CHAPTER 10

June 25th, 2179. Operations center, E Block, Hadley's Hope colony, LV-426

Mary was in shock, she had seen the monster face to face as she tried to save fellow colonist Breckenridge. Everyone else in Operations center had disbelief faces, they heard as Marshal Wilson told them how the beast had snatched Breck and surely Ramírez and Baker, the creature they had been chasing had growth into an eight feet, armored beast with sharp claws and a long segmented tail ending in a sharp stinger.

-"I told you, I shot point blank the bastard and it did nothing." Wilson told Al Simpson, who asked why the marshal hadn't killed the creature. "The burst simply bounced on the creature's carapace, and the few which hurt it spurted acid over me… Auch, be careful Honey."

-"Stay still, Wilson. This will leave a scar" Sandra Archer, the paramedic, applied antiseptic and patched the burnt on the Marshal's cheek.

-"Really? Well, that's another thing for which I will take revenge on that bastard." Wilson said.

-"How? How can we kill that beast, Wilson?" Mary intervened, finally the mild sedative that Dr. Kent injected her began to take effect and the woman stopped shaking. "Shotgun shells didn't do anything, even at point blank. The rest of the weapons are .357 revolvers and hunting rifles, maybe a .30"

-"I have something special, my old M41A, just got a bunch of armor piercing rounds, but that would be enough to kill the motherfucker."

-"Whoa, whoa, just make sure not to fire in any critical system" Lidecker exclaimed. The company employee was a cautious man; the last thing he wanted was a bullet rupturing a gas pipe or one of the colonists shot by lost bullets. "Zeta2 Reticuli still interferes with communications; it'll be two or three hours more 'till we send a message to Earth."

-"Let's try not to cause unnecessary panic, so that the staff stays in block A and D until we manage to kill the creature. For the moment we must assume that it is still in the sub-basement, but we can close the corridors and isolate it from the general population." Simpson proposed, as Administrator he was a reasonable man, to him, first was the colonist's safety.

-"Ok, let's move, people" Wilson herded the personnel. Mary didn't move. "C'mon Mary"

-"I… I'll escort Anne and her kids back to D-Block; they're at the morgue… with Russ." She said, and walked towards the hallway, the Morgue was in front of Medical, Dr. Kent had placed Russ' body there after he had finished the autopsy report.

-"I'll go with you" The Doctor said.

- o –

Newt sobbed again, she can't still believe her daddy was dead. On her short life she had only one encounter with death, when one of the hamsters she had as a pet died and his father had explained that death was something very natural, something that happened and that there was no need to be sad or afraid. Of course "Mr. Jingles" was only a pet and had died from old age… for a hamster. It didn't die with its chest burst open by a monster. To Newt, that wasn't natural or something not to be frightened.

Anne Jorden didn't want her kids on the morgue, she had told them to go back to the apartment, but the children refused to move from there, so Anne chose to put the body inside one of the cabinets, so that her children would not see the red stain that stretched across the white sheet. Over the place were Russ' chest had been.

-"Do you believe Marshal Wilson will kill that thing, mom?" Newt asked.

-"Yes, Newt. If someone can, it's him" Anne tried her best to comfort her child and hide the horror she felt.

-"He's a marine, Rebecca, of course he can" Timmy exclaimed, but the girl's mood did not improve.

-"'Name's Newt" she said.

The Morgue's door opened with a hiss and Dr. Kent entered, followed by Mary Coles.

-"I'm sorry Anne, but you have to leave." He said, "We need you and your kids get to D-Block, and seal the doors"

-"Why? What happened?" Anne noticed the horror expression and the small red spots on Mary's face.

-"Better not tell you in front of the kids" Mary responded. "C'mon, we're moving non-essential personnel to D-Block"

Anne hurried the kids to leave the morgue, they went down the main corridor to the north access, from there the door opened and they entered the main corridor towards A-Block, where the apartments were. The main corridor was about hundred meters north, passing through B-block, where the offices were and about halfway along the route, it had an intersection to the east, which led to D-block, the recreational area and community center.

Holding her mother's hand, Newt saw other colonists head towards the community center too. Some of them were complaining to Al Simpson. The administrator tried to explain the situation, as they passed the Marshal's office, in B-Block, the discussion went on when Wilson came out carrying his M41A rifle.

-"What's happening, Al?" a worried colonist asked.

-"Just a security measure, the marshal will get the situation under control soon" Al replied, that didn't eased the protests. Wilson ignored them; he headed to the recreational area.

-"We had heard Russ Jorden is dead! Anne? Anne, what happened out there?" the wildcatter woman turned to Anne, having seen her. Anne didn't respond.

-"We'll inform you as soon as you're gathered in the auditory." Brad Lidecker intervened.

-"You and your damn company" another cursed.

The group arrived at the colony's community center. The pre-fabricated module housed the auditorium, which the colonists used as improvised cinema and town meeting place. A low platform stood before hundred chairs, most of the colonists were there already, while a few kids play in a corner.

-"Al right, gather around, please, gather around… We have a situation in hand, as some of you already know, six days ago we received a transmission from the Company were they order us to check an area in the Ilium Range. I've sent the Jorden's because it was near their claim area." Al Simpson announced, everyone turned to the administrator. After a pause, he continued "They'd found something, details from the survey drone and the tractor cameras show a ship of alien design, crashed in the mountains."

The lights in the community center turned off and a large screen displayed the feed from both, the survey drone and the tractor cameras. Through the dust and wind, a strange, horseshoe shaped object appeared. Murmurs filled the room, followed by questions from the colonists.

-"What is that thing? How long it was there? Did the company know it was there? How did we miss it?" some colonists asked at once.

