Chapter 4: Law of the Jungle
Jack continued to run for his life, still aware of the several deadly threats directly behind him. Taking a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw two of the several Facehuggers coming around the corner. Then, to his horror, the lights went out. Unable to see, he crashed into a wall. As he was holding his bleeding forehead, the lights came back on, revealing that he was beside one of the sliding doors on the ship.
Realizing his luck, he quickly typed in the code on the nearby monitor, causing the door to slide upward. Hurrying inside, he then quickly shut the door just as one of the Facehuggers leaped, causing it to smash into the glass window.
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Within the animal containment zone, in the Alpha Sector, one of the more deadly predators had begun to stir. When the power had gone out, the tubes sending it a flow of sedetives shut down, and had now fallen uselessly to the floor, a few still squirting a few ounces of the sleep-inducing liquid.
For a moment their was silence, the great beast regaining consciousness as its eyelids slowly opened. For several seconds it stared forward, looking through the glass into the outside, and then with a roar, it slammed itself against the glass, cracking it. Rearing backwards, it slammed forward once more, cracking the glass enough so that a few shards fell. Finally, it slammed its body forward, completely shattering the glass wall...it was free...but it was not the only one.
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The freezer door began to shake a bit, as if something was hitting against it. The shaking intensified as whatever was behind it began to ram the door with more force. After a few moments of the barrage, one of the hinges snapped off, followed by the other one. With one final push, the door fell forward, revealing its contents.
The freezer floor was covered in blood and the bodies of both dead crewman, their chests opened from the inside, and the molted skins of young Xenomorphs. As the light within the freezer went out, almost instantly did a pair of adult Xenomorphs rush out, snarling, followed by several others.
The pack of Xenomorphs moved forward, bypassing the remains of Carl and Grant without giving a moments notice. They soon approached the end of the hallway, which divided into two more. After stopping for a moment, the pack split in two and headed in both directions.
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The young Xenoraptor continued to feed on its kill when it suddenly froze. Its senses were picking up something...multiple somethings that were headed in its direction. Crawling forward, it looked into the hallway. A human rushed past it, startling the young queen, but not as much as when eight Xenomorphs rushed by it as well. Within moments the Xenomorphs overtook the crewman, one of them leaping skyward and landing onto his back, after which his screams were quickly silenced as blood splattered the walls. As the Xenomorphs began to feed noisily upon his remains, the queen moved forward.
As it wearily strode forth, one of the Xenomorphs stopped and looked up. For a moment it stared at the newcomer before letting out a shriek and charging. The Xenoraptor, sensing imminent danger, quickly fled as the other Xenomorphs took pursuit as well.
The Xenoraptor managed to keep the lead by about several feet, but even it knew it couldn't hold it for long. As its pursuers came closer, the young queen burst blindly around a corner and past a hallway. As the Xenomorphs passed by the hallway, a stream of bullets tore through the leader of the pack. The other Xenomorphs stopped suddenly, then turned on the two guards at the end of the hallway.
Seeing that it was no longer their priority, the young female quickly scampered into the shadows, quickly vanishing into the darkness.
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A group of armed guards made their way through the animal containment zone, the team consisting of Daniel, Anderson, and Jonathan. As they made their way forward, they saw that most of the cages around them had been shattered, and the blood and carcasses of several different specimens littered the ground. As they rounded a corner, they froze as they saw the tail of some massive serpent-like beast vanish around a hallway. Anderson said, in a low voice, "Don't tell me it got out...dang systems must have shut down...we better go the other way." and then motioned for the opposite hallway.
As they charged down it, they suddenly saw something swoop down, and only just managed to hit the floor in time as the Bioraptor fly overhead. Daniel quickly rose along with Jonathan, and both opened fire, tearing the beasts left wing to shreds and putting several bullets in its skull. The creature quickly struck the ground with bone-breaking force, and let out short gasps as the trio left.
As this happened, the vent above it gave way, and the Facehugger from before dropped out. The spider-like creature sensed the nearby host, and then moved in on it.
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Jack grabbed activated the nearby telescreen, and quickly made contact with the ship's captain. Telling him of the situation, the captain activated the "hibernating" crewman. In the 2nd sector of the ship, dozens of tubes, each and everyone of them containing a human, began to activate, waking up the person within them. The humans were quickly armed and armored, with five of them given the ships only powered combat suits. These heavily armored soldiers grabbed their plasma rifles and headed out.
As the other guards began to make fortifications and form small search parties, the five super soldiers, code named Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, moved toward the animal containment zone in order to secure it. The team made their way forward, passing through the ships power core before reaching their destination.
They lowered their weapons as they heard the sounds of something heading their way. They moved slowly around the corner, where they saw a large Borhek. The creature was nudging the corpse of a guard when it stopped and looked up at them. With a roar, it charged them, its armored exoskeleton deflecting the plasma bolts. Alpha leaped to the side as his attacker skidded past him, his eyes narrowing at it from behind his visor as he prepared to open fire once again...