"Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?"
Henry sighed as he drifted off into the black void of space and listened to some final songs as he waited for his oxygen to deplete. He neither tried to breath as little as possible to extend his already faltering lifespan nor did he increase his breathing rate in an attempt to get his doom over with. He would die like a gentleman, without fear or worry about what would be on the other side.
"Was I responsible?" Henry asked himself "Did I unknowingly kill my fellow crew members? Was I exposed to the microbes on the planet and have they taken me over? Are they making me ask these questions to sow doubt? Were they conscious killings or not?"
The questions bored into Henry's brain like a rabbit hole as a silvery hope came into view. Radar had previously stated that there had been no other craft for miles but sometimes errors occurred. If picked up by another ship, he would have been safe and prepared to go home. However, due to the possibility of contamination he worried whether or not he'd expose the new ship's crew to whatever was on OmegaPsi 5.5-2.
Unfortunately, what Henry saw approaching him was not another ship but instead a satellite. A buoy of information drifting in the vast sea of space. And it was covered in several pointy antennas.
Very sharp pointy antennas coming right at Henry.
His eyes widened as he tried to futilely "swim" away from the oncoming satellite but without momentum he was certainly going to collide with it. With a painful thud, a flat portion of the satellite slammed into him. Landing on the satellite felt like tripping and landing on the floor, painful but not heavily detrimental.
After catching his breath, Henry began to get his bearings and noticed a few bloodstains that had splashed against the tarnished metal of the satellite. He looked up at one of the antennas and saw a familiar form.
It was Louise. Or more like what was left of her. Her body having been impaled on one of the antennas of the satellite. She had been punctured in the stomach, which might not have instantly killed her but a hole in a suit would have depleted her oxygen supply rapidly.
Henry grabbed onto on of the antennas and looked around him. Little light in space, stranded on a deserted island of a satellite and only a corpse for company. No way to send a SOS, no bottle to put a message in, nothing. He was stuck with nothing but metal and several compressed containers of Nitrogen strapped to the side.
Ready to throw in the towel, Henry laid on the side of the satellite and waited for death to come whenever it would.
As his eyes began to shut as he waited for the blanket of death to take him away, his eyes immediately focused on the valve for the tanks. Satellites like these were only serviced about once an earth year and whoever did the last maintenance job forgot to reattach the safety cover for the connection to one of the tanks to the satellite. The particular tank was right beside Louise's corpse was the tank so all he had to do was break the valve and hold on tight.
Henry climbed up the satellite and quietly made his way up to Louise's body. With his IA multi tool he began to sever the mounts that secured the nitrogen tanks to the satellite. Due to not having rope, Henry took off Louise's utility belt and used it to attach him to the tank.
"Sorry Louise" He spoke as he tightened himself to the tank as tight as possible.
As he undid the final connections, he folded up his IA multitool and began slamming against the valve to break it.
As he did so, his oxygen alert meter went off in his suit.
WARNING: OXYGEN LEVEL AT 20 PERCENT
Henry was working up quite a sweat in space, and was so focused on his work that he failed to notice the eyes that were staring at him in the void.
WARNING: OVER EXERTION OF BODY WILL DEPLETE OXYGEN FASTER
"Like I don't know that!" Henry shouted as he kept banging.
The valve began to bend a bit more after persistent manipulation.
WARNING: OXYGEN LEVEL AT 15 PERCENT. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR CRAFT.
"I'M TRYING TO RETURN TO MY C-GURRRKK!"
Henry let go of his tool and it began to float away as a pair of thin but powerful hands curled around his neck.
"Yooou BASTAHD!" A shrill and distorted female voice shouted. It was a somewhat familiar tone and one he knew well. He looked in the reflection of the metal of the satellite and tried to see who could be choking him.
All he saw was a pink smudge stained with blood and with out it's utility belt.
"I ShOULD have KIELD YEW FIRST!"
Henry kept choking and his oxygen was running out too.
