The Away Team, minus one, assembled in the operations room.
"What's the story Robbins?" Asked Lewis.
"Not good sir." He replied with a shrug. "I can't raise the Thunderchild on any channel and most of the stations sensors are down so I can't even tell if she's still out there. But that isn't the worst of the news."
"Go on depress us some more." Said Clarke as she slumped into a seat.
"That blast that shook the station was the result of a high energy plasma burst hitting the stations fusion reactor."
"Then why have we still got power? Why haven't the safeties shut it down? Asked Lewis.
"They knew exactly where to hit the reactor to cause the most damage without outright destroying the station. All the safety subsystems were disabled and now the reactor is in a build up to overload."
"How long have we got?"
"Two hours and fourteen minutes before the containment field collapses."
"Is there any way off this station?" Asked Borland nervously.
"Well the station does have one Danube class runabout assigned to it, but..." Robbins left the sentence hanging.
"But what?" asked Clarke.
"Well, would you hang around a station with a psychopathic alien wandering loose?" said Robbins pointedly.
"Good question." Said Lewis thoughtfully. "Why don't we ask our friend here. Borland, can you wake him up."
"Aye sir." Borland took a hypospray from her kit and touched the neck of the recumbent engineer, there was brief hiss and McEwan's eyelids flickered open. He groaned.
"How do you feel?" She asked him.
"Like a Klingon's bin usin' ma heid as a tom-tom." He groaned. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Commander Lewis of the Starship Thunderchild." replied Lewis. "We came to investigate your distress signal."
"Ye mean there's a ship oot there?" Exclaimed McEwan eagerly. "Whit are ye waiting for, get us aff this deathtrap!"
"We can't, we've been unable to contact the ship." Said Lewis. "The station was attacked just before we lost contact, there's a good possibility that the Thunderchild was destroyed in the attack."
"Then we're dead." Said McEwan flatly.
"What happened here?" Asked Masters. "Where's the rest of the crew?"
"They're all dead son." Said McEwan with a sigh. "Dead or worse."
"Tell us what happened." Said Clarke gently.
"It was a couple of weeks ago when it all started." began McEwan. "One of the boys doing a survey of the ring picked up an automatic beacon giving out a repeated signal. When he tracked it down he found some kind of container floating in space. He beamed it into the runabout, then we lost contact. When the runabout returned to the station on autopilot, we found the boy inside with something attached to his face. Weirdest looking thing I ever saw, it looked like a big, fleshy crab with a huge long tail wrapped round the poor lads neck. Well, we hauled him off to sick bay and took a look at the container. It was nothing fancy, just a square metal box with what looked like a big leathery egg in it. Anyway, the doc tried everything to get the beastie off the lads face, but everything he tried failed. Any attempt to remove it caused it to convulse and strangle the lad, and the transporter lock couldn't distinguish between the man and the parasite. He even tried cutting it off, and the damn thing bled a corrosive substance that ate through two levels of duranium deck." McEwan paused and took a sip of water that Borland had passed him. "Later on the creature fell off and died, but it must have laid something in his chest cavity. A few hours later he went into spasm and something just burst out of his chest and disappeared into the air vents."
"Why didn't you contact Starfleet?" Asked Lewis
"Something was jamming our comm system." Explained McEwan. "At first we thought it was sunspot activity, the sun here is very active. A few days passed, then folk started disappearing. We did a sensor sweep to find them and found that they were congregating down in the stations fusion reactor. An armed party went to investigate and reported coming under attack by something before we lost contact, then it was if all hell broke loose. These.... Creatures appeared out of nowhere, snatching most of the civilian personnel and retreating back to the reactor, killing anything that got in their path" McEwan shuddered." McEwan shuddered. "Ugliest things I ever saw, great big teeth and almost insectoid appearance and they moved damn fast too. We didn't have the equipment to defend ourselves, so Commander Baker ordered all access ways to the lower levels sealed and put under Level 3 containment until help could arrive." McEwan leaned back and sighed. "A few days later we picked up an energy surge in the observation dome. It looked like a transporter trace, but it was of a type no one had ever seen before. The party sent to investigate came under attack. At first we thought that whatever was down in the lower levels had gotten out, but all the seals were still in place, and the transport beam had originated from outside the station."
"Did you see what was attacking you?" Asked Lewis.
