"Tom, we'll leave you here. Kra'tak's on the way with Heathers' team," Finley informed.
"I know. Get going." Tom replied.
Finley's broken nose was bandaged, and the others had been checked over and treated as necessary. Dena finished checking her ammunition as Shen readied himself. They both moved towards the exit in a hurry. Finley moved off only to be stopped by Tom's hand on his shoulder. Finley turned towards him with a questioning look upon his face.
"Try and keep this one alive. For our sake." Tom said sincerely.
Finley understood the tone of his voice, nodded, and gave a reassuring expression that told Tom he would do everything he could to keep it alive. A task they both knew would be highly unlikely to be successful.
Finley left as Tom sat in the medicentre and watched some of the staff go about their tasks. Just as soon as Finley left the room Keitaro entered from the opposite door. He spotted Tom and walked unsteadily over to him, using various objects as support to keep the spinning room from making him fall down.
"Hey Tom." Keitaro called out.
"How are you feeling?" Tom asked.
"Doc said I'll be fine in a couple of hours." Keitaro replied. He looked around the room, "Where's Finley and the others?"
"The other creature was just located in the library. They just left on. They're on their way there now." Tom replied.
"Hope they kill that damn thing." Keitaro said spitefully.
Tom didn't reply. He simply looked on in deep thought.
"What's on your mind?" Keitaro asked inquisitively.
"Too much," was Tom's answer.
Keitaro left him to his thoughts and went to talk to one of the doctors.
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Two separate teams of soldiers turned around opposite corners into the darkened hallway with the library entrance.
"Hold your fire!" each team leader yelled immediately.
Last thing needed now was crossfire. The soldiers lowered their guns slightly at the order whilst looking towards the library entrance. They all saw a blur shoot out of the entrance and towards one of the groups.
The group that the Predator was moving towards raised their guns and opened fire just as the group at the opposite end dived as one around the corner and out of the line of fire. Bullets pock marked the area the group had occupied moments before.
The Predator reached the group, not unscathed, and knocked three of them over with one big swing of its powerful arm. Their bodies were sent into the air, two of them slamming into the concrete wall. Helmets and weapons went in separate directions banging and clanging onto the floor. The fourth soldier began panicking as his three team mates lay unconscious nearby.
The Predator yanked the AM-232 rifle out of his hands and smashed it against the wall. The soldier cowered in panic and fear as the cloaked Predator moved past him and further into the corridor.
Another group of soldiers turned into the corridor that the Predator was now in but they were too late. The blur moved straight past them and headed in the direction they just came from. The group turned and ran to follow it.
"Situation." Adams called over the radio.
One of the soldiers on the chasing group answered.
"We're chasing it. It's heading towards the east stairs really fast," he spoke into the radio, breathing heavily.
"We'll cut it off." Adams replied over the radio.
Adams, Baseer and Knight had run full speed from the communications building all the way to the civilians building, almost on the opposite side of the base. They slowed as they reached the door to the civilians building.
Covering each other instinctively they entered the building quickly and purposefully. Adams had a good idea of where the creature would be going in order to exit the building from the east stairwell. The group moved as one towards that area.
The chasing group of soldiers were doing their best to follow the Predator but they lost it as it entered the stairwell long before they managed to reach them. Civilians came out of their rooms to see what was going on.
"Stay inside!" a soldier ordered as he ran past.
Meanwhile, the two teams who were at the library entrance were attending to themselves. Two of them were still unconscious while the third had woken up by himself. The panicked soldier was sitting with his back against a wall, still in a state of shock.
The team that had entered at the opposite end of that corridor split up. Two entered the library whilst the other two attended to the other team.
The two soldiers entering the library had to carefully step over what was left of Tyler and Joe. Blood and guts covered the immediate area around the entrance where they had been killed. The smell was already unmanageable. Nothing could be done for them. They moved on into the library to find that all inside were uninjured but in a state of shock, which was not surprising.
"Doran what happened?" Stephan asked him.
He just stared blankly back at her. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
"Listen to me Doran. What happened?" she asked again.
"I.I..It was just like the other one," he replied.
"The other one?" she asked confused.
"K.K..Kra'tak," Doran replied "It was l..l..looking for Kra'tak."
She gave the other soldier a questioning look to which he just shrugged. They went over to the children who were huddled close to the adults. They were all in shock but the adults were doing their best to calm the children down. Stephan decided to help calm them down and keep everyone away from the entrance.
She activated her radio and contacted the other members of the team.
"We need to get the entrance cleaned up ASAP" she informed them, "We can't leave that there for anyone to see, it'll make matters even worse."
"Understood, we'll be on it once we get these guys sorted out," came the reply over the radio.
"Adams, it's going up the stairs, not down," a soldier in the chasing group reported over the radio.
"Damn!" Adams said to himself, clicking his radio in acknowledgment.
"Let's move it, that stairwell leads to the roof," he told his group.
They picked up pace and ran towards the East stairs. Once there they could hear the chasing team up ahead. The building consisted of twelve floors, the chasing group were already on the sixth. They ran up the stairs, two at a time, trying to catch up with the now tiring chasing group.
The Predator made it to the top with the chasing group falling behind. They couldn't keep up pace with it. It tried to push open the door only to find it was locked shut. It then simply kicked the door open, smashing the lock in the process. The door itself was not designed to withstand anything, it was simply a means to access the roof.
