Chapter 7

Ensign Elijah Ralek rushed down the corridor, trying to catch the turbolift before the doors closed. Unfortunately, he failed, and was forced to stop before he slammed into the doors. He sighed, and debated on whether he should wait for the turbolift to return or try to catch another one nearby.

Suddenly, a flash of movement caught the corner of his eye. He turned towards it but there was nothing there. He turned back to the turbolift, but then he heard a hissing sound coming from behind him. He spun around and saw a creature standing behind him. It was about two and a half meters long, although it seemed to be missing a large segment of its tail. The creature suddenly leaped forward, but Ralek ducked at the last second. The creature slammed into the turbolift doors, falling to the deck with a loud screech. Ralek backed away and pulled out his hold-out blaster. The creature leapt at him again, just as Ralek was aiming. This time it hit him square in the chest, landing on top of him. Ralek squirmed, trying to get free, but the creature was too heavy. The creature opened its jaws, revealing a second set inside its mouth.

Just as the creature was about to strike, Ralek's foot managed to catch on one of the creature's legs, causing it to lose its balance, allowing him to push it off just as its secondary jaws pistoned toward him stopping just short of his face. Ralek saw his blaster lying on the deckplate a few feet to the left. He quickly grabbed it and aimed at the creature, which was preparing to once again charge at him. He fired, but his aim was slightly off, and instead of directly blasting the creature, the blast went to the right, grazing the creature, and the creature stopped, staring at him, despite its apparent lack of eyes. This only lasted for an instant, as the creature turned around and bolted down the corridor, quickly disappearing at the nearest intersection. Ralek considered giving chase, but decided not to as he had little chance of actually catching it on foot. Instead he went to the nearest com panel.

Othune paced across the bridge, trying to come to a conclusion as to what the next course of action should be. If he was right and ISB had a vested interest in the creature, then he could be punished severely, but allowing such a creature free reign of his ship would get him in trouble with the admiralty, which could ruin his career. Eventually, he stopped.

"Tell maintenance to go ahead with the schedule change," he ordered

The security officer went to a com panel. After a few seconds he returned.

"Maintenance reports a breach in one of the compactors, sir. Also, a report just came in from and Ensign Ralek, apparently he had an encounter with an unknown creature."

"Where?"

"Deck 23 sir."

"Seal off that deck and send in a squad of stormtroopers. It's time we are rid of this menace once and for all." Othune ordered. "Tell them to contact me when they have results, I'll be in my office."

Very good, Sir.

The ISB agent flicked through different security camera feeds searching for the xenomorph. Suddenly a flashing light alerted him to the fact that he was being contacted by his superiors. He quickly moved over to the receiver and activated it. The image of Colonel Wulmaw appeared.

"Report"

The xenomorph has emerged, for lack of a better term. It escaped through the trash compactor system, but unfortunately it seems to have disappeared for the time being. Also, another one of the facehugger forms has managed to find its way into my quarters, I managed to capture it though."

"Good work. And your other task?"

"I am considering using my new asset to that purpose sir"

"Very well. Make sure you do so quickly, and find the first, what was it, a xenomorph you said, and keep track of it, I want to know it's every movement."

"Yes Sir."

The image of Wulmaw disappeared, and as it did, the agent stood up, picked up the container and left.

Othune sat down in his chair, staring at the ceiling. He was starting to get a little overwhelmed with all this, and was hoping that it would all be over quickly. He was startled by the door chime activating.
"Come in," he said.

The door opened, revealing a man of average height and weight. He was carrying a container.

"What's this about?" Othune asked.

The man looked at the container before setting it down on Othune's desk. "Oh this, I was told to give this to you. It's from somebody down on Deck 37, they said it was about something that happened way back on some world, can't remember it for the life of me, but they said that you would understand."

"Ok then." Othune didn't remember that he knew anyone from his past experiences on the ship, but Star Destroyers were big after all. "Thank you."

"Oh, it was no trouble of all." The man got up to leave. "Have a good day Captain."

The man left, and Othune stared at the container. He opened it and stared at the contents.

"What the-"was the last thing he said before the facehugger leapt out and attached itself to his face.

The creature paused in the corridor. It had sensed that another of its kind was on this vessel, in this section, but it had moved for whatever reason, so the creature was pausing to get its bearings. It looked around some more and decided to travel upwards. Unfortunately it could hear that this was a heavily populated section of the ship, and if all of those people had weapons, it would make getting to its brethren problematic. It looked up again and noticed a ventilation grille directly above. It leaped up and grabbed onto the grille. The grille, unused to handling such weight promptly came out, fortunately, it was hinged, and so the creature was able to climb into the ventilation shaft with ease, shutting the grille to avoid suspicion. Just as it vanished, the agent appeared in the corridor and promptly vanished into his quarters.

The creature moved quickly through the vent shaft, and within minutes it was able to reach its goal. It looked down to see Othune slumped in his chair with the creature's objective on its face. The creature opened the grille, and reached down, but unfortunately, it was unable to reach Othune. It jumped down and grabbed Othune, delicately so as not to disturb the facehugger, and slung him up against its back spines. It then jumped back up to the grille, but was having a tough time getting through until it grabbed Othune and put him through first, then followed, again shutting the grille behind it.

The agent was watching Othune's office via security camera, to keep tabs on him, and was surprised to see the creature that had eluded him jump down into the office and remove Othune. He wondered how it had found him, but couldn't come up with a reason as to why it had. As the creature retreated back into the vent, he made a mental note to watch cameras that were near vent grilles, so that he would be able to keep track of the creature.

The security officer listened as the stormtrooper squad reported that they had not seen the creature anywhere on Deck 23 so far. He proceeded to Othune's office to tell him the bad news, but then thought better of it. After all this was sure to put Othune in a foul mood, and those never turned out well. He went back to the com panel, raised the squad and told them to recheck the entire deck. Best to be sure after all.