"Nah, whatever it was it had some kind of personal cloaking device, the only warning we ever got of it was when it slaughtered someone."
Lewis looked at Clarke. "What do you think?" He asked.
"Well, we've met races that had personal cloaking technology like the Tosk on DS9 and the Jem'Hadar," she said, frowning, "but what we've seen doesn't look like any of them."
Suddenly the station jolted, an alarm began to ring stridently. Robbins rushed to a console.
"The containment field around the fusion reactors is losing integrity Commander." He reported. "Computer estimates one hour and thirty two minutes till overload."
"I think now would be a good time to leave." Commented Masters.
"McEwan what about the station runabout?" Asked Lewis. "Is it functional?"
"It was last time I checked but there's a wee problem." Said McEwan.
"Don't tell me it's...."
"Aye, it's down in the lower decks."
The team looked at the massive bulkheads that sealed the upper and lower parts of the station. There were several large bulges in the door as if something unbelievably heavy had repeatedly smashed into it.
"Tell me again what those doors are made of?" Said Borland nervously.
"Two layers of foot thick tritanium/duranium plating sandwiching two feet of molybdenum." Replied McEwan as he fiddled with the lock mechanism.
"Right." She looked at the door again. "Is it just me or does anyone else think this is a bad idea?"
"Got it... I think." McEwan grunted.
With a satisfied bleep the door slid open revealing a stygian darkness..
McEwan hefted his phaser rifle and stared into the gloom.
"Alright, move in." He ordered. "I want constant scans, if anything so much as twitches I want to know about it."
"Aye sir."
"McEwan, you know the way, you lead."
The small group moved cautiously into the darkness.
The shadow detached itself from the wall and glided silently towards the open doors. Any observer unlucky enough to be close to the phantom figure would have been hard put to make out any details. As it moved, the air around it rippled like a heat wave in the shape of a tall muscular figure. It passed a transparent, clawed hand over the partially disassembled lock. After a few moments silent contemplation, it moved after the unsuspecting party.
They had passed through three levels of darkness without incident, and the tension was beginning to wear on Lewis.
"Sir, I think there's something on the walls ahead." whispered Borland.
"What?"
"I don't know, "she replied, "I've never seen anything like this before."
The corridor ahead was completely engulfed in a strange, organic looking material, disturbing in design and hinting at a purpose totally alien to human perception. Borland ran her tricorder over the substance.
"I can't make head or tails of this." she said, studying the display with a frown. "Its part organic, part mineral, there's even fragments of human DNA in it."
"Is it dangerous?"
"I don't think so, there doesn't appear to be any toxins I can detect."
The party moved deeper into the altered passageway, trying to avoid touching the eerily organic material. As she pushed forward, her palm beacon probing the darkness, Clarke thought she saw something eerily familiar. She shined her light back to where she thought she had seen it, and froze.
"Oh man, someone tell me this is a bad dream" Moaned Robbins, clutching his rifle even more tightly.
Embedded in the wall was the form of a human female, clad in a Starfleet uniform with a gaping hole in her chest. Clarke could clearly see where her ribs had been pushed violently outwards, their splintered remains hanging from dried shreds of flesh.
"Lieutenant Adams, stations security officer." Said an ashen faced McEwan. "She stayed in the lower section to give us time to get it sealed off" He leaned forward and closed her staring vacant eyes. "She deserved better than this."
"Sir, look at this." Borland was indicating a large, leathery ovoid sitting in the corner "McEwan, is that what you found in the shuttlecraft?"
"Aye, but it was open and empty, this one is closed."
As Borland's light played over the egg shaped object something inside moved convulsively.
"Ok people, let's back away slowly, from what we've heard I don't think we want to play with.." Lewis voice cut off as the top of the egg opened. Long spindly legs appeared over the lip of the opening and something pulsed and heaved inside. With an inarticulate yell, McEwan raised his phaser and fired at the egg. The ruby beam hit the base of the egg, blowing a hole in the base, causing the whole thing to tip over backwards."
"Dammit McEwan, you could alert the whole nest that we're here!" Yelled Clarke, slapping the phaser aside and glaring at the engineer.
"Hutchings tricorder bleeped loudly.
"Commander, I think I've got something!" Said Hutchins.
