Acheron Chapter 17 -The Foulest Stench is in the Air

With the supplies in hand the plan that Kevin and Marie had devised was put into motion. Thought they would like to, they could not seal off the air ducts to the area they were occupying. Since the facility was meant to be air tight, and each room a safe haven in case of a hull breach, they would be doing nothing more than cutting off their own oxygen supply. Barricades were ordered to be erected in the main corridors of the second and first floor, but to leave one entry point unblocked in case they needed to send more people out for supplies. The food they had gotten was a decent amount, but would not feed them all for long, and to close themselves off totally would only ensure their starvation. Survey charges were placed along this corridor, to be remotely detonated in case of attack from this direction, along with ten guards posted to stand sentry at all times.

By this time everyone was exhausted from lack of sleep and their fear of an impending attack from the creatures. But still they persevered, lifting and moving heavy furniture from nearby offices and homes to block up the corridors, welding the barracked together as best they could to reinforce the structure, hoping it would hold up against an assault. Hoping to force the creature into the mined chock point on the lower level. It took them almost three hours to complete the project with everyone's help, as the children slept peacefully in a room tat adjoined operations, the furthest one from the corridor, to ensure that the noise wouldn't wake them.

With their fortifications up, the majority of the colonist tried once again to find a comfortable spot on the floor to catch a few more hours of sleep, for exhaustion would not help their odes when it came time to fight. Parents lay with their children, lovers side by side. With the unknown looming over their heads, everyone was trying to get those last moments of bonding and affection before the inevitable storm hit, but all were still holding out hope that a rescue ship was on it's way.

"Do you need anything else?" Kevin asked as he rubbed his eyes, sleep beckoning him to join Edd on the floor, "If not I'm going to go catch some Z's."

"You do that," Marie answered him flatly.

"How long has it been since you've slept?"

"I'm fine, I can last a little longer," she took a sip of her coffee and tried to double check that they had all their bases covered.

"Get some rest while you can, we can't have you falling out on us when we need you the most." Stepping away he calls out, "Well goodnight," over his shoulder and made his way over to Edd who was cuddling up with Kipper in a corner of the of the room next to the dog carrier.

Shimming his way behind the man he loved, he wrapped his arm around him, giving the dog a gentle pet on the head when he lifted his head to look at him. Rolling over Edd groans into his chest, "My head hurts."

"It's from the exhaustion," he gently massages the back of his neck, "Get some sleep and you'll feel better."

Sitting up he rubs his temples, "I'm going to see if Nazz has any aspirin she can spare."

He pulls the dog in close to him as Edd stood up, "Ok, I'll be right here," and watched as Edd walked away, petting Kipper between the ears to make sure he didn't try and follow Edd out the door.

Entering the med lab through the adjoining door in operations Edd could hear a conversation that Dr. Van Bartonschmeer was having with someone. The voice that was replying to her seemed digitized, telling him she was having a long-distance communication with someone. At first, he didn't want to interrupt her or eavesdrop on the conversation, but it was the nature of what she was saying that caught his attention. "The species is exactly what you were looking for Mr. Burke, aggressive, intelligent, and most importantly easily deployable. With just one egg you can take out an entire colony in a matter of days, nuke the site to clear the infestation and claim disaster."

"Good, how soon before the rest of the colonist are infected, do you think?"

"Twenty-four hours at most sir."

"And your certain the creatures will ignore your presence?"

"I am ninety-five percent sure that I will go unnoticed as long as I am not perceived as a threat," Edd peeks around the corner with his back against the wall to see her looking down at the console. "They only seem to be interested in organic life they can impregnate."

"Alright, make sure you stay under their radar, keep the samples you have ready for extraction, we should be there within two months to retrieve them, Burke out."

The light that was reflecting off her face goes off, letting Edd know that the screen had gone black, "I hope you heard all that you needed to Doctor," Nazz said as she looked up from the console.

Edd's heart started to beat rapidly in his chest now that he was discovered, "I did," he called out from his hiding place.