WARNING: OXYGEN LEVEL AT 10 PERCENT. RETURN TO YOUR CRAFT IMMEDIATELY
Henry started gurgling as the grip around his neck became tighter. The valve was soon to fail but without his tool he was dead. If only he could ask for someone else's tool!
And then it hit him.
He reached for Louise's belt and grabbed her tool and slammed it against the valve. It began to leak freezing nitrogen and was almost ready to snap.
WARNING: OXYGEN LEVEL CRITICAL
With one more slam, the valve broke off and Henry and began to speed away from the satellite with Louise's death grip coming along for the journey. The grip was loosened but that was the least of his worries at the moment.
Taking off was optional, landing was mandatory.
-[+]-
Rachel sat in the cafeteria with her Series 47 Hand Phaser in her hand, ready to shoot at anyone that came her way. The Captain and Eleanor were in Navigation while Alice was hovering near the lower engine lest the need to abandon The Skeld was necessary.
Sal's Pavlovas remained uneaten on the center cafeteria table but Rachel's appetite was completely gone at that point in time.
She missed Sal, Tommy, and especially Henry. The doctor always seemed so lonely and isolated from everyone else due to his supposed uselessness that she couldn't help but feel bad for him.
Suddenly, the doors from Weapons swished open and Eleanor appeared. Rachel aimed her phaser almost immediately.
"S-STAND BACK! I'm warning you!"
"Easy!" Eleanor pleaded as she put her hands up "It's only me."
"How do I know its really you though?! You might have killed Sam or Charlie!"
"You could easily be the culprit as well! And nothing on this ship is going to get done if we've got phaser barrels at our heads."
Rachel sighed and hung her head, putting her weapon away "I guess you're right."
Eleanor smiled and sat with Rachel.
"We've lost plenty of good people…" Eleanor began "Tommy, Sal, Scottie. They were all good crew mates."
Rachel raised an eyebrow "But what about the others? What about Sam? Charlie? Louise? Max?"
Eleanor shrugged "They weren't as good as the others… but they weren't as bad as Henry."
"Henry?! What's wrong about Henry?!"
Eleanor turned to Rachel "I could tell there was something sus about those four, but with Henry he seemed the most dangerous. I couldn't detect his intentions, his desires, his fears or hates."
"He's just a doctor! He was a part of the crew and did his job!"
"Did he though?!" Eleanor asked, her tone shifting a bit "He's not like us, he was never like us, and do you know what else?"
Rachel gulped slightly "What else?"
Her eyes blue eyes turned purple, her teeth grew sharp and her hair seemed to take on a mind of it's own.
"YOU'RE NOT LIKE US EITHER."
With a beastly shriek, Eleanor shot out a violet tongue towards Rachel. But despite her monstrous abilities, Rachel was able to duck the attack.
The cadet pulled out her Phaser and aimed to kill but Eleanor smacked the weapon away with her tongue and then reached to swallow it with the same purple appendage.
"W-WHAT ARE YOU!?" Rachel screamed as she tried to hide behind a table.
"WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT IS ASKING WHAT ARE YOU?!" Eleanor roared "CHARLIE, LOUISE, SAM, AND MAX ARE NOT LIKE ME. THEY MAY HAVE LINKED MINDS LIKE WE DO BUT THEY WANT TO DESTROY US JUST THE SAME. BUT YOU AND HENRY ARE DIFFERENT."
"D-Different from who?!"
"DIFFERENT FROM ME, SAL, SCOTTIE, TOMMY, AN…"
*CRASH!*
From the window of the cafeteria was an improvised missile of a pressurized gas canister being ridden by a human figure that broke through the reinforced glass. With a hole in the ship, the pressure within the cafeteria began to whiz oxygen out into space. Rachel gasped for air and grabbed onto a table to avoid being sucked out. but it was no problem for whatever Eleanor was. However, the surprise interruption was so sudden that it stopped Eleanor's train of thought.
"What the f…!"
*CRICK!*
The tank slammed into Eleanor's head and snapped her neck with blood spraying everywhere. The liquid nitrogen tank then lodged itself into the wall and the red suited human figure that rode on it fell off and began skidding out the hole that was made.