"It's made it to the roof!" one of the chasing group shouted in defeat.
They reached the roof and exited cautiously, weapons ready. They looked all around the roof for any signs of the creature. They all spotted the blood on the floor it ended abruptly near one side of the roof.
"Blood?" one of them asked.
"Most likely but I don't see it anywhere," another replied.
They scanned the roof again. Adams reached the roof as Baseer and Knight followed behind, both breathing and sweating heavily. Adams was in a better condition then the others.
"Anything?" Adams asked.
"Looks like blood but no sign of the creature"
"Dammit!" Adams exclaimed. "Alright, see if you can spot anything from up here. Look for a blood trail or something. We're going to check around the building. Find anything let me know," he instructed, motioning towards his radio for clarification.
The other group moved to the edges of the roof that gave a good overlook of the base. Some of them had activated their night vision scopes when they entered the roof. Others used the base lights to try and spot anything. The green blood on the roof was glowing in the darkness of the night.
"What the heck is that?!" one of the soldiers exclaimed shockingly.
Adams turned back from the roof door and went to see what it was that the soldier was pointing towards.
"You see it?" another asked.
"Not the one we were chasing BUT this is definitely the same type. And Amy's walking with it," he replied in a mixture of shock and excitement.
Adams used his binoculars to look at the Predator.
"That must be what Tom was talking about," Adams said dryly as he looked over the Predator from a distance. "It's big, bigger than us and that's Heathers' team with it, they look relaxed."
Adams activated his radio on Amy's frequency, while still watching the group.
"Amy, Adams here."
He saw Amy pick up her radio from her hip and activate it.
"Adams, what is it?" she asked in a slightly cheery voice.
Adams noticed the tone of her voice, "We lost the creature. It killed two more of us."
He saw Amy stop. The group stopped too and so did Kra'tak. Adams watched as Kra'tak looked down towards Amy. She put a hand on his shoulder and said something he couldn't make out from this distance. The base lights illuminated them all, giving Kra'tak an even eerier look.
Adams then had an idea.
"Amy, any chance we can get your friend to help us?" Adams asked.
He watched again as Amy talked to the Predator. To Adams she seemed very comfortable talking to it, as if she was just talking to another person. Adams view was quite different. To him these things were only killers and extremely dangerous foes so far. Seeing Amy being friendly with that one made Adams wonder why the other two were killing his people. A few reasons came to mind, reasons which seemed to make sense. The radio brought Adams out of his thoughts.
"His name is Kra'tak," Amy informed him, "He said he can't do much because his equipment is too damaged. He can't communicate with the other one, nor can he use his equipment to find him. The base is too big."
"Not good news," Adams responded, "Alright we'll have to make do. Be careful out there."
Adams watched as Amy and the group resumed their walk to the medicentre. He could see that Heather and her team were very alert to their surroundings. He turned towards Baseer and Knight. He placed a hand on their shoulder and looked them straight in the eye.
"Alright, it's time to go chasing again. We have to stop this one now." Adams said.
The look he had given them was to reassure them, and it worked. Adams noticed their eyes light up slightly. He then promptly took point and moved briskly to the roof entrance.
"Let's go."
And with that Baseer and Knight took up position behind him and left the roof of the building. They left the other group to continue searching for any signs of the Predator from the roof.
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"Report?" Colonel Rayner asked the doctor he had been speaking to earlier.
"Three infected so far," he replied grimly, "All from the same planet as Barr."
"Where are they now?" Colonel asked.
"In quarantine."
"How many have been scanned so far?" the Colonel enquired.
"Eight point four percent of the population of this ship," the Doctor answered. "It's taking a while to scan each person. We just don't have the right equipment..."
"We're equipped for an information retrieval mission. The people are expendable," the Colonel cut in, his voice completely devoid of emotion just as his face was devoid of any expression.
The doctor looked at the Colonel and contemplated his answer.
"Where are the quarantined?" the Colonel asked before the doctor could say anything.
"In a store room. Number three three eight" the doctor replied, his voice showing signs of strain from the constant work of scanning people.
Each scanning was a short process but lack of equipment meant only a few could be scanned at any one time. The amount of people on the ship meant the doctor had many hours without sleep ahead of him.
"Are the escort ships being checked too?" the Colonel further enquired.
"A few of them, yes. The others don't have the right equipment. We'll have to do those by transferring them to another ship once everyone else has been scanned." the doctor said, wiping sweat off of his forehead with a white cloth.
The Colonel watched as another doctor gave a member of the crew the all clear and the crew member smiled and left the room. He then left the room himself as the doctor returned to his duties.
Colonel Gordon Rayner wondered what to do as he walked towards the quarantine area. Two fully armoured and armed guards stood by the door. They looked creepy with their entire faces covered, almost inhuman. The Colonel could see inside the room through a small window as he walked down the corridor towards it.
As he got closer to the room he could hear the occupants of the room shouting and banging on the door. The guards did not move, they just stood at their designated posts, ignoring the actions of those inside the room.
"You're just going to let us die?!" one of those inside the room shouted, as she pounded on the metal door.
"You can't just leave us here!" another said.
The Colonel stopped a few feet from the door and saw that those inside were becoming frenzied. This was no surprise. He looked the woman in the eyes for a few seconds. She stopped shouting and gave the Colonel a terrified look.
"Open the door."