"What is it?" barked Lewis
"I can't make it out clearly." He replied. "The stuff on the walls is interfering with the tricorder readings, but there's definitely a large group of discrete signals headed in our direction."
"How many signals ensign?" said Clarke.
"I can't tell, the tricorder's swamped." said Hutchins, his voice getting higher. "They're coming from all around us."
"Defensive formation!" Snapped Lewis. "Set phasers on Level ten, pulsed burst."
The group formed a loose circle facing outwards and nervously fingered their phasers. Lewis looked down the corridor ahead. Nothing moved.
"Signals: fifteen meters and closing." reported Hutchins calmly. Clarke tightened her grip on her phaser and flicked the safety on her rifle off.
"Ten meters." Still nothing. McEwan wiped the sweat from his face and shivered.
"Five meters." Black, toothy death failed to erupt down the corridor at them. Borland tried to stop her arms from trembling.
"Two..." Everyone was so transfixed staring down the corridors they failed to see the long, segmented tail slide down from the ceiling above, not until it wrapped itself around Hutchins and hauled his screaming body upwards. His screams stopped suddenly in a hail of coppery blood.
All hell broke loose.
Fanged nightmares erupted from the ceiling, floor and walls on top of the stunned party. With a horse bellow, Lewis sprayed the advancing horde with phaser fire. Under this awesome blast, several of the creatures disappeared in polychromatic splendor, but there were more to take their place. Borland snapped, turned and bolted down an apparently empty side corridor, past the devastated egg lying on its side. She hit a locked door and reeled back. Behind her something skittered across the floor. She turned in time to catch a glimpse of something with too many legs and a long, prehensile tail as it launched itself at her face. Her scream was cut off as it wrapped itself around her head. Her last sensation was of something warm and slimy forcing its way past her lips and down her throat.
Meanwhile, Ensign Masters was in trouble. He had seen Borland run and had tried to follow. He heard a hiss from above, looking up he saw the jaws of a nightmare looking down upon him. In a few moments of clarity he noted the long, banana shaped head, the eyeless dome-shaped forehead and the teeth that were moving out of the creature's mouth towards him. With a scream, he raised his phaser and in one continuous beam sliced the monsters head off. The head flew to the side and a huge gout of yellow-green liquid spouted out of the stump and onto the head and chest of ensign Masters. He barely had time to scream as the corrosive liquid quickly ate through flesh and bone before another creature plunged its spear tipped tail through his chest.
Lewis, Clarke and McEwan stood back to back, waiting for the end. Lewis had seen Robbins go down, one of the creatures had grabbed his head with both hands and a long tongue, capped with teeth, had punched effortlessly through his forehead and into the soft brain tissue beyond.
They were surrounded with no escape. And then it came, roaring down the corridor like a runaway locomotive. The same beast that had killed Johansson now fully visible. It emitted an ear shattering bellow and descended upon the surprised creatures like a howling dervish. Its movements reminded Lewis of his martial arts instructor, every move was smooth, fluid and precisely calculated. It did not waste energy and it went through the creatures like a plasma torch through runny butter. It swung its fist from which protruded two long, wicked looking blades that seemed impervious to the acid blood. Lewis stared in awe at their unlikely savior as it hacked and slashed its way through the alien horde. He felt someone grab his arm and looked into Clarke's desperate face.
"I think this is our cue to run like buggery," She said, "if you'll pardon my Klingon."
With a last look behind him, Lewis followed his security chief and the engineer down the corridor.
They stopped in storage bay two levels from their objective. Lewis sank wearily onto a cargo pallet and dropped his phaser rifle.
"What the hell is that thing?" Asked Lewis. "First it kills Johansson, then it pulls our bacon from the fire. What does it want?"
"Ah dinna ken laddie." Replied McEwan wearily. "When yon thing appeared it started pickin' us off one at a time. We were in contact with one poor bastard it was chasin' round the habitat ring. It seemed to be toyin' wi' him."
"What happened to him?" Asked Clarke.
"We found him, minus head an' spinal cord hangin' from an EPS conduit."
A thought occurred to Lewis. "Does it always mutilate its victim?" He asked.
"Aye, some it takes their heads, some their fingers and a couple the bastards skinned."
"Yes, we saw them."
"Why would it mutilate them?" Asked Clarke.
"Trophies." replied Lewis thoughtfully.
"Trophies?"