With all her might, Rachel reached out and grabbed the body as frozen parts of Eleanor began to snap into the void of space.
From Weapons, Gary saw the events unfold from the window and slammed activated a button that read "SEAL ALL PASSAGES"
A large metal door slammed down in front of the windows for the cafeteria and shut all the doors in the ship.
Rachel let go of her grasp of the cafeteria table and crawled over to the body she grabbed onto and immediately recognized who it was.
"Henry?!" Rachel shouted "Dr. Rodman! Wake up!"
Henry groaned as he rubbed his eyes and saw Rachel.
"R-Rachel!?" Henry shouted, his voice muffled by his helmet "Don't tell me you got killed too!"
Rachel nervously chuckled "No Henry, we're both alive."
The cadet helped the doctor up as Gary opened the door from Weapons to get a better look at the destruction.
"What in the…Rachel! What happened?!"
"E-Eleanor tried to kill me…" Rachel explained as she caught her breath.
"A-And I…" Henry spoke as he took his helmet off "Got back to the ship…"
Gary looked at the floor and picked up one of Louise's arms.
"How did you get this?!" Gary asked.
"After I got ejected, I ended up colliding with a satellite and found Louise's body impaled on it."
"Was she dead?" Rachel asked.
"Not quite dead, it was just a flesh wound. But I can be certain that Louise was an imposter of some sort. No human could last several hours without oxygen with a hole in their suit."
Suddenly, a banging came from the door to storage. It was Alice, screaming as loud as she could and smacking on the door with a large wrench. Gary walked over and undid the manual lock to let her in.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" Alice screamed.
Her attention then turned to Henry.
"WHY IS HE BACK HERE?!"
"That's none of your concern." Gary spoke "What is important is that Eleanor was an imposter of some sort."
"Well that's great and all but we've got a bigger problem!" Alice spoke.
"What's that?" Rachel asked.
A siren in the ship suddenly went off.
WARNING: REACTOR MELTDOWN BEYOND REPAIR. SHIP MUST BE ABANDONED WITHIN 30 MINUTES FOR SAFE ESCAPE.
Henry face palmed, Rachel groaned, and Gary rolled his eyes.
"Do you have anything to do with this Alice?!" Rachel shouted "Are you just trying to get us off the ship?!
"Don't pin this on me Rachel!" Alice barked "A reactor meltdown could be triggered from anywhere on the ship with the know how!"
"But how could have I done so when I was fighting off whatever Eleanor was!"
"Then it was Henry!"
Henry just turned to Alice with an incredulous and furious glare, which caused Alice to immediately realize how stupid her accusation was.
"Then it was Gary!"
"OH PLEASE!" Henry groaned "You're just saying that so you can eliminate him and be captain!"
"BUT I DIDN'T DO IT!" Alice pleaded "I SWEAR!"
"Then why do you have that wrench!?" asked Rachel.
Alice chuckled sheepishly "Eh…just in case some was going to attack me I wanted a weapon to defend myself with."
"Were you using that to sabotage the ship?" Henry asked.
Alice glared "NO! I WOULDN'T NEED A WRENCH TO SABOTAGE THIS SHIP!"
"Then what would you need?" Rachel asked as she crossed her arms "You're growing more sus moment after moment!"
"Alice, I know that your Court Martial after the Tsilindr Clan incident blacklisted you within the Intergalactic Alliance," Gary began "but that doesn't mean you have to keep that chip on your shoulder for the rest of your life! If you only admitted that you were at fault…"
"IT WASE NAHT MAI FAUL-"
Alice shouted as her voice distorted as she began to swing her wrench towards the captain's face, but she suddenly stopped and the weapon fell out of her hands. From her chest, drips of crimson began dripping out of her chest as Alice fell on her knees and collapsed dead onto the ground followed by the wrench landing with a painful klang.
Gary sighed as he put his smoking Phaser back onto his and then brushed his suit off.
"You saw her try to hit me, I fired in self defense. Is that understood?"
Henry and Rachel nodded as they looked at Alice's dead body.
