"Where are they?" Shaw asked.
Walter spoke with Rembrandt and then said. "Various parts of the ship. Moving at a rather quick pace."
Shaw equipped her rifle. "I guess it's time to go hunting." She said.
"That may not be necessary," Walter said.
"We can't have these things running around the ship," Shaw replied. "Is this room even safe?"
"This room has several air vents," Walter said. "You are correct in your assertion of not having the creatures running loose on the ship, The plan is to land and release those in stasis."
Shaw couldn't believe what she just heard. "Land," she asked. "Surely, you're joking. You want to land on a planet full of those things?"
"That was the plan all along," Walter said. "They land near the hive and release the ones we have in stasis to eliminate the opposing hive."
"Won't that just create another problem we have to deal with?" Shaw asked.
"It is fine," Walter assured. "They were bred for a specific purpose. Made similarly, but not the same. These are genderless and were given a life span of days."
"That's some plan," Shaw said, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. "Don't you have a 'B' or a 'C'?'"
"The only alternative," Walter began."Would be to release them from stasis here in orbit, but then we would be dealing with two-thousand highly violent creatures in an enclosed ship in space rather than letting them kill each other off on the planet."
"I see," Shaw said, her voice having low confidence.
"We must land at once," Walter said. "If David's creatures find the stasis chamber it's over. Ours will be killed with no chance of fighting back."
"Are you sure it'll work?" Shaw asked.
"Given the differences in their genetic makeup," Walter answered. "I have every confidence ours will succeed. It would be like hornets invading a beehive. Not nearly as effective as that, but close enough."
"As long as the 'bees' get off the ship," Shaw said.
"It will be difficult," Walter said. "Already having some onboard puts us at a distinct disadvantage. Any time spent fighting here will be time lost fighting at the hive. Normally, they would only have one way of leaving the ship, but we will have to give them access everywhere to hunt down the 'bees.'"
"What about us?" Shaw asked.
"We, of course, will have to move to another part of the ship," Walter answered. "It will be quite dangerous, not something we planned for."
The Seeder ship had begun its descent. It entered the upper atmosphere and began going straight down.
"We won't land right next to the hive," Walter said. "However, we must land relatively close."
"Are you sure about that?" Shaw asked.
"Given that our creatures only have days to live," Walter said. "We must give them as much time as possible. As I said before, some of the fighting will be here instead of in the hive."
Coming to a soft landing, the Seeeder ship then opened all of its doors. The stasis field containing the geneomorphs turned off, and slowly the geneos came to life.
A terramorph then crawled into the room and fell upon a geneo, killing it before it could fully come to. It was about to quickly move on to the next when another geneo suddenly tackled it and begin to maul it when the geneo was joined by another.
Wolfgang began to unholster himself from his chair when Rembrandt suddenly cried out to Walter.
"Look out!" Walter yelled.
A terramorph shot out of a large vent located high on a wall. It tackled Shaw from behind, knocking her down as it stood over her.
Shaw turned around just in time to see the terramorph slowly extend its secondary jaw. Suddenly, what looked like a bolt of lightning struck the creature, knocking it back a few steps before it collapsed like a sack of potatoes.
Whipping her head around, Shaw found Walter holding the Engineer's rifle. She got up with her rifle in hand just in time to see another terramorph drop into the room at a distance. She quickly raised her rifle and squeezed off a few shots, causing the terra to erupt in acid as it fell back.
Walter then tossed the rifle to Wolfgang, who was standing nearby.
Rembrandt said something and waved for everyone to follow.
"This way," Walter said as he began running. "Hurry."
"Everything checks out," Zima said, pulling the body scanner away from Daniels. "No sign of anything wrong that I can find."
Daniels sat up on the exam bed. "Thank god." She said.
Everyone had gone back to the Avellan since it was such a short trip. Eastman stood guard by the airlock, while the rest had gone to medical.
"According to Walter," Mic said. "We would have seen some sign of it gestating in your chest area. We found nothing."
Daniels rubbed her chest. "Good," she said. "Now, let's get Tennessee."
Mic held up his hands to bring Daniels to a pause. "He's much safer in stasis, and we're afraid he may get in the way."
Daniels looked worriedly at Mic. "What," she asked. "Why?"
"This is a military operation," Mic said. "He's a civilian. We woke you to get a better understanding of the situation on the Covenant."
Daniels hopped off the exam bed. "He won't get in the way," she pleaded, "He can help."
"I'm sorry," Mic said. "It's not my call. Zima?"
