Disclaimer: Refer to Ch1.
Nothing changed. I'm still incorporating foul language. Rest will come in future chapters. This is kind of a slow developing story.
Chapter 2: Close Encounters
Joanna was pacing back and forth. She even made a few rounds around the Control Center, more specifically around the centrally positioned island that accommodated the large projection screen. She was getting anxious. It was impossible to contain herself and find a focal point for her thoughts. She was not one to sit still. The room was too quiet. The entire colony was too quiet.
From time to time Joanna could no longer contain her unease and she contacted the hangar and transport; Probably more often than she should. The brief update, however, was enough to provide an anchor to reform her focus. She just needed to hear something. No… she thought, not just something. She needed to hear another person still out there. She was not left alone for very long and she was by no means a social butterfly, but this entire place just had an eerie feel to it. Hearing another's voice gave her overzealous mind an affirmation that neither this distant colony nor the facility itself was part of some deep space Bermuda Triangle.
No word came from Weiss on what's going on or if they even got to engineering, but she did not want to contact them. Weiss always said that he's the Captain and he will radio out when he has to. Also, as for being the Captain it was his business on what's going on and where. So she was actually surprised that he has not verified her status, especially after what happened. Come to think of it, this schmuck didn't verify the status of the hangar or the transport either. It's been 30 minutes now.
Once again, she glanced at the monitor located in the center of the large control room. On it she could see all the implants of the colonists. The implant was a tracking device. The colony wasn't safe proof and experienced some casualties. At the very beginning a few workers disappeared while putting up the foundations. It was presumed that those workers wondered too far from the living facilities, got lost and ran out of oxygen. This of course was before the atmosphere processors started operations. Weyland Co. organized a search party, but gave up quickly. Casualties in new ventures were not uncommon, and LH 742 was by no means safe. The sandstorms claimed a life of an engineer a few years after the workers' incident. The sandstorms often came unannounced surprising those working outside. That's when Weyland Co. decided to invest in tracking implants. In such a small and far-off colony good engineers were priced higher than gold. Since the population of the Peninsula was small, the Company decided to implant everyone.
Joanna glanced down at the computer screen again observing the implants indicators. All gathered in one place, like a monitor chicken pox.
"Why are they all were gathered in engineering?" she said out loud
"What's so bloody important that is going on in engineering?"
"And why there is no one left to monitor the airstrip?"
This might be a small colony, but the procedure states that there has to be at least one person in the control room at all time; unless the individual really needed to take a leak. From the time span she was in the control room she deducted that whoever was to be here was gone for quite a while. This piss break would have to have included a bath. Not to mention the fact that the adjacent sani-room was empty. Maybe the nasties had something to do with it. Maybe this person is sitting in some corner trying to pry-off a wave of up close and personal friendliness. If the person had no head gear he/she would probably suffocate or have their face eaten by acid.
"Thisss…place…isss…doown…right…freakyyyy" she mumbled staring.
Joanna was not planning on gathering any samples. She did not want to even touch any the dead scorpion creatures. Not that any plastic container from the pantry would remain in tact after the creature's blood would come to contact with it. So, since she was not doing anything that required immediate attention, Joanna decided to snoop around a bit. She sat at the data terminal in the back left corner near the pantry room door, and started looking in whatever was available for viewing. She tried examining personnel records. Course most personnel records were... well ...personal so no way getting into those. Some were coded, but as she often said: "if there's a way there is a mean" or "where there's a will there's a way" or was it "where there's a way there is a will" ... well... will ... way...whatever...she summed up after locating some idiot's pass codes scribbled on a piece of paper and shoved under the keyboard. Humanity managed to conquer space travel, but an individual could not remember a six digit pass code. Some things never change.
"Here we go!" said the Lieutenant looking at the vocational listings. In the quick research she found that 52 colonist were employed at the purification station, 10 in engineering, 6 in agriculture, 7 in the mess, 16 in other various functions necessary to run this facility. In addition, there were 23 children of various ages; part of the colonies family program. The total number reached 114 individuals. "hmm... this really is a small colony".
Most colonies housed from 300 and even often over 5,000 colonists. There were some that were bigger. This one, however, was new and very far from any other outposts. Smaller colonies usually sat on various planets or satellites in a cluster making it easy to travel and exchange goods and services. Since this one was to break new ground, it did not have that kind of luxury.
She walked back to the center-projector and determined that the count in engineering did not exactly match, but it was quite close to a full house. For such a small colony maybe they were having a surprise birthday party. Except that all colonies were run by some brown nose prick with a superiority complex, and those assholes were always workaholics without a fun bone in their body. So the birthday bash seamed unlikely.
