit way to go, probably one of the worst."

'Push it out of your mind for now; we have to focus on ourselves and surviving.' Shadow said after a few seconds of silence.

"Yea…," Shawn said, knowing that there wasn't any way he was going to be able to simply push the image out of his mind, as Shadow suggested. Getting up, he turned to the other three Xenos that were standing only a few meters away. "You three alright?"

'We are intact.' The Spitter replied, 'Do you always make it a habit of having such close calls?'

"We try not to, but for some reason, close calls have become the norm for us," Shawn answered as he checked his pulse rifle, then attached one of the few remaining signal amplifiers he had to the wall and activated it. "Maybe fate or whatever it is wants to keep things interesting for us."

Shadow almost scoffed at the statement, even if it was true. 'Interesting is an understatement.' He remarked.

The female warrior extended her tongue out. The inner jaw opened and closed several times, then retracted back in after a few moments. 'Do you detect that?' She asked, her attention now focused on something further down the depths of the hallway.

"All I can smell is burnet metal and plastic."

The female drone shook her massive head. 'No, it is something else, a very faint scent, not human, not hive, almost…' She cocked her head slightly, searching the hive memory for a few moments, finding it challenging to describe the subtle scent inside her tongue. 'Dry,' she said, 'with salt that has mixed with dust.'

Shadow extended his tongue out in the direction, and scent tasted the air, as did the male warrior and the Spitter. 'Yes, I can barely detect it, but something is there.'

"Be ready for anything," Shawn said, trying to ignore the burning sensation in his hands, aiming the rifle down the hallway, they proceeded on. They had only gone down seven levels, which still left ten to go. What section they were in, he didn't know. Even looking at the layout on his data-pad gave him no answers.

Lights flickered sporadically, dimming, going out, then coming back on, followed by distant rumbles that vibrated through the bulkhead. Sometimes low or no gravity spots would quickly hit the area, then fade away. Physically the hallway looked identical to most of the other hallways in the station, but a vile, almost oppressive force emanated from the area as if something sick, twisted, and loathsome now permeated within the very structure itself. The whole hallway seemed to constrict, warp, and twist in on itself, as if the area wanted to trap and hold them forever.

Tightly shutting his eyes, Shawn relied on Shadow as a momentary guide as the Xenos seemed to be unaffected by whatever was going on. Perhaps physically, nothing was happening, and it was all in his head, a twisted mind trick from something close by.

As they continued onward, the sick and oppressive force diminished significantly but continued to linger in the back of their minds. It was as if an annoying ever-present itch had formed, and no matter how much they continued to scratch at the spot, it would not go away. Opening his eyes, Shawn spotted sets of extra-wide, heavily reinforced double doors that lined both sides of the hallway. He now wondered if it was possible that being down as far as they were, they had ended up in some kind of storage area. But knowing how their luck ran, he seriously doubted it. It didn't help that none of them had seen a single soul in the area, and aside from the increased rumbling, it was far too quiet.

'The scent is getting stronger.' The Spitter said, 'I detect the scent of humans as well, two maybe three.'

"Any idea how far away?" Shawn asked, looking back at the Spitter, wishing that he knew what they were walking into this time. Even if it was only two or three humans there, they could have a contingent of combat androids ready to unleash on the small group, something that would not be in their favor this time.

'I do not know.' The Spitter said, 'Judging by how strong the scents are becoming, not far.'

"Alex, Ryan." Shawn whispered into the headset, staying quiet as not to alert anyone that could be close by. "Please tell me you are there." Silence was all he heard for a few moments before a static and broken response came back; however, he couldn't tell whether it was Alex or Ryan's voice he was hearing. "Fire… withdraw… engaging." He only made out a few of the words as he flicked his headset.

"Repeat that, I can't make out anything you said," Shawn hissed as another violent shake jostled the group around; without warning, the comms suddenly went silent. "Ryan, Alex, do you copy? Come in." There was nothing, no static, no background noise, simply nothing. "Damn it," Shawn muttered just as a loud metallic hiss resonated from both front and behind. As he turned to look, security doors slammed down, trapping the five in a small room-sized area. "Crap," Shawn gritted through clenched teeth, "guess someone caught on to us." He whispered, mostly to himself, but loud enough that the other Xenos heard him.

Shadow let out a low hiss, 'It will not matter; we'll melt these doors down just like on the supply depot.'

A loud burst of static erupted into Shawn's headset; gritting his teeth, he was about to rip the headset off when a calm but distorted voice spoke up. "You won't be able to communicate with your companions, at least not until I am satisfied with some answers. I've jammed your communication signal for the moment." The voice said.

"So for now, let us talk and discuss a few things."