"Yes, think about it. It hunts its prey down, kills them and takes pieces of it's victims as trophies." Explained Lewis. "Hunters on Earth did it before the practice was banned in the late Twenty-First century."
"So where did the other creatures come from?"
"I think they were introduced as prey."
"How come?"
"Remember the way they attacked us? "Explained Lewis, "They're perfect prey. They can blend in perfectly with their environment, they're extremely vicious, making them more challenging and by introducing them into a closed system like this station there's no problem of them getting out of control. Any problems, just blow the station out of space. And of course the station personnel make ideal breeding material."
"So these things were put aboard my station, killed my friends, just so that that bastard could get some SPORT!" roared McEwan angrily. "When ah get ma hands on that son of a targ ah'm gonnae rip it's lungs out and beat it to death wi' them."
Back in the distance it listened to their conversation. It watched their movements carefully, walls mean little to eyes that are adapted to see into the infra-red. It began to move silently towards their location. It was time to end this phase of the hunt. As it moved it touched the controls of the device on its arm. Its form rippled and faded from view, leaving only a ghostly image. As it moved, it caught sight of itself on a panel left untouched by the organic rot. It studied the play of light around its form for a second, then turned and headed back towards the scene of its last victory.
"O.K. Let's move. "Announced Lewis. "Only another couple of levels to go."
As if to echo his words, the station computer suddenly spoke. "Warning!" It announced "Containment field failure. Core breach in twenty minutes."
"You heard the woman," Said Clarke wryly, "Let's move."
With a great degree of trepidation the trio left the storage area and re- entered the corridor. Slowly they advanced, ears straining to catch the slightest hint of danger. The passage ended in a T-Junction. Lewis carefully glanced each way and then jerked his head back suddenly, waving the others back.
"What is it commander?" Asked Clarke nervously.
"Take a look." He whispered grimly. With a shrug, she looked around the corner.
"I don't see anything." She whispered.
"Look at the foot of the turbo lift door."
"What the...." Crouched in front of the door was the strange shimmer that Lewis had noticed in the mess hall.
"What is it lass?" Asked McEwan.
"It's the hunter." She replied. "I can just about see it through the cloak."
"What'll we do now?"
"On three?" Said Lewis, hefting his phaser.
"Go for it." Replied Clarke.
"Three!" Shouted Lewis, diving round the corner and firing his phaser at the crouched figure. Clarke wasn't far behind him, followed by a surprised McEwan. The three phaser bursts struck the crouched figure and blasted it back against the turbo lift doors and then slumped bonelessly to the ground. Its form flickered and sparked as the cloak began to short circuit and then faded completely to reveal... the form of a woman in a charred Starfleet uniform with a nightmarish form wrapped around her head. Strapped to her arm was the charred remains of the alien cloaking device.
"My god." breathed Lewis in horror.
"Borland?" Whispered Clarke. McEwan moved towards the supine figure.
"Permission to come aboard?"
"NO!" yelled Lewis, a fraction of a second too late. A clawed hand reached out from the shadows and slashed across his face. McEwan screamed in pain and collapsed, clutching his ruined face. Lewis raised his phaser, but a contemptuous backhanded blow sent him stumbling backwards into Clarke. Lewis shook his head, trying to clear the ringing sound in his ears. He looked up, the Predator was walking towards him. It flexed its mighty wrist and the two blades sprang forward. It raised its fist, Lewis looked at the points of the blades shining in front of him and the ringing in his ears grew louder. Suddenly the Predator stumbled, knocked off balance as one hundred and thirty pounds of enraged Scottish engineer landed on its back. McEwan, his bloody face aglow with rage and determination, hung grimly onto its back, clutching the source of the ringing in Lewis's ears. It was a hand phaser set on overload. He stared dumbly at the scene, as the Predator bounced from bulkhead to bulkhead, vainly trying to remove the annoyance from its back. He felt a hand on his arm pulling him towards the lift shaft and heard a voice screaming at him, threatening all sorts of unpleasant things if he didn't get his backside in gear. The pair ran down the corridor towards the lift, leaving the sound of the creatures rage and the whine of an overloading phaser behind them. They reached the turbo lift doors and quickly prized them open. They gingerly stepped over Borland's corpse and descended into the gloomy shaft. Above them there was an alien scream of fury, followed by a thunderous explosion, then silence.
