Mic opened the door and slowly stepped through. "Mic reporting," he whispered into his radio. "Entering engineering now."
Zima and Eastman approached one of the doors to the engineering room. The motion tracker detected a few rapidly moving objects.
"Mic," Zima called back. "Keep your eyes open. I'm picking up lots of movement. We're about to enter now."
"Copy that." Mic replied. As moved further into the room he was struck from behind softly on the head by a small handheld rodlike object that sent a surge of electricity through his body and caused him to shut down. He was now frozen in his exact search-and-destroy pose he was in.
A left-sided hand then reached in and crushed the smart gun's battery.
Zima looked back at Eastman. "Ready," she asked.
Eastman readied his rifle. "After you," he replied.
The door opened and both of them burst through SWAT team style, searching for the sources of movement. The motion tracker hummed wildly with beeps. Zima didn't even have to look at it to know something was around. A glance at it told her that whatever it was they were close.
"Heads up," Eastman yelled as he pushed Zima aside just in time to avoid a spider-like creature.
It was a facehugger that narrowly missed its target. Just as it landed, Zima and Eastman quickly aimed and blasted it to pieces.
Eastman was quick to duck another facehugger, which caused it to crash with Zima's rifle.
Zima threw it off right away to the ground, giving Eastman and her a chance to place a few well-aimed shots to blow it away.
"What the hell are those things?" Eastman asked.
Zima turned around to answer him she had no idea when yet a third facehugger leaped from a nearby wall and latched on to Eastman's face.
"Eastman!" Zima cried out.
Eastman struggled for only a few moments before passing out and laying flat on the ground.
Zima rushed over to see if she could do anything. The motion tracker had fallen quiet and there was an eerie silence. She realized there was nothing she could do but press on. At the sound of the motion tracker humming once more, she quickly spun around, pointing her pulse rifle at whatever could be waiting for her. Giving her no chance to think though, as quickly as she could turn, a facehugger jumped at her and attached itself. She could barely struggle as it rapidly caused her to pass out.
Shaw and Wolfgang kept their eyes and guns trained on the doorway. It was the only way in, but it was a sizeable one, almost the size of a hangar bay door for large equipment coming and going. She was propped against a chair on one side, Wolfgang on the other.
"What kind of gun is that?" Shaw asked about Wolfgang's rifle.
"Think of it something like a taser," Walter answered. "A deadly one. It disrupts all electrical activity in an organism, shutting it down permanently. It's quite useful against a creature that bleeds acid."
"A tech room, huh?" Shaw said aloud.
"Tech storage room," Walter clarified. "If you look at the Engineers, you'll notice they carry very little with them. Rembrandt just has his clothes and Wolgang's body a just a pressure suit. On the ship, all of what you would call a terminal is capable of performing any function. It is only when they are required to leave the ship, they come here to get what they need, or store what they find. The seats are modular, only there for when examining an object."
Three terramorphs burst in. Shaw and Wolfgang immediately opened fire.
One of the terramorphs leaped to Shaw's side and ran at her. It came dangerously close before she managed to land a few shots on it, spraying its acid blood on the chair near her.
Wolfgang had trouble hitting one until it was almost on him. the third one had jumped from a wall and tackled him at the very last second. If he were human it would have been over then and there, but he was quick and strong enough to grab onto the terramorph as it took him down.
Shaw aimed but hesitated to fire thinking of the acid blood.
Wolfgang had the terramorph by the throat with one hand and an arm with the other. He narrowly dodged a tail strike by moving his head to the side. With strength no human could ever hope to summon, he tossed the creature off to the side for Shaw to finish it off as he rolled away to avoid any of the blood.
Very little of the acid splattered up and got on Shaw's left hand.
Shaw almost immediately threw her hand up. "Ow!" she cried.
"Careful," Walter said. "Don't rub it."
Rembrandt grabbed a device off the shelf that resembled a small water gun and hurried over to apply it to Shaw's hand, coming out like a mini fire extinguisher. Whatever it was, it neutralized the burning.
Shaw examined the scars on her hand. "This isn't going work," she said. "We've been here a while and I'm running out of bullets. I might not be so lucky next time."
"There is nowhere else to go," Walter said.
"Well," Shaw replied. "We can't stay here. I thought there'd be a door or something."
"We would suffocate," Walter explained. "This is one of the few rooms with no vents, just filters. The filters manage dust and are too small to be used."
"Why this room?" Shaw asked.
"It had the transmitter you used to contact Zima," Walter answered. "As well as the neutralizer Rembrandt just used on your hand. Most of the other rooms on this ship have multiple entry points for the creatures."
