A half hour later Amy had joined them in the Operations room and was sitting at the main computer station, Heather watching from behind. The small metal case Tom had given sat beside her. Amy had activated normal lighting in the room and for parts of the building. Arthur continued to monitor the outside from within the APC.
Amy tapped keys. "They have long range communications, much better than ours."
"Can we contact home?" Heather asked.
"Should be able to," Amy continued inputting commands.
The display flashed red and pulled up a three dimensional image of the communications array. It pointed at a few specific points, indicating malfunctions. Amy rotated the image and zoomed out.
"That's on top of this building," Adams commented.
"It's exposed up there, and dark," Heather said. "We'll have Arthur look at it in the morning."
Smith had been hopeful but now looked frustrated. Adams put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll get it sorted."
Smith nodded sat down, deciding not to pay further attention to the displays.
"Does that map show the whole complex?" Heather asked.
"Let me see." Amy began manipulating it.
She zoomed out and the display began adding the surrounding buildings until they were looking at the whole complex. The entire base was interconnected. Each area was labelled. The windowed building where Kra'tak had found the eggs was labelled "LIVING QUARTERS".
"Explains the windows." Amy grimaced at the thought.
She zoomed in to where they were and was surprised to see a number of symbols flashing inside the room.
"That's us?" Hale asked.
"Sensors are tracking us," Amy confirmed.
"See if you can find anymore, especially in the living quarters," Heather suggested.
They spent the next twenty minutes going through the entire map. There was only one other life sign in the whole complex. It was labelled "Specimen 2218" inside the Cryogenics Lab.
"Don't like the sound of that," Hale commented when they came across it.
"Looks like it's frozen in stasis," Amy had replied.
"If sensors are working, are cameras?" Heather asked.
Amy searched through the menu system. "Strange. There's no mention of cameras at all."
The group looked around the room for any signs of the familiar cameras that covered their own base. They found none.
"Ok. So the only buildings connected to this one are the hangar, the two labs, the barracks, canteen and living quarters," Heather summarised for the rest.
"That's not even half the map," Hale added. "What about the rest of it?"
"Hidden passages?" Adams suggested.
"Possibly, yes," Amy replied. "Or they could just not be on the map."
"Ok, here's the plan," Heather brought the group back on track. "We check out all the places here that we can and secure this area. If there really aren't any doors leading to the rest of this place that's good, it'll be easier for us to keep it secure until we can leave."
The group listened.
"We just have to hope we find these secret passages and secure them, or they already are. Going by how impeccable this place is it doesn't look like the bugs came here from the living quarters." Heather continued.
"We split to the same two groups as before. My group will check out the labs first and then move to the hangar. See what we can find. Adams," Heather turned to him. "Your group goes upstairs and checks the canteen, barracks and secures entry to the living quarters. We don't want visitors."
Adams nodded. "We've got a couple mobile turrets with us."
Heather understood. "Good, secure that entrance with them."
The groups readied and moved off. Heather turned to Amy. "Lock this door and stay here. Let us know if you find anything."
"Will do."
As the two groups walked back through the corridor, they stopped at a couple of locked doors that stood opposite each other. The keypads next to them now glowed with power and asked for pass codes.
Heather activated her radio. "Amy, we need pass codes for the doors."
Amy replied a moment later. "Looks like somebody wanted whoever came back here to have easy access."
Heather and Adams punched in codes for each door and moved in. Bathed in red light, each team entered large storage rooms. They could see computer equipment, vehicle machinery, tools and general living essentials, all seemingly untouched. The main lighting came on soon after they entered.
Closing those doors, the groups then split and Heathers team made its way to Lab 1. Inside they found a large room with floor to ceiling pods that had been designed to hold living organisms. More consoles, displays and lab equipment were spread around the room. The pods themselves were completely empty.
A cold chill welcomed them to the large cryogenics lab that contained the active life sign. Built into one wall were a number of stasis pods. All but one was inactive, the glass casings showing only darkness inside. The one in the middle glowed white with a faint hint of blue.
Cautiously approaching, Heather lowered her weapon and wiped away condensation with a gloved hand. Inside she could begin to see a figure. Clearing more of the glass, she backed away reflexively. It was a man in nothing but shorts. What shocked her and the others was that the man was as big as Kra'tak, bigger than a human was supposed to be. He was over eight feet tall, with huge bulky muscles, veins bulging throughout and an seemingly no fat at all.
Surrounding the pod, various displays showed status of the equipment and the man inside. Heather leant closer to one display and began reading.
"Specimen 2218. This is the life sign," she told the others. "Status is green. He's still alive."
She chose not to touch any of the controls and ordered the others not to either. They all looked back at the specimen inside, this time taking notice of and watching his chest very slowly rising up then down rhythmically. They couldn't see the face, unable to reach up to clear the glass that high.
Shaking off her bewilderment, Heather spoke up. "Ok, I don't like the look of this. Let's move on. Over there," she pointed at a door labelled Cold Storage.