-"For the moment, we don't have the answers." Lidecker intervened "As the orders and specific coordinates came from the company, we assume someone knew. We sent a message, but the answer will take two weeks, as all we know... But that's not all. Please, Genevieve, can you get the children to the next room?"

-"Come on kids, let's go." Genevieve Dione, the self-appointed teacher hurried the kids. Once they were out, Simpson continued.

-"What you're about to see was recorded by the drone, Russ' and Anne's cameras."

The screen showed the tiny craft flying through the curved hallways of the ship and then Russ walking in front of Anne inside the pilot's chamber. There were astonishment exclamations among the audience when the drone descended inside the ship's bowels, but when Russ's camera feed goes off and Anne hauled his unconscious body out of the ship, the colonists remained silent.

-"What was that thing?" A voice finally broke the silence. Dr. Mathew Kent stepped up the platform.

-"At first, we thought it was some kind of parasite… attaching to a host and draining him of nutrients. We couldn't take it away, since the body has an incredible defense mechanism, it has an acid comparable to carborane acid inside, Nurse Watkins resulted in third-degree burns on her hand and lost it, she's in induced comma now." As the Doctor exposed, feed from the Med-Lans cameras appeared on the screen.

-"What happened, then?" One technician from the office staff asked. "Did you manage to kill it?"

"It… it proved to be something else" the doctor's voice was paused. "It turns the thing put something inside Russ, and we… I… didn't realize until it was late."

The audience was quiet. Anne was holding back the horror and tears, for Kent it was harder to report what happened.

-"The creature is some kind of parasitoid organism, it use the human body for…" he searched the words "incubation. The resulting creature burst out of the victim, killing him"

Feed from the Med-Lab cameras shown the gruesome scene, some of the wildcatters let go out horror and disbelief expressions, a woman covered her mouth, her eyes widened as plates.

-"Where's that thing right now?! Are more of those things out there? Are we safe?" the colonist asked, obviously they were frightened, But the worst was yet to come.

-"That thing had growth fast" the Marshal intervened "It took Ramírez and Breckenridge down on the maintenance level. I'll go to kill it right now!" he cocked the pulse rifle and headed for the exit.

-"Meanwhile, we need all non-essential personnel here for protection, mainly kids." Simpson concluded "Anyone how had a gun; we need to constantly watch this block until the emergency is over.

- o –

The sensation of something wet on his face woke Breck. It was dark but little light filtered through a grate above. His head hurt and he felt eye pain, it was then that he realized that he was upside down, water… or something else dripped onto his chin and slid down his face to his forehead. A thick, black resin kept it glued to the wall of the small maintenance area. When he got used to the low light, he saw with horror that there were three lumps beside him: He recognized Baker's body beside him, still recognizable. It was wrapped in a kind of cocoon of the same material that held it, his body was almost completely turned into something resembling an exaggeratedly large football balloon; beyond that, he saw another of the strange ovoids, opened from the upper part and Baker's dog Rufus, hanging from the ceiling with a spider-like creature like the one he saw on the Med-Lab dead at its feet.

A slight hissing drew his attention to the other side of the cabin. There, crouched and waiting, was the beast that had caught him. A black gray monstrosity with an elongated head without eyes and a mouth full of strangely human teeth, but they glowed with a silver color. The smooth carapace which covered the head wasn't totally opaque; a strangely human-like skull was visible beneath it, watching Breck through the empty sockets.

Suddenly, Rufus start to howl, first in a labored way, then increasing in intensity and finally giving moans of agony as he writhed in the cocoon. Breck saw something pushing under the fur of the dog. Finally, in an explosion of blood and viscera, another of the infernal creatures, emerged from the animal, letting out a shuddering screech.

Breck realized the strange ovoid was what was left of Ramirez, turned into one of the eggs Russ had found inside that derelict ship, and Baker was in the process of becoming one too, one intended for the Terraforming engineer. He started to scream.

-"Heeeeelp! Heeelp meeee, please. I'm heeeere!" he cried over and over again.

The desperate calls for help continued until a second spidery creature attached to his face.

Hours later, while the colonists gathered in D-Block and Wilson was about to go down to kill the creature, a third monster was rising from Breckenridge's chest, and the nest became too small for the creatures, it was time to find a new place.

Using their superior senses, the leading creature detected the distant sound of machinery. It came from a dark tunnel at the end of a corridor. The pressure door was usually closed, but someone had left it open, the creatures entered following the noise. Soon they felt an increase in ambient temperature, a light and warm breeze coming from the tunnel.

It was wide, but the creatures who lived there didn't used often, as the beast detected the fain stench of stagnant air, crates were placed in carts at certain places as well as the occasional cargo vehicle parked inside. Finally they arrived at the end of the tunnel and the noise became stronger.

The place was a maze of pipes and catwalks; two levels beneath, the air was humid and warmth, something on the creatures' liking, they could make a new nest there. The tunnel would serve to bring prey quickly. They found the perfect place in a large room with a grid floor and large pipes running through the ceiling. A huge cylindrical tower in the back rose from floor to ceiling; it was the noise source, the pipes came into the cylinder from above and formed a spiral, coming out beneath the floor grid. The creatures noticed that the top was cold, while the bottom pipe gave off steam. It was the perfect place.

- o –

Hello readers, I'm back. First of all, sorry for the delay, a lot of things in mind and a lot of work, but finally this is a new chapter. There are two aliens now and you're right. One of them is a Runner! And yes, they had found the primary heat exchanger camera, beneath the Atmosphere processor. This was due to the creature's preferences for heat and humidity, more than strategy, but proved an effective defense. Don't forget to comment and Adios muchachos!