Shaw went back to her position against the chair to monitor the doorway. "We can't stay here, Walter," she said. "We have no idea when help will arrive and I'm dangerously low on ammo."
"What do you suggest?" Walter asked.
Shaw picked up the transmitter and spoke into it. "Zima, come in," she called, with no reply. "Eastman, Mic, anybody. Please come in."
After a moment of silence, Walter spoke. "Perhaps they had to change frequency." He said.
"Right now, our only chance is going back to the bridge, " Shaw said. "We have to get off this planet."
"That is highly inadvisable," Walter said. "We would have to deal with any of the creatures we inadvertently take with us."
Another terramorph hopped in. Shaw and Wolfgang shot at it but it proved difficult with the creature jumping around.
Wolfgang managed to bring it down only after it jumped at him.
"I'd rather take my chances in space," Shaw said. "Hunting them down might be better than waiting here to die."
"The bridge isn't secure," Walter replied.
"I don't care," Shaw responded. "You heard the radio, nothing. We don't know when help will arrive."
After a moment, Walter spoke to the Engineers. A few seconds went by before they seemed to nod in agreement. He looked back at Shaw. "We shall head to the bridge at once," he said. "However, I recommend we move hastily."
Rembrandt went to the shelf to grab a few items before setting out with the group.
Outside, between the hive and the ship, was utter chaos. It was all hand-to-hand combat for the terramorphs and geneomorphs. They looked very similar but had very subtle differences; The terras had a more humanlike exoskeleton. Whereas the geneos resembled Wolfgang's body. The geneos may have been badly outnumbered, but their enhanced DNA gave them a strength that was proportional to as if a human were fighting an Engineer. The only thing mitigating that strength was the ferocity with which the terras fought. It almost evened out.
Two terras lunged at a geneo only to be caught in midair by their neck. They whipped the considerable length of their tails at it, to no avail. The geneo used its tail to keep other terras at bay as it squeezed the life out of the two terras in hand.
A third terramorph dashed in to tackle the geneomorph's side, causing it to stagger and lose its grip on the two terras. It would have been an excellent tackle if the geneo had been human, except it remained standing to grab the terra and drive its tail through it.
None of the acid blood flying around affected either side, giving them cart blanche to live out their nature.
The two terramorphs that were released lunged at the geneomorph, not knocking it over, but throwing it off balance enough for a third terra to jump on and send the geneo crashing down. Their tails proved only slightly more effective than bullets, tearing chunks of flesh off. They were smart enough to send out a telepathic cry through their queen to begin attacking the joints of the geneos.
With the geneomorph down, the terramorphs each took an arm to splay it out and use their tails to quickly hack at its shoulders/armpits. In a matter of seconds, the terras literally disarmed the geneo.
It wasn't one arm either, the geneomorph was now armless. Violently, it writhed around as it bled. The two terramorphs that had taken the arms moved in and began doing the same thing to its legs. The now limbless geneo was a quadriplegic and all it could do now was slowly die.
Fortunately, for the geneomorphs, they were doing quite well against the terramorphs in other areas. Some dispatched their foes by ripping them apart or stabbing their deadly tails through them.
Visually, it was difficult to tell which side held the advantage. The battle line hadn't moved at all and everyone was locked in some form of melee. The battlefield resembled a sea of undulating tar.
Inside the Seeder, Shaw picked up the rear as she followed the group through the ship's huge corridor. Everyone moved quickly, almost running.
"C'mon," Shaw pleaded. "Faster."
Wolfgang was in front, moving as quickly as he could while keeping an eye out for any of the creatures.
They all came to a stop when a terramorph came running at them from the front, on the ceiling. Wolfgang immediately shot at it, unloading a few blasts from his rifle before hitting it and causing it to fall to the floor dead.
Without a word, they hurriedly continued forward. At one point Shaw looked back to see another terramorph running after them along the outer wall. Shaw belted out a battle cry as she let a few rounds loose. The battle cry was more or less an effort to help the rest of the group know they were being chased. It may not have been necessary as her gunfire alone could have told the group that. It did get Wolfgang's attention, who turned around just in time to see a geneomorph run out from another passage behind the group.
Shaw unloaded round after round at the creature. Her bullets had the same effect on it as they did the Deacon. It didn't even slow down until being knocked back by a burst from Wolfgang's rifle.
Shaw stared at the geneomorph in disbelief. It wasn't until Walter pulled urgently for her to continue "Come," he said. "The bridge is right around the corner."