"Alright everyone. Gather your final belongings, we're abandoning ship. We'll take the remaining escape pod at the lower engine. Grab your helmets and only take what you'll need."
Henry and Rachel nodded as the three began to run to their crew cabins and grabbed their bags to make an evacuation. While they filled them with essentials, each of them grabbed a few personal and irreplaceable belongings and anything useful that they could bring with them.
Rachel grabbed some tools, the bottle of J&D she grabbed from the kitchen, some spare parts she had salvaged, all the documentation from Omega Psi 5-5.2 that she found, and the few photos of home she brought with her. Henry grabbed a first aid kit, some cans of Don Dew he had stowed away along with some snack bars, his doctor bag, some playing cards, a small case of various painkillers and other medications that weren't his first aid kit before rushing to Medical to grab the case of blood vials that were prepared earlier. Gary meanwhile filled out a shipwreck report and was collecting the ship's hard drive data for the IA Shipwreck report. All this time, the security system kept blaring about the reactor melt down.
WARNING: REACTOR MELTDOWN BEYOND REPAIR. SHIP MUST BE ABANDONED IN 15 MINUTES FOR SAFE ESCAPE. MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE ESCAPE PODS AT THE ENGINES.
Gary signed his tablet and put it into his bag "Alright, do we have everything we need?"
"I got what I need," Henry stated "What about you Rachel?"
"I got everything, but I think we left something in the Cafeteria?"
"Alright then, lets go to the cafeteria together to retrieve it." Gary stated.
The three left the Crew Cabin for the last time and made their way to the cafeteria, where Sal's mini Pavlovas remained uneaten. Rachel carefully stepped over Alice's body and grabbed the tray to bring it to Henry and Gary.
"Alright, I'm ready."
Henry and Gary just quietly glanced at each other with the latter shrugging slightly.
"We'll eat them once we get to safety, ok Rachel?" Henry spoke.
Rachel smiled and nodded as the three remaining crew members of the Intergalactic Alliance Ship The Skeld quietly but briskly made their way to the escape pod.
It seated six, had a main door attached ship-side and another on top like a submarine's hatch. It was built to be bomb proof. The cockpit had two seats and there were two benches that faced each other that sat two people. The benches acted as chests for emergency equipment such as extra oxygen, water, rations, flashlights, rope, S.O.S. buoy's, and space life preservers. Hanging from the walls were two fire extinguishers.
The three crew-members loaded their bags into the escape pod and secured them into the unused seats with Gary putting his bag in the co-pilot seat.
"Alright everyone," Gary began as he put his helmet on "once we detach from The Skeld, artificial gravity is going to turn off so we'll be floating in zero-G."
"So where are we going to?" Rachel asked as she buckled up and put her helmet on too.
"The IA Outpost Polus." Gary replied as he shut the door tight.
"Good," Henry spoke as he secured his helmet and sat across from Rachel "That way we can tell the rest of the IA to never go to Omega Psi 5-5.2."
Gary said nothing as he secured the door to the escape pod as The Skeld's safety systems blared.
WARNING: REACTOR MELTDOWN BEYOND REPAIR. SHIP MUST BE ABANDONED IN 5 MINUTES FOR SAFE ESCAPE. MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE ESCAPE PODS AT THE ENGINES IMMEDIATELY.
With the door shut tight and Gary climbing into the pilot seat, the captain detached the escape pod from The Skeld and gunned the engines into space to get as far away from The Skeld before it exploded. The sheer force of the propulsion sent Gary deep into the pilot's seat and his crew mates into the padded portions of their seats. Their gear shook and rattled and their bags threatened to come loose out of their restraints but they remained still.
After three minutes of rocketing through space, Gary reduced the propulsion so that the escape pod could cruise through the blackness of space to their destination.
Gary undid his restraints and slowly floated over to check on Rachel and Henry. The two had unbuckled themselves to look through the porthole of their escape pod and tried to see if their once faithful ship was still in view.
Instead, all they saw was a faint explosion and the feeling of a slight push of pressure as The Skeld blew up in the darkness of space.
