Acheron Chapter 13 – And Whosoever Should Be Found
A/N- So that everyone is up to date on the count, we have the queen and the one drone that came from Mr. Jorden. Then a mix of warriors and drones that came from the ten cows, plus the one that came from Bridget's corpse, so thirteen in total at the end of the last chapter. Warriors are distinguished at first glance from drones by the ridges on the domes of their heads, drones have smooth dooms. Warriors are also built for quick agile movements with a tougher exoskeleton then a drone, making them harder to kill and quicker at the hunt.
As they all ran down the narrow corridor from the Processing Plant to the colony itself they could hear a loud series of bangs coming from the direction they had just came from. Marie opens a channel to operations, as her and Kevin brought up the rear of the group, "Ops, come in ops, this is Sgt. Kanker, put the colony on lock down, I repeat, put the colony on lock down."
The Major gets on the line, "What seems to be the problem Sgt.? I thought you had this thing nipped in the bud by now."
"Sir, recall all personal and close all external hatches, there are more of those things here than we originally thought."
"How's that possible, there aren't any of those eggs down here, and you said you closed off all access to the eggs at the crash site."
The front of the group had reached the colonies pressure door for the service tunnel and were bottle necking to get through, the banging at the other end had stopped, or they were just unable to hear it anymore. "It would be safe to assume that the creatures, growing as fast as they do, waste no time reproducing, and that one or maybe all of them are laying these eggs."
The Major took this new development in and breathed out an inaudible swear word, "Alright you've got two minutes."
A female computerized voice came over the intercoms as yellow strobe lights began to flash, "Emergency, lock down is in progress, you now have two minutes before all bulk heads seal."
The last of the colonist finally got through the pressure door and Kevin and Marie guarded it until it closed. As the remainder of the security team and a few able bodied personal spreads out to make sure that all the major openings were guarded so that nothing could get into the complex. The computerized voice started to count down the last ten seconds, and on zero the bulk heads, pressure doors and metal shutters all closed shut. Everyone let out a momentary sigh of relief, as now there was at least ten inches of metal between them and those things.
Kevin and Marie headed to operations, quickly followed by Ang, Nat, Ed and a few others. Ang storming into the room past Marie, pulling back her hand she smacks the major across the face, causing his head to jerk to the side with the impact. Tears of rage and lose threatening to spill forth as she stared the man down, "Sgt. Remove this woman," the Major called out as he massaged his jaw.
Taking Ang by the shoulders she guides her away from the Major, "It's alright Ang," then turns herself and decks him herself.
"God, damn it will you all stop doing that."
"Ten cows go missing and you don't tell us, what are you some sort of idiot?"
"I didn't," he starts.
"The thing comes out of other living things and you have cows missing, but you couldn't put it together," she shakes her head then looks at Ang, calling her name a few times to get her attention, "How many cows did we have out there."
"Um," she was still reeling from the shock of seeing Sy get taken right in front of her, "Thirty I think."
"That means there are twenty left," she pondered for a moment, "Lumpy, Nat, get a team of twenty together and get rid of the rest of the cattle."
Ed gives her a salute as Nat walks toward the door saying, "Looks like it's steak tonight." Passing off the backpack that contained the sample for Edd over to Kevin, "Give that to your boy," then walks out of the door and down the corridor.
Marie looked to one of the officers at the control desk, "How many people did we lose?"
"Who do you think you are giving orders to my people?" The Major spoke angrily and motioned wildly to the ops crew.
"The woman in charge since you've proven to incompetent to do the job," she walks over to him boldly forcing him to walk backwards. "Arrest me if you must, but until this is all over, sit down and shut up," and she pushes him into a chair.
Turning back to the crewman she motions with her hands telling him she was waiting for the information, "Eighteen life signs are either flatlined or barely there, Ma'am."
Eighteen more potential host she thought, let us just hope they didn't get any more of the cattle. The door slides open behind them and Edd walks in clearly warn out, this day has turned out to be a long one. Marie asks him with stress in her voice, "Do you have any good news for us doctor?"
"The first operation was a success as far as we can tell now, however we will continue to monitor the patient for any signs of growth." He crumbles into a seat next to Ang, "The other two patients are another story, the parasites have already detached and died, and the growths in their chest are well on their way."
"So, there is no hope for them?" Kevin asks from behind him.
"The doctor is in the process of removing the organism from them, but it's the secondary growths that concern us." Turning to Ang he asks, "Were you able to find any of the medicine we requested?"
She thought for a moment recalling her communications with her smuggler friends, "Yes there is one guy who has some, he said he should be able to get here within two days."
"Good, I don't think they could have survived waiting on the Major's delivery to get here,"
"Why," Ang asks softly, her thoughts were on the fact that what these men were facing Sy was also going through right now, but without any help to stop it.
"When I was of no more use to the doctor in an advisory sense, and being no help at all surgically, I went to go study Mr. Jorden's corpse once again." Edd placed his fingers to his temple to massage them, as though thinking right now was hurting him, "It struck me as odd that the growth was still expanding in him even though he was dead and the creature was no longer inside of him. When I opened the cooler in the morgue what I found astonished me, a root like structure was now growing out of his back like it was trying to attach to something. When I did a quick scan of the corpse I found that the growth was now slowly digesting him and sending the nutrients through these roots."
Kevin stands and drops the bag on the table sliding the contents out upon it, "Could this be what it was trying to attach itself to?"
Edd looks at the decent sized specimen on the table, it was a transparent substance, allowing him to see through it, "It looks like it has vessels inside of it, whether they are transporting the nutrients along to some point is unknown, without further study."
"That's very educational doctor, but can it tell you anything useful about the creature," Marie was noticeably frustrated as she tapped out a cigarette from its pack, "Like how best to kill those sons of bitches."
"Unfortunately, no."
Marie lights the cigarette and takes a drag off it and blows the smoke out in his direction, "Then I would suggest redirecting your efforts there," she makes a mock face of surprise, "Or haven't you heard, we're well on our way to being overrun by those bastards."
"I'll get right on that," he stands and turns to head out of the door.
Kevin stops him with a hand grabbing his forearm and looks at him imploringly, "Edd, you need some rest, at least get something to eat."
"I'll be fine," he replied with a look of determination upon his face.
"No doctor, do what your husband says and get some sleep, we need you thinking straight." She then looks at the rest of them, "And I would suggest that everyone else do the same, we'll be setting up an hourly rotation for guard duty. If there are no more concerns, please pass the word on to your neighbors, and I will see you all tomorrow." As the room slowly cleared she received a call over the coms, putting on the headset at the control panel, she responds, "This is the Sgt. go ahead."
"Yeah, boss lady," Nat answered, "We can't get out to the pins from this hatch, they were waiting for us in ambush and they nearly took Big Ed's head off. Could you perhaps do us the favor of checking the other hatches for us."
"Wait one," she punches up the outside camera's and looked around the hatches, sure enough there were two of them at each of the four hatches, watching the entry ways intently. Turning the angel of the camera she looks in the direction of the pens, where another four creatures were busy emptying it of the remaining cattle. "That's a negative Nat, they have guards at each entrance, and as soon as you engage them, they would all be on you within minutes."
"Great so we're trapped like rats in our own home," he replied in exasperated tone.
"Nat."
"Yes ma'am."
"Split your team up and post guards at each hatch, and four sets of three patrolling the halls, then I want you to come to me in forty-five minutes for a roster of the next six shifts."
"Yes ma'am, will do"