The others covered as Heather moved to open the door. Once open the group were met with even colder air escaping from the room. A brief look inside showed an empty room with bare tables and shelves.
"It's still operational." Heather said. "We can store Kra'taks friends' body in here."
They left the lab making sure the door was locked securely.
Adams team had gone up the stairs and checked both the canteen and barracks. The canteen contained some tinned food with no expiry dates. The barracks, which had an empty armoury room, contained only a number of bunk beds complete with bedding and pillows.
"Something really strange happened here," Smith suggested.
Kra'tak and Tol'din followed Adams lead as he moved on to the doorway that connected to the living quarters. As he came upon it he noticed that it was welded shut. He ran his hand over the welds, the coldness of the metal travelling up his fingers. The console next to it was in pieces on the floor, exposing burnt out wiring and circuitry.
"Good. This door isn't opening. I'll set up a mobile turret nearby to cover it," Adams said. "Let's check the stairs."
At the opposite end to the living quarters door was the stairway giving access to the roof. At the top was another welded shut door.
"We'll have to cut this open in the morning," Adams decided. "I'll leave a turret here for now."
A few minutes later the team headed back.
Heather and her team entered the vehicle hangar. The emergency lights came on in response. In the glow of the red lights they could clearly see two small ships parked up. On closer inspection they saw that each ship had innards exposed and pieces strewn close by.
"Arthur can take a look while we wait for daylight," Heather told her team.
They examined the two inwardly bent hangar doors and were satisfied that they were secure for the time being. The hangar also included an office cubicle.
As both teams headed back to Operations to report their findings a computerised female voice breaking the silence from above startled them. The voice paused unnaturally at times.
"System online. It has been: Five. Three. Seven. Five. Days since last activation."
"Main power online. Communications offline. Specimen. Two. Two. One. Eight. Status green. Stasis pods One, Two, Four Five offline."
"Warning. Living quarters compromised. Main facility on lockdown."
"Sorry! That was me," Amy radioed.
Earth
As evening passed Makalo found himself at the local bar trying to drink away fresh memories of the days earlier traumatic events. He was already a little tipsy, teetering slightly on his stool.
A man sat on the seat next to his. Makalo recognised him as another regular, though they'd never spoken to each other. Behind the counter they were both sitting at was a large screen running the local news. It was a follow up to the previous night's report about dead bodies and the creature caught on leaked camera footage.
"In a follow up to yesterday's reports, we can now confirm that the creature captured on video has been caught and killed. A dock spokesman had this to say, 'We confirm the creature now dead was in fact a banned species, illegally smuggled in from a colony. The crew responsible were two of its victims.' The spokesman did not answer questions."
Makalo looked back down at his drink, hand wavering slightly as he cupped it around the glass. The murky brown liquid sloshed around as he brought it unsteadily to his mouth and drank it all in one gulp.
"Anotherrr," he said brashly to the bartender.
A short while and a few drinks later Makalo, usually reserved, was beginning to mumble loudly. As usual, the news channel soon repeated the same news story. This time Makalo snorted in response causing the bartender to briefly look his way before continuing with his work.
"Bullll..shiiittt," he slurred.
He turned to the man sitting next to him whom up to this point had been largely ignoring Makalo. "Shee that bulllshit?"
The man continued to ignore him until Makalo abruptly pulled on the suited mans cuff. The man looked at him, somewhat annoyed.
Makalo continued undeterred." I said shee that bull-".
"I saw it," the man cut him off, still annoyed.
"Yeahh, well..." he paused, his eyes briefly following something only he could see. "I know what really happened."
At this the man's expression changed to one of mild interest. "Oh yeah, what?"
"Itsh shupposhed to bee secret," Makalo continued, his head swaying about. He wasn't one to handle his drink well.
"You shouldn't be telling me then," the man replied.
He considered this for a drunken moment, "Nahhh, yous my buddy. We don't keep shecruts."
The man said nothing. The bartender moved away from the two of them, leaving them alone.
Makalo continued talking, "Itsh bullshitt. Company shecruts. Ssshhhh!". Makalo put his elbow on the counter and placed his head on his hand to restore some balance. "They had ush sign forms n everytin'."
The man continued to listen and watch Makalo.
"We killed it. Itsh why I'm here, I'm shh-cared,"
At this the man stood up. "You know what?" he took a few steps to Makalo and placed a firm hand around his shoulder. "Since we're buddies, let me treat ya yeah?"
Makalo, easily losing his training of thought answered. "Shure, thanks..."
"It's dead in here," the man insisted, leading Makalos attention with a pointed finger around the room. "Let's go somewhere a bit more lively. Leave our worries for the day behind."
"I ain't told yoush my shee-"
The man cut him off again. "We can talk about that later. Let's have a good time first," he persisted.
"S-shure."
"Great!"
With that the man guided Makalo off his seat, held him around the waist and together they headed towards the exit. The bartender watched from a distance. Makalo took no notice of the two other men who got up from separate areas of the bar and followed them out the exit door.