"What's the story Robbins?" Asked Lewis.
"Not good sir." He replied with a shrug. "I can't raise the Thunderchild on any channel and most of the stations sensors are down so I can't even tell if she's still out there. But that isn't the worst of the news."
"Go on depress us some more." Said Clarke as she slumped into a seat.
"That blast that shook the station was the result of a high energy plasma burst hitting the stations fusion reactor."
"Then why have we still got power? Why haven't the safeties shut it down? Asked Lewis.
"They knew exactly where to hit the reactor to cause the most damage without outright destroying the station. All the safety subsystems were disabled and now the reactor is in a build up to overload."
"How long have we got?"
"Two hours and fourteen minutes before the containment field collapses."
"Is there any way off this station?" Asked Borland nervously.
"Well the station does have one Danube class runabout assigned to it, but..." Robbins left the sentence hanging.
"But what?" asked Clarke.
"Well, would you hang around a station with a psychopathic alien wandering loose?" said Robbins pointedly.
"Good question." Said Lewis thoughtfully. "Why don't we ask our friend here. Borland, can you wake him up."
"Aye sir." Borland took a hypospray from her kit and touched the neck of the recumbent engineer, there was brief hiss and McEwan's eyelids flickered open. He groaned.
"How do you feel?" She asked him.
"Like a Klingon's bin usin' ma heid as a tom-tom." He groaned. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Commander Lewis of the Starship Thunderchild." replied Lewis. "We came to investigate your distress signal."
"Ye mean there's a ship oot there?" Exclaimed McEwan eagerly. "Whit are ye waiting for, get us aff this deathtrap!"
"We can't, we've been unable to contact the ship." Said Lewis. "The station was attacked just before we lost contact, there's a good possibility that the Thunderchild was destroyed in the attack."
"Then we're dead." Said McEwan flatly.
"What happened here?" Asked Masters. "Where's the rest of the crew?"
"They're all dead son." Said McEwan with a sigh. "Dead or worse."
"Tell us what happened." Said Clarke gently.
"It was a couple of weeks ago when it all started." began McEwan. "One of the boys doing a survey of the ring picked up an automatic beacon giving out a repeated signal. When he tracked it down he found some kind of container floating in space. He beamed it into the runabout, then we lost contact. When the runabout returned to the station on autopilot, we found the boy inside with something attached to his face. Weirdest looking thing I ever saw, it looked like a big, fleshy crab with a huge long tail wrapped round the poor lads neck. Well, we hauled him off to sick bay and took a look at the container. It was nothing fancy, just a square metal box with what looked like a big leathery egg in it. Anyway, the doc tried everything to get the beastie off the lads face, but everything he tried failed. Any attempt to remove it caused it to convulse and strangle the lad, and the transporter lock couldn't distinguish between the man and the parasite. He even tried cutting it off, and the damn thing bled a corrosive substance that ate through two levels of duranium deck." McEwan paused and took a sip of water that Borland had passed him. "Later on the creature fell off and died, but it must have laid something in his chest cavity. A few hours later he went into spasm and something just burst out of his chest and disappeared into the air vents."
"Why didn't you contact Starfleet?" Asked Lewis
"Something was jamming our comm system." Explained McEwan. "At first we thought it was sunspot activity, the sun here is very active. A few days passed, then folk started disappearing. We did a sensor sweep to find them and found that they were congregating down in the stations fusion reactor. An armed party went to investigate and reported coming under attack by something before we lost contact, then it was if all hell broke loose. These.... Creatures appeared out of nowhere, snatching most of the civilian personnel and retreating back to the reactor, killing anything that got in their path" McEwan shuddered." McEwan shuddered. "Ugliest things I ever saw, great big teeth and almost insectoid appearance and they moved damn fast too. We didn't have the equipment to defend ourselves, so Commander Baker ordered all access ways to the lower levels sealed and put under Level 3 containment until help could arrive." McEwan leaned back and sighed. "A few days later we picked up an energy surge in the observation dome. It looked like a transporter trace, but it was of a type no one had ever seen before. The party sent to investigate came under attack. At first we thought that whatever was down in the lower levels had gotten out, but all the seals were still in place, and the transport beam had originated from outside the station."
"Did you see what was attacking you?" Asked Lewis.