Oh! What she would do for a piece of cake. Joanna's mind wondered. She always had a hard time centering her attention
She looked at the monitor again and noticed that none of the colonist moved. They weren't moving at all. She could understand maybe some not moving, but none for the last 30 minutes. There had to be children in there and apparently it would mean they did not move either. Remembering her cousin's six year old son, or as she liked to call him 'devil's spawn', stealth was quite atypical of children.
"...well that can't be good". She pulled the com from her belt and decided that with this piece of info she is not waiting for Weiss. "Weiss, this is Keizer can you hear me ..."..."..."Weiss? This is Lieutenant Keizer, please respond..."... "Captain ..."
Weiss's com interrupted any more of her calling "Keizer, halemary do you haveto yammer like that". "This place is all …. I don't even know how to describe it. It seems the further we go, in the weirder it gets. Whatcha want. I donn't haave time for this. You breakin radio silence".
"Captain I think you should know that since you left none of the colonist have moved … I believe they might be dead in there or maybe just knocked unconscious, and the fact that they are all gathered in one place to take a nap only means that whom ever gets inside joins the party and maybe you shouldn't go in there" she caught her breath after getting all that out in one gulp of air, but she knew if she would take a break to inhale her Captain would stop her tirade and wouldn't want to listen to any more.
Something wasn't right by any means and her self-preservation mode just kicked in. Just as she spilled those words out she heard a hiss. She picked her eyes up from the terminal and looked ahead at the door through which just forty minutes ago the rest of her team left. Joanna's eyes opened wide, jaw dropped and she could not dare to make a move. She felt like this must be some nightmare or joke or a really creative drug induced hallucination...
In front of her, just about seventy feet away, stood a black, ugly bug. A large fucking mutated bug. It moved its elongated head left to right, its lips curved backwards, exposing large teeth as if tasting the air. It spiked tail was twirling mischievously behind it. She did not see any eyes and that might be why it did not yet make a move. Maybe, Joanna thought to herself, she is judging this creature wrong, maybe she shouldn't judge the book by its cover. Maybe this ugly demon here isn't so bad and does not have the intentions to...
"Keizer ... the colonist are all here and you ..." the sound of gun fire cut Weiss's voice and then the comm. went quite. But the short contact has alerted the new intruder at the door of her presence or maybe just her whereabouts. It faced her square on, pulled its lips back, hissed and charged strait for her. Seeing the monstrosity, clearly larger than her, with undoubtedly not lovable intention head her way, she snapped out of her haze and ran for the security room. Guns forgotten, the only tunes playing in her mind right was…run .. run...run... run run RUN...
She noticed the security room located by the same wall as the entrance door when she and her team first arrived. Some might say she was a coward, but in Joanna's opinion, she was alive. And, she liked it that way. In her view heroes don't have a very long life. And they definitely didn't if they were 5.5 and 120 pounds. So the golden rule was; know your exits and safe zones, get there and wait for all hell to blow over. That safe zone was in the direction of her intruder, but much closer to her and her first instinct was that she can outrun it, get to the room, lock herself in, do a little dance, flip the bird at the marauder and wait inside until it gets bored and goes away. The double bulletproof large window would allow this black nightmare to witness all of it. Except it had no eyes, but the happy display was more for her psychological benefit rather than an attempt at a taunt anyway.
Her plans had to be adjusted for few reasons. Mostly, because this freak of nature was faster than Lieutenant anticipated and as she jump-rolled into the room, it was right on her heel. It slashed its claws through the back of her overcoat barley missing her skin. Joanna rolled to her feet realizing she can't close herself off in the safety zone, making it tomb. She crawled under the center table that occupied most of the small space. Crawling from under it on the other side, she picked the small table while getting back to her feet, flipping the table backwards. This furniture piece was not very heavy due to its aluminum frame, but when it hit the large bug it made it stagger backwards. The small compartment and the table was more of a nuisance to the intruder rather than cause any damage or pain, but it did give Joanna enough time to realize the room had another door on the other side. Thankfully that door was open as well and the soldier ran out through it and closed it behind her. She ran around the security room to the door they originally came through and locked that from outside as well. Joanna finally allowed herself to let go of the breath she was holding. She came to the window and the bug hit the glass with its inner jaw, trying to break through.
"... my my my what big teeth you have ..." Joanna smirked
"who's the boss now bitch? This ain't gonna work. You're not getting out through the glass. Look at you!" Joanna yelled out a little relived and still pumped on adrenalin.
"See we could have been buddies. I've had nothing against you. I had nooooooo reservations. I gave you the benefit of a doubt, but you had to go all postal. I'm very understanding and open minded, but noooooooo apparently the book is the cover in your case"
The stress level made her babble and Joanna wanted to moon the thing, but her suite was too complicated to do it in any effective manner. She stuck to her original plan of flipping the bird and exposing her tongue like a three year old. While she did that she heard another hiss not too far away.