The alarms on the station were blaring in the man's ears as he ran down the corridor. It had escaped and taken several men, dissolving them in seconds. He had been lucky enough to keep out of that being's line of vision, and now would have to destroy it before the creature could get off of the station and take more lives.
"Damn that Hackett!" he cursed, coughing from the smoke and fumes.
Seventeen years ago, someone from an expedition, the details of which were classified, had unleashed some strange life form which later went berserk, killing her and most of the staff in the Hyperion 85-b outpost. The being subsequently went on to attack five colonies and thirteen military bases, killing millions of innocent people, including their children.
The man shed a tear, remembering two cousins he had lost in one of those bases. Both of their parents were marines on assignment, and the man's mother was a fleet commander working in the Norton-S9 Sector at the time of the attack. Both his cousins wanted to study the unexplored regions, viewing the beautiful nebulae and exquisite gas giants, potentially making contact with other alien races. Instead, those two boys became just a couple of names on the casualty list of Janeiro 3. People lost loved ones, thousands of parents were childless, and many women suffered miscarriages due to the shock. The man's aunt and uncle's marriage became strained because of the grief over their sons, and ended in divorce.
"Gotta find Ops," he muttered to himself.
Drawing his rifle, the man set it to kill. If he found that creature, it was going to die, but the man had other plans: to get to the Operations center and set the station to self-destruct. None of the organics he knew of could survive the antimater explosion or the vacuum of space. He would gladly give his life to save others from this creature.
Seeing a Lift, the man stepped into it and punched the code for Deck 12. From there, he could get to Ops before that creature could find an escape pod.
Panting from exhaustion, the man wiped the sweat from his brow and pushed back his sandy blond hair. There were a few spots of grime and ash on his face, hands and uniform, as well as a cut from a door control panel that exploded in the crossfire. He had to force the thing open, earning some cuts and scrapes on his hands from the effort.
The door opened with a short chime, and he headed down the corridor straight toward Ops. As he rounded a corner, the man spotted a figure in a form-fitting black suit and matching helmet. He was carrying a small duffel bag and a rifle that looked like one used by pirates and comet worshipers. Most of these fringe groups were not very pleasant folks to deal with, and had caused a lot of trouble with the Jovian colonists in the centuries before the first interstellar settlement had been established.
"Look!" the man called to the pirate, "I don't have time for this! The station's gonna blow in a few minutes. Get off while you still can!"
The figure stepped closer and drew its gun, then spoke to the man.
"You will not destroy this station," the pirate stated in a female voice, "I will not allow you to kill any innocent people! Do you understand?"
"GODDAMMIT!" the man shouted, "Do you realize how many other innocents could be killed if that creature escapes? Of course I will destroy this station and I will kill you if I have to!"
"You don't know what you're doing," the woman insisted, "That creature is my concern, not yours. I will handle him."
"Like hell you will!" the man spat as he aimed his weapon at the pirate, "Just like that goddamned Hackett dealt with it? The way she caused millions of people to die? There weren't even any bodies to bury! Just puddles, torrents of sludge - the handiwork of that thing Hackett brought into our space!"
"You don't understand," the woman insisted, "I'm not going to let you do this! I know this creature, and it's my responsibility to take care of him! Your people have shed plenty of blood as well, and you don't even know it!"
"Don't piss with me!" the man said as he pointed the rifle at the intruder, "Now get the hell offa this station before I have to kill you - and I don't wanna have to kill a woman!"
As he said this, the man heard a weapon fire and felt a searing pain envelop him. The room grew fuzzy as he fell to the ground