"Nah, whatever it was it had some kind of personal cloaking device, the only warning we ever got of it was when it slaughtered someone."
Lewis looked at Clarke. "What do you think?" He asked.
"Well, we've met races that had personal cloaking technology like the Tosk on DS9 and the Jem'Hadar," she said, frowning, "but what we've seen doesn't look like any of them."
Suddenly the station jolted, an alarm began to ring stridently. Robbins rushed to a console.
"The containment field around the fusion reactors is losing integrity Commander." He reported. "Computer estimates one hour and thirty two minutes till overload."
"I think now would be a good time to leave." Commented Masters.
"McEwan what about the station runabout?" Asked Lewis. "Is it functional?"
"It was last time I checked but there's a wee problem." Said McEwan.
"Don't tell me it's...."
"Aye, it's down in the lower decks."
The team looked at the massive bulkheads that sealed the upper and lower parts of the station. There were several large bulges in the door as if something unbelievably heavy had repeatedly smashed into it.
"Tell me again what those doors are made of?" Said Borland nervously.
"Two layers of foot thick tritanium/duranium plating sandwiching two feet of molybdenum." Replied McEwan as he fiddled with the lock mechanism.
"Right." She looked at the door again. "Is it just me or does anyone else think this is a bad idea?"
"Got it... I think." McEwan grunted.
With a satisfied bleep the door slid open revealing a stygian darkness..
McEwan hefted his phaser rifle and stared into the gloom.
"Alright, move in." He ordered. "I want constant scans, if anything so much as twitches I want to know about it."
"Aye sir."
"McEwan, you know the way, you lead."
The small group moved cautiously into the darkness.
The shadow detached itself from the wall and glided silently towards the open doors. Any observer unlucky enough to be close to the phantom figure would have been hard put to make out any details. As it moved, the air around it rippled like a heat wave in the shape of a tall muscular figure. It passed a transparent, clawed hand over the partially disassembled lock. After a few moments silent contemplation, it moved after the unsuspecting party.
They had passed through three levels of darkness without incident, and the tension was beginning to wear on Lewis.
"Sir, I think there's something on the walls ahead." whispered Borland.
"What?"
"I don't know, "she replied, "I've never seen anything like this before."
The corridor ahead was completely engulfed in a strange, organic looking material, disturbing in design and hinting at a purpose totally alien to human perception. Borland ran her tricorder over the substance.
"I can't make head or tails of this." she said, studying the display with a frown. "Its part organic, part mineral, there's even fragments of human DNA in it."
"Is it dangerous?"
"I don't think so, there doesn't appear to be any toxins I can detect."
The party moved deeper into the altered passageway, trying to avoid touching the eerily organic material. As she pushed forward, her palm beacon probing the darkness, Clarke thought she saw something eerily familiar. She shined her light back to where she thought she had seen it, and froze.
"Oh man, someone tell me this is a bad dream" Moaned Robbins, clutching his rifle even more tightly.
Embedded in the wall was the form of a human female, clad in a Starfleet uniform with a gaping hole in her chest. Clarke could clearly see where her ribs had been pushed violently outwards, their splintered remains hanging from dried shreds of flesh.
"Lieutenant Adams, stations security officer." Said an ashen faced McEwan. "She stayed in the lower section to give us time to get it sealed off" He leaned forward and closed her staring vacant eyes. "She deserved better than this."
"Sir, look at this." Borland was indicating a large, leathery ovoid sitting in the corner "McEwan, is that what you found in the shuttlecraft?"
"Aye, but it was open and empty, this one is closed."
As Borland's light played over the egg shaped object something inside moved convulsively.
"Ok people, let's back away slowly, from what we've heard I don't think we want to play with.." Lewis voice cut off as the top of the egg opened. Long spindly legs appeared over the lip of the opening and something pulsed and heaved inside. With an inarticulate yell, McEwan raised his phaser and fired at the egg. The ruby beam hit the base of the egg, blowing a hole in the base, causing the whole thing to tip over backwards."
"Dammit McEwan, you could alert the whole nest that we're here!" Yelled Clarke, slapping the phaser aside and glaring at the engineer.
"Hutchings tricorder bleeped loudly.
"Commander, I think I've got something!" Said Hutchins.