Zima held Daniels by the shoulders. "We'll all have guns," she said. "This will be dangerous. If he's infected, he's better off where he is anyway."
Daniels sighed and then nodded.
"You know the Covenant well," Mic said. "Where would David be?"
"Most likely on the bridge," Daniels answered. "You could control much of the ship from engineering too, but none of the camera feeds go there, so he wouldn't be able to see anything. Plus, it has multiple ways in."
"First stop is the bridge then," Zima said.
"I recommend you take the motion tracker," Mic said.
Zima modded. "You come too, Daniels," she said. "We might need you to unlock doors and stuff. We can give you a rifle, but hang back and run if there's any trouble."
"Run," Daniels asked bewildered. "Like hell. I'm gonna make David pay for what he did."
"Just take it easy," Zima said, then looking to Mic and motioning for them to follow. She took them to the airlock with Eastman and prepped themselves.
Daniels took a pulse rifle handed to her, while Zima herself grabbed a rifle and motion tracker. Mic equipped the smart gun and then noticed Daniels eyeing the extra pulse rifle that was racked.
"We have already lost two people to the creatures," Mic said.
Zima stood by the door. "I'm first, I guess," she said. "Eastman, you're next. Mic, you cover the rear. Daniels, just stay by Mic."
Stepping back on the Covenant, the group slowly made their way forward.
"Ok, Daniels," Zima quietly called, "Which way?"
"Head right," Daniels answered. Up the stairs. Then left and it's straight-ahead, but let me check something first before we go."
Instead of going right, Daniels went left and opened the door to reveal all the colonists still asleep in tier pods. She opened a terminal on the wall and tapped several icons on a screen.
"All of the colonists are here," Daniels reported. "The only thing missing is embryos. There are five hundred and eighty here."
"I'd hate to think of what happened to them," Eastman said.
"No doubt, David used them," Mic added.
Daniels closed the terminal and returned to the group, saying. "We're not losing anymore."
"Zima," Shaw called. "Can you hear me?"
Zima looked at her wrist-mounted radio, almost in disbelief. She held it up and pressed the button to talk back. "Zima, here," she said. "Shaw is that you? How?"
On the Seeder, Shaw spoke into a tablet a little bigger than today's phones. "I'm using an Engineer's transmitter," she answered. "This thing can tap into the same frequency. I'm still on the ship. We had to land on the planet, near the hive."
"Geez," Eastman said, overhearing Zima's radio. "From a planet?"
"We had to abandon the bridge." Shaw continued. "Right now we're in their tech storage room."
It was a large room with four chairs along the wall, facing inward. All the way in was a wall of shelves full of different devices. Two terramorphs burst in at a rapid pace. Shaw dropped the radio and fired along with Wolfgang at the creatures who ran in different directions halfway into the room. Both were lucky to hit their targets on the wall before they could pounce.
Shaw then became busy reloading her pulse rife when a geneomorph appeared and then ran at her. She barely managed to get her extra clip in when the geneo suddenly leaped at her and was struck back in midair by a blast from Wolfgang.
"Shaw," Zima called. "You there?"
Picking the transmitter back up. "I'm here," Shaw replied. "You better hurry. I don't know how long we'll last."
"We're on the Covenant," Zima replied. "Taking the bridge now."
Zima looked at everyone and said. "Let's hurry and move it."
It didn't take long at all to reach the bridge. In fact, the motion tracker never went off and the group met no resistance.
"Nothing," Eastman said.
Zima spun around with the motion tracker. "Besides Daniels," she said. "I'm not picking up anything. He must be in engineering."
Daniels went over to a monitor to work it and bring up a map. "Here's the layout of the Engineering section," she explained. "As I said, there are multiple ways in. There are two upper and three lower doorways. I can sneak in using the ventilation. There's one that's big enough for a person that runs all the way through."
"Eastman," Zima called. "You're with me. We'll take the upper level. Mic, you got the lower one. Daniels, let's go with your idea and you sneak in. Let's move."
Back on the planet, a very large group of geneomorphs gathered just outside the ship, in a valley. There didn't appear to be a leader, it was instinct telling them to brace themselves for what was next.
Suddenly, all along a ridge, terramorphs appeared. It was a massive army of them, looking down at the geneos. There was no telling how many of them there were. It was the bulk of the hive that had been dispatched to meet the enemy. Their number only became apparent as they roared and charged down into the valley without fear.
The geneomorphs could only do the same and meet their foe head-on.