Chapter 2
Mysterious Encounters
The ship hovered silently within the darkened docking bay, its view ports glowing green like some tunnel dwelling predator watching its prey. None of this prey would be found amongst the shattered crates and busted consoles that laid hidden in the dark; only the dead whisper of silence graced the room with its presence. Ice had crusted over the bay's ports, hiding the inner ruins of the station from space.
"Lana?" Adam called.
Lana turned her attention from the darkened bay to the console screen behind her. Adam had a 3D display of the multi-tiered station on the screen accompanied with a few reports on the status of the station. "Sorry Adam, go ahead", Lana replied quickly scanning the screen. The station consisted of four rings, a central structure, and an environment controlled nature facility. Three of the four rings circled the main facility near the middle of the shaft-like structure while the fourth circled the nature facility atop the main structure.
"A preliminary investigation of the space station indicates that all systems for this facility have been shut down. There is no sign of electricity running anywhere. The first thing we need to do is get power running again. The main reactor has been damaged and the backup generators are not responding to the activation signal. They will need to be started up manually." Adam displayed the map for the station, highlighting the room where the backup generators were located. "Make your way to the nature facility. You will find the door leading to the reactor station embedded in the cliffs. Once the generators are up, contact me for further instructions. Is your objective clear?"
Both Lana and the SA-X shook their heads yes. "Good. Indications also show that there has been a struggle. Watch yourselves."
"Do you worry about us Adam?" Samus asked. "You know, I've been doing this long before you were programmed", she said sarcastically.
"I didn't ask for your smart ass comments. Just get it done", Adam replied, a hint of impatience in his electronic voice. Lana giggled slightly as the SA-X mumbled something about taking orders from a computer under her breath.
.|.
The space stations unwelcoming silence was broken by metal footsteps as the two bounty hunters trekked up the pitch black spiraling hallway. Without any useful visors to see in the pitch dark, the bounty hunters relied on their wave beams. By firing at the fluorescent overhead lights, the energy contained within the beam reacted with the phosphor and created a very dim glow for a short period of time. Along their climb, the two came across many areas where dried pools of blood once wet the floor, or smeared blood streaked aguishly across the walls or doors. Nowhere along their circular path did the SA-X or Lana come across a body as they had been expecting to. Lana attempted to open a few doors along the wall but without a steady power source, the archaic doors would not open. Eventually the two came upon the apex of the hallway and found a dead end. Samus used her X-Ray visor to follow a ventilation shaft running up the wall. To her delight, the vent, just big enough for a morph ball, ran up to the next floor. The SA-X pointed to the vent opening and Lana shook her head in response.
Samus rolled into her ball and laid a bomb in front of the vent, and it exploded and sent shards of metal floating into the airless room. The two rolled into the vent and with a combination of ball jumping and bombing, followed the vent up to the next level of the space station. Unlike the previous spiraling hallway, the next area of the facility contained a main stairwell with offices located on almost every deck.
Lana and Samus quickly made their way up the shaft, jumping from one stairwell platform to the other. It didn't take them long to reach the nature facility. Once inside they were able to see the enormous size of the facility. The huge glass dome was cracked and chunks of glass were missing from the structure. Anything that might have once been living was now frozen solid or sucked out into space.
The entire nature facility was like a cemetery in the middle of winter. The forest that spread throughout the facility bared their skeletons as their forked arms reached for space in eerie praise to an unknown being. The grass had long frozen dead brown on the synthesized ground and just walking on it caused the blades to break beneath the bounty hunters' armor. Where a river had once flowed, the dark Red Indian clay now created a dried gulch-like riverbed. Lana and Samus followed the dried river to its source ten miles upstream to a cliff side. The huge stone face rose up to the glass enclosure before thinning out to become what seemed to be one with the dome. A waterfall had been cut into the cliff side and when water had run, the falls hid a staircase that led to a door high up into the cliffs.
The huntresses climbed the metal staircase up to the door and went inside to find a narrow hallway. Following the hallway to the end, the two found the huge reactor core. Upon their investigation, they found that the reactor had been charged to the point of a near fatal meltdown. From their best guess', someone had punctured the cooling system to help release the build up of heat, but in doing so, damaged the core beyond repair. The backup generators were easily spotted and the two separated to work on each one individually.