"What is it?" barked Lewis
"I can't make it out clearly." He replied. "The stuff on the walls is interfering with the tricorder readings, but there's definitely a large group of discrete signals headed in our direction."
"How many signals ensign?" said Clarke.
"I can't tell, the tricorder's swamped." said Hutchins, his voice getting higher. "They're coming from all around us."
"Defensive formation!" Snapped Lewis. "Set phasers on Level ten, pulsed burst."
The group formed a loose circle facing outwards and nervously fingered their phasers. Lewis looked down the corridor ahead. Nothing moved.
"Signals: fifteen meters and closing." reported Hutchins calmly. Clarke tightened her grip on her phaser and flicked the safety on her rifle off.
"Ten meters." Still nothing. McEwan wiped the sweat from his face and shivered.
"Five meters." Black, toothy death failed to erupt down the corridor at them. Borland tried to stop her arms from trembling.
"Two..." Everyone was so transfixed staring down the corridors they failed to see the long, segmented tail slide down from the ceiling above, not until it wrapped itself around Hutchins and hauled his screaming body upwards. His screams stopped suddenly in a hail of coppery blood.
All hell broke loose.
Fanged nightmares erupted from the ceiling, floor and walls on top of the stunned party. With a horse bellow, Lewis sprayed the advancing horde with phaser fire. Under this awesome blast, several of the creatures disappeared in polychromatic splendor, but there were more to take their place. Borland snapped, turned and bolted down an apparently empty side corridor, past the devastated egg lying on its side. She hit a locked door and reeled back. Behind her something skittered across the floor. She turned in time to catch a glimpse of something with too many legs and a long, prehensile tail as it launched itself at her face. Her scream was cut off as it wrapped itself around her head. Her last sensation was of something warm and slimy forcing its way past her lips and down her throat.
Meanwhile, Ensign Masters was in trouble. He had seen Borland run and had tried to follow. He heard a hiss from above, looking up he saw the jaws of a nightmare looking down upon him. In a few moments of clarity he noted the long, banana shaped head, the eyeless dome-shaped forehead and the teeth that were moving out of the creature's mouth towards him. With a scream, he raised his phaser and in one continuous beam sliced the monsters head off. The head flew to the side and a huge gout of yellow-green liquid spouted out of the stump and onto the head and chest of ensign Masters. He barely had time to scream as the corrosive liquid quickly ate through flesh and bone before another creature plunged its spear tipped tail through his chest.
Lewis, Clarke and McEwan stood back to back, waiting for the end. Lewis had seen Robbins go down, one of the creatures had grabbed his head with both hands and a long tongue, capped with teeth, had punched effortlessly through his forehead and into the soft brain tissue beyond.
They were surrounded with no escape. And then it came, roaring down the corridor like a runaway locomotive. The same beast that had killed Johansson now fully visible. It emitted an ear shattering bellow and descended upon the surprised creatures like a howling dervish. Its movements reminded Lewis of his martial arts instructor, every move was smooth, fluid and precisely calculated. It did not waste energy and it went through the creatures like a plasma torch through runny butter. It swung its fist from which protruded two long, wicked looking blades that seemed impervious to the acid blood. Lewis stared in awe at their unlikely savior as it hacked and slashed its way through the alien horde. He felt someone grab his arm and looked into Clarke's desperate face.
"I think this is our cue to run like buggery," She said, "if you'll pardon my Klingon."
With a last look behind him, Lewis followed his security chief and the engineer down the corridor.
They stopped in storage bay two levels from their objective. Lewis sank wearily onto a cargo pallet and dropped his phaser rifle.
"What the hell is that thing?" Asked Lewis. "First it kills Johansson, then it pulls our bacon from the fire. What does it want?"
"Ah dinna ken laddie." Replied McEwan wearily. "When yon thing appeared it started pickin' us off one at a time. We were in contact with one poor bastard it was chasin' round the habitat ring. It seemed to be toyin' wi' him."
"What happened to him?" Asked Clarke.
"We found him, minus head an' spinal cord hangin' from an EPS conduit."
A thought occurred to Lewis. "Does it always mutilate its victim?" He asked.
"Aye, some it takes their heads, some their fingers and a couple the bastards skinned."
"Yes, we saw them."
"Why would it mutilate them?" Asked Clarke.
"Trophies." replied Lewis thoughtfully.
"Trophies?"