"Good, we wouldn't want you to be misinformed about anything," her voice still sounded far away from him.

"You know they will never let you get away with this," he took a step toward the door to operations, sliding against the wall.

"They will never find out," she whispered in his ear, holy shit how did she get so close so quickly without making a sound. With lightning speed she grabs him by the neck, he was surprised by the force in which she was holding him with, struggling in vain against her grip. She lifts him off his feet and throws him into the room with one arm, slamming his back against the desk, "They will think that you came in here looking for whatever it was you needed, tripped over your own feet and fell, hitting your head against the counter, dying instantly." He coughed as he tried to bring air back into his lungs as she walked toward him, "One of the side effects of exhaustion is the loss of balance and coordination."

She leans down and picks him up off the floor with one hand, "You're insane," he bellows as he is lifted off of his feet easily.

"I will be so grief stricken, having watched a dear college of mine die right in front of me, I wonder if Kevin and I will console each other before the end," she smirks devilishly at him.

"You fucking bitch," Edd kicked and swung at her wildly with no affect, she reaches up with her other hand to turn him around to face the desk.

"Say goodnight Doctor," he felt her pulling him backward, reading to slam his face against the edge of the counter. A war cry came from behind them and draws her attention, turning her head she only catches a glimpse of the fire extinguisher that slammed against her face. She drops Edd to the floor as she tumbles to the ground, unnatural mechanical sounds emanating from her body as she convulsed on the floor, a spirt of white liquid shooting out of the wound on her head.

The body righted itself and begins to get up once again, her head turned in an unnatural way, she lunges toward him and another blow to the head with the fire extinguisher sending her to the floor again. Kevin continued his assault on the android until it stopped moving and laid still upon the floor. Collapsing beside Edd, his breathing was labored, he wastes no time to turn toward him to begin checking him for injuries, "You alright?"

"No serious damage was done," he replied as he rubbed his neck where she had gripped him.

Hearing the commotion of Kevin's relentless assault upon the machine through the air ducts, Marie and several others come running into the med lab. Stopping in their tracks once they saw the body on the floor in a pool of white ooze, "What the fuck happened?"

"She was trying to kill Edd," Kevin replied as he comforted his love.

Edd coughed a few times as he was trying to get the sting out of his throat, "The company knows everything, she's been in communication with them this whole time." He paused as he breathed in a few more times, "There is no help coming for us, they only want the creatures and won't come till we're all dead."

Marie was skeptical, hell who wouldn't be when you find out that your employer wants you dead for a little profit, "How do you know all this?"

"I overheard her conversation with some corporate flunky, that's why she tried to kill me, to keep it a secret."

Marie collapses in a nearby chair, her hopes that even though the woman she had talked to before had been a complete bitch to her, that help was on the way. Now the reality of it all was sinking in and all she could say was, "Shit."

"You got to be joking, there's no way they would just leave us here to die," Mrs. Jorden said as she stood by Marie.

"Perhaps you don't get it," Kevin said roughly, "But they don't give two shits about us."

"We're nothing more than a petri dish to them," Edd added and stood going to the console to try and unlock Nazz's files, to see the extent of how fucked they really were.

Marie stands a moment later and joins him, using her security code to override the password encrypting her files. Inside detailed all that the company had ordered Nazz to do, she was to ensure that the beast was born, study and report back her findings, make sure the colony did not survive the assault, collect and preserve a sample at all cost. "Mother fuckers," Marie screamed as the proof of what they were doing was now before her eyes, when Burke arrived at the facility two months later his first priority was to wipe those files clean.

Running back into operations, Marie pulled up the long-range communications program and selected the emergency channel, only to get the message that no connection was available. Trying a standard channel, she got the same message, as with the next one and the next, they had been effectively cut off from the rest of the universe by those greedy sons of bitches. Left to rot on this god forsaken rock in the ass end of space, with no way to even get ahold of any nearby ships for assistance.

A/N- Military vessels move at a fast speed then commercial vessels, a cargo ship will take ten months to reach LV426 from earth but a military vessel can make it in two.