Within the hour, Samus and Lana had brought all five of the backup generators to operating level. Lights returned to the space station as machines whirred to life and air began to blow through the vents. Lana contacted Adam through the space stations COM link. "We've managed to get the generators running Adam. What now?"
"Good job you two. I've accessed some of the security reports for the station and according to those, there were no unauthorized dockings before the attack began nor was there any hostile activity on the radar. I can only assume with this information that the crew of the station knew the attackers or they had someone help them bypass security. I've tried to access the video surveillance but they use an older system and they will need to be viewed from within the security room. The security room is located here", Adam explained showing the bounty hunters where the room was. "See who was the cause behind the attack and contact me when you have found something. Is your objective clear?"
"Yeah, we'll see what we can find", Samus said before Lana could answer, cutting off the COM link to the ship. "He can get rather annoying at times, always ordering people around", she said irately.
"That's sort of what he was programmed to do", Lana giggled walking back out of the reactor core's controller room. The two headed back toward the nature facility and found that a metal wall had sealed the glass dome off from space. Lana could barely make out a tiny battalion of work drones busily repairing the holes in the glass. Water had slowly begun to trickle down the cliff and puddles had begun to form in the once gulch-like riverbed. Samus led the way through the dead trees and back into the main facility. The lighted stairwell was now able to tell the tortures story behind the space stations attack. Blood splattered the majority of the steps and some had some how managed to reach the bottom side of the staircase. The metal railings were covered in the dark red blood as if someone had sloppily thrown cans of paint around in some sadistic form of ritualistic art.
Now that power had returned to the station, the two bounty hunters could investigate rooms along their route to the security room. As if in some horrid haunted house, blood smeared, splattered, and otherwise drenched almost every inch of every room. Here and there, burn marks could be made out under the coating of blood giving an indication that some type of weapon, probably laser in nature, had been used. Still, there were no bodies to be found amongst the gallons of red liquid and even though the smell of death had long been sucked from the once airless facility, Samus was overwhelmed with the stench of death. She knew what death smelled like, she knew its taste and felt its cold lifeless feeling from her own past experience and it made her sick to realize how many people must have mercilessly died at the hands of these maniacs.
"Do you think that the attackers took the bodies with them?" Lana asked curiously checking a nearby closet for any sign of a body.
"There is no telling. It depends on how sadistic these things were, but it is a big station and they might have dumped them all in one area. I don't really think we will be finding any bodies anytime soon though. We better just go ahead to the security room and check out the video. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can take a break. I don't know about you but I'm exhausted", Samus said realizing how tired and hungry she was.
"You're probably right. The room is just a little further down the hallway", Lana said stepping back out the door and continuing down the hallway. Samus followed closely behind the young bounty hunter.
The security room was the only room that the two entered that there was no blood present anywhere. The consoles displayed status messages on its various screens but the video monitors only displayed static. The space stations PA system beeped and came on over the space station's speaker system.
"All personnel, please be advised that life support systems have reached one hundred percent. The nature facility is under repair for the time being and only authorized personnel are allowed into the facility. Thank you for your cooperation", a computerized voice echoed through the empty hallways, slightly startling the bounty hunters. Samus slowly removed her helmet and Lana followed her example. The two turned back to the console before them and began pulling up the video from the station's last hours of operation. The static filled monitors came to life showing a multitude of people going about their daily lives. Many of the people were dressed in white lab coats or official GFP military uniforms.
"Fast forward until the chaos begins", Samus said. Lana pushed the tape forward until they found something that stood out from the rest of the crowd. One of the monitors displayed one of the lab hallways. Watching closely, one of the doors opened and a researcher was hurled from within the room, slamming into the opposite wall of the hallway. The researcher attempted to get up but before he could rise to his feet, a shot from within the lab took his life. Within the minute a figure stepped out of the room. A blue metal armor clad being walked out of the lab and fired upon the crowd of shocked crewmembers.