"Yes, think about it. It hunts its prey down, kills them and takes pieces of it's victims as trophies." Explained Lewis. "Hunters on Earth did it before the practice was banned in the late Twenty-First century."
"So where did the other creatures come from?"
"I think they were introduced as prey."
"How come?"
"Remember the way they attacked us? "Explained Lewis, "They're perfect prey. They can blend in perfectly with their environment, they're extremely vicious, making them more challenging and by introducing them into a closed system like this station there's no problem of them getting out of control. Any problems, just blow the station out of space. And of course the station personnel make ideal breeding material."
"So these things were put aboard my station, killed my friends, just so that that bastard could get some SPORT!" roared McEwan angrily. "When ah get ma hands on that son of a targ ah'm gonnae rip it's lungs out and beat it to death wi' them."
Back in the distance it listened to their conversation. It watched their movements carefully, walls mean little to eyes that are adapted to see into the infra-red. It began to move silently towards their location. It was time to end this phase of the hunt. As it moved it touched the controls of the device on its arm. Its form rippled and faded from view, leaving only a ghostly image. As it moved, it caught sight of itself on a panel left untouched by the organic rot. It studied the play of light around its form for a second, then turned and headed back towards the scene of its last victory.
"O.K. Let's move. "Announced Lewis. "Only another couple of levels to go."
As if to echo his words, the station computer suddenly spoke. "Warning!" It announced "Containment field failure. Core breach in twenty minutes."
"You heard the woman," Said Clarke wryly, "Let's move."
With a great degree of trepidation the trio left the storage area and re- entered the corridor. Slowly they advanced, ears straining to catch the slightest hint of danger. The passage ended in a T-Junction. Lewis carefully glanced each way and then jerked his head back suddenly, waving the others back.
"What is it commander?" Asked Clarke nervously.
"Take a look." He whispered grimly. With a shrug, she looked around the corner.
"I don't see anything." She whispered.
"Look at the foot of the turbo lift door."
"What the...." Crouched in front of the door was the strange shimmer that Lewis had noticed in the mess hall.
"What is it lass?" Asked McEwan.
"It's the hunter." She replied. "I can just about see it through the cloak."
"What'll we do now?"
"On three?" Said Lewis, hefting his phaser.
"Go for it." Replied Clarke.
"Three!" Shouted Lewis, diving round the corner and firing his phaser at the crouched figure. Clarke wasn't far behind him, followed by a surprised McEwan. The three phaser bursts struck the crouched figure and blasted it back against the turbo lift doors and then slumped bonelessly to the ground. Its form flickered and sparked as the cloak began to short circuit and then faded completely to reveal... the form of a woman in a charred Starfleet uniform with a nightmarish form wrapped around her head. Strapped to her arm was the charred remains of the alien cloaking device.
"My god." breathed Lewis in horror.
"Borland?" Whispered Clarke. McEwan moved towards the supine figure.
"Permission to come aboard?"
"NO!" yelled Lewis, a fraction of a second too late. A clawed hand reached out from the shadows and slashed across his face. McEwan screamed in pain and collapsed, clutching his ruined face. Lewis raised his phaser, but a contemptuous backhanded blow sent him stumbling backwards into Clarke. Lewis shook his head, trying to clear the ringing sound in his ears. He looked up, the Predator was walking towards him. It flexed its mighty wrist and the two blades sprang forward. It raised its fist, Lewis looked at the points of the blades shining in front of him and the ringing in his ears grew louder. Suddenly the Predator stumbled, knocked off balance as one hundred and thirty pounds of enraged Scottish engineer landed on its back. McEwan, his bloody face aglow with rage and determination, hung grimly onto its back, clutching the source of the ringing in Lewis's ears. It was a hand phaser set on overload. He stared dumbly at the scene, as the Predator bounced from bulkhead to bulkhead, vainly trying to remove the annoyance from its back. He felt a hand on his arm pulling him towards the lift shaft and heard a voice screaming at him, threatening all sorts of unpleasant things if he didn't get his backside in gear. The pair ran down the corridor towards the lift, leaving the sound of the creatures rage and the whine of an overloading phaser behind them. They reached the turbo lift doors and quickly prized them open. They gingerly stepped over Borland's corpse and descended into the gloomy shaft. Above them there was an alien scream of fury, followed by a thunderous explosion, then silence.