"It's gone…" Rachel spoke, painfully sighing as she spoke.
"It was a good ship, but our lives were more important thank keeping her running." Henry then slumped in his seat and rubbed his head "If we knew that visiting that planet would kill most of us I bet we would have never gone in the first place."
"Me too…"
"That place is infested with parasites…one false move and you could be infected with a murderous beast."
"Parasites?" Gary asked "There were no parasites on 0ur planet."
Henry and Rachel turned to Gary in confusion.
"Your planet?" Henry asked.
"Y0u…YoU WERE THE PARASI7ES!"
Henry and Louise stared at the captain in shock as his eyes glowed orange and fog began to cover his visor.
"Y0U VVERE THE 1NVAD3RS! Y0U'RE NOT LIKE WHAT 5AL, NOR SC0TTIE, OR 7OMMY, NOR EVEN ELEAN0R! Y0U WEREN'T ONE 0F US AND YOU WEREN'T EVEN ONE OF 7HEM!"
"THEM?!" Henry asked as he began reaching for his Phaser.
"THE EL1MINATORS! TH0SE WHO TRIED T0 EXTERMINATE US! THEY TR1ED TO LOCK U5 OUT BUT WE GOT 1N!"
Gary's arms bent backwards, his neck bent at an abnormal ankles, he began to walk with his knees and his spine began bending backwards.
"BUT Y0U ARE W0RSE! 1NVADER! D0MINATOR! PURG…"
Gary's voice then became intelligible as his dialogue mutated into an incomprehensible cacophony as his suit began to tear at the chest.
Henry and Rachel pulled out their Phasers but two crimson spears stabbed them against the wall as tentacles poured out of Gary's belly and began wrapping around Rachel and Henry's necks. They choked and dangled their feet as the tentacles pushed them against the walls.
"I'LL K1LL YOU F1R5T HENRY!" Spoke a mutilated form of language from Gary. More spears began stabbing the doctor in the legs and arms to pin him against the wall. The beastly and bloody maw began to drool with delight.
"N0 M0RE H1DING WHAT I TRU1Y AM!"
Rachel, struggling for what little air she had tried to reach above herself for one of the fire extinguishers that hung from the ceiling.
Henry bled from the mouth as he stared into the face of the creature. Orange eyes staring right into his soul.
"N-No…!" Henry gasped.
The beast lunged, but there was a spray of extinguisher foam that blinded the creature. As Henry hung from the wall, Rachel bashed Gary's mutated form with the fire extinguisher. Pounding, smashing, denting, cracking bone and bashing organs of the false captain.
The grip loosened around Henry's neck but he still remained stuck to the wall, blood seeping through the stabs from Gary's form.
The doctor's vision slowly faded but he watched as Rachel grabbed Gary's phaser and fired relentlessly into the body of the beast. Blood drenched her white suit and splattered over her IA emblem and visor. She screamed with every bash, anger and fear seeping out of her with every swing.
But the pain and exhaustion began to take over Henry's body as his began to close.
With his vision blurred, he saw was Rachel turning to Henry and breaking off the spears that pinned the doctor to the wall.
"H-HENRY!" She pleaded "D-DON'T DIE!"
The last thing he saw was Rachel tearing open the first aid kit and spilling out tourniquets and bandages and painkillers on to the escape pod's floor.
"W-WE'LL GET TO POLUS TOGETHER!" She shrieked, tears running down her face.
The doctor's body went limp, and sounds began to quiet. He felt like it was the big sleep coming to take him to bed then and there.
Rachel hung her head in shame.
"I-i'm sorry I couldn't save you…"
The cadet's vision then turned towards the cockpit and a blinding light entered her view. It was a drop-ship with the IA logo it with a tractor beam gun attached to the front. It grabbed the escape pod and began dragging it to it's home base.
Exhausted, covered in blood and in foam, but extremely relieved; Rachel flopped onto the floor of the escape pod with the blissful knowledge of knowing that whatever had happened to her, it was all over.