The ship hovered silently within the darkened docking bay, its view ports glowing green like some tunnel dwelling predator watching its prey. None of this prey would be found amongst the shattered crates and busted consoles that laid hidden in the dark; only the dead whisper of silence graced the room with its presence. Ice had crusted over the bay's ports, hiding the inner ruins of the station from space.
"Lana?" Adam called.
Lana turned her attention from the darkened bay to the console screen behind her. Adam had a 3D display of the multi-tiered station on the screen accompanied with a few reports on the status of the station. "Sorry Adam, go ahead", Lana replied quickly scanning the screen. The station consisted of four rings, a central structure, and an environment controlled nature facility. Three of the four rings circled the main facility near the middle of the shaft-like structure while the fourth circled the nature facility atop the main structure.
"A preliminary investigation of the space station indicates that all systems for this facility have been shut down. There is no sign of electricity running anywhere. The first thing we need to do is get power running again. The main reactor has been damaged and the backup generators are not responding to the activation signal. They will need to be started up manually." Adam displayed the map for the station, highlighting the room where the backup generators were located. "Make your way to the nature facility. You will find the door leading to the reactor station embedded in the cliffs. Once the generators are up, contact me for further instructions. Is your objective clear?"
Both Lana and the SA-X shook their heads yes. "Good. Indications also show that there has been a struggle. Watch yourselves."
"Do you worry about us Adam?" Samus asked. "You know, I've been doing this long before you were programmed", she said sarcastically.
"I didn't ask for your smart ass comments. Just get it done", Adam replied, a hint of impatience in his electronic voice. Lana giggled slightly as the SA-X mumbled something about taking orders from a computer under her breath.
.|.
The space stations unwelcoming silence was broken by metal footsteps as the two bounty hunters trekked up the pitch black spiraling hallway. Without any useful visors to see in the pitch dark, the bounty hunters relied on their wave beams. By firing at the fluorescent overhead lights, the energy contained within the beam reacted with the phosphor and created a very dim glow for a short period of time. Along their climb, the two came across many areas where dried pools of blood once wet the floor, or smeared blood streaked aguishly across the walls or doors. Nowhere along their circular path did the SA-X or Lana come across a body as they had been expecting to. Lana attempted to open a few doors along the wall but without a steady power source, the archaic doors would not open. Eventually the two came upon the apex of the hallway and found a dead end. Samus used her X-Ray visor to follow a ventilation shaft running up the wall. To her delight, the vent, just big enough for a morph ball, ran up to the next floor. The SA-X pointed to the vent opening and Lana shook her head in response.
Samus rolled into her ball and laid a bomb in front of the vent, and it exploded and sent shards of metal floating into the airless room. The two rolled into the vent and with a combination of ball jumping and bombing, followed the vent up to the next level of the space station. Unlike the previous spiraling hallway, the next area of the facility contained a main stairwell with offices located on almost every deck.
Lana and Samus quickly made their way up the shaft, jumping from one stairwell platform to the other. It didn't take them long to reach the nature facility. Once inside they were able to see the enormous size of the facility. The huge glass dome was cracked and chunks of glass were missing from the structure. Anything that might have once been living was now frozen solid or sucked out into space.
The entire nature facility was like a cemetery in the middle of winter. The forest that spread throughout the facility bared their skeletons as their forked arms reached for space in eerie praise to an unknown being. The grass had long frozen dead brown on the synthesized ground and just walking on it caused the blades to break beneath the bounty hunters' armor. Where a river had once flowed, the dark Red Indian clay now created a dried gulch-like riverbed. Lana and Samus followed the dried river to its source ten miles upstream to a cliff side. The huge stone face rose up to the glass enclosure before thinning out to become what seemed to be one with the dome. A waterfall had been cut into the cliff side and when water had run, the falls hid a staircase that led to a door high up into the cliffs.
The huntresses climbed the metal staircase up to the door and went inside to find a narrow hallway. Following the hallway to the end, the two found the huge reactor core. Upon their investigation, they found that the reactor had been charged to the point of a near fatal meltdown. From their best guess', someone had punctured the cooling system to help release the build up of heat, but in doing so, damaged the core beyond repair. The backup generators were easily spotted and the two separated to work on each one individually.
Within the hour, Samus and Lana had brought all five of the backup generators to operating level. Lights returned to the space station as machines whirred to life and air began to blow through the vents. Lana contacted Adam through the space stations COM link. "We've managed to get the generators running Adam. What now?"
"Good job you two. I've accessed some of the security reports for the station and according to those, there were no unauthorized dockings before the attack began nor was there any hostile activity on the radar. I can only assume with this information that the crew of the station knew the attackers or they had someone help them bypass security. I've tried to access the video surveillance but they use an older system and they will need to be viewed from within the security room. The security room is located here", Adam explained showing the bounty hunters where the room was. "See who was the cause behind the attack and contact me when you have found something. Is your objective clear?"
"Yeah, we'll see what we can find", Samus said before Lana could answer, cutting off the COM link to the ship. "He can get rather annoying at times, always ordering people around", she said irately.
"That's sort of what he was programmed to do", Lana giggled walking back out of the reactor core's controller room. The two headed back toward the nature facility and found that a metal wall had sealed the glass dome off from space. Lana could barely make out a tiny battalion of work drones busily repairing the holes in the glass. Water had slowly begun to trickle down the cliff and puddles had begun to form in the once gulch-like riverbed. Samus led the way through the dead trees and back into the main facility. The lighted stairwell was now able to tell the tortures story behind the space stations attack. Blood splattered the majority of the steps and some had some how managed to reach the bottom side of the staircase. The metal railings were covered in the dark red blood as if someone had sloppily thrown cans of paint around in some sadistic form of ritualistic art.
Now that power had returned to the station, the two bounty hunters could investigate rooms along their route to the security room. As if in some horrid haunted house, blood smeared, splattered, and otherwise drenched almost every inch of every room. Here and there, burn marks could be made out under the coating of blood giving an indication that some type of weapon, probably laser in nature, had been used. Still, there were no bodies to be found amongst the gallons of red liquid and even though the smell of death had long been sucked from the once airless facility, Samus was overwhelmed with the stench of death. She knew what death smelled like, she knew its taste and felt its cold lifeless feeling from her own past experience and it made her sick to realize how many people must have mercilessly died at the hands of these maniacs.
"Do you think that the attackers took the bodies with them?" Lana asked curiously checking a nearby closet for any sign of a body.
"There is no telling. It depends on how sadistic these things were, but it is a big station and they might have dumped them all in one area. I don't really think we will be finding any bodies anytime soon though. We better just go ahead to the security room and check out the video. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can take a break. I don't know about you but I'm exhausted", Samus said realizing how tired and hungry she was.
"You're probably right. The room is just a little further down the hallway", Lana said stepping back out the door and continuing down the hallway. Samus followed closely behind the young bounty hunter.
The security room was the only room that the two entered that there was no blood present anywhere. The consoles displayed status messages on its various screens but the video monitors only displayed static. The space stations PA system beeped and came on over the space station's speaker system.
"All personnel, please be advised that life support systems have reached one hundred percent. The nature facility is under repair for the time being and only authorized personnel are allowed into the facility. Thank you for your cooperation", a computerized voice echoed through the empty hallways, slightly startling the bounty hunters. Samus slowly removed her helmet and Lana followed her example. The two turned back to the console before them and began pulling up the video from the station's last hours of operation. The static filled monitors came to life showing a multitude of people going about their daily lives. Many of the people were dressed in white lab coats or official GFP military uniforms.
"Fast forward until the chaos begins", Samus said. Lana pushed the tape forward until they found something that stood out from the rest of the crowd. One of the monitors displayed one of the lab hallways. Watching closely, one of the doors opened and a researcher was hurled from within the room, slamming into the opposite wall of the hallway. The researcher attempted to get up but before he could rise to his feet, a shot from within the lab took his life. Within the minute a figure stepped out of the room. A blue metal armor clad being walked out of the lab and fired upon the crowd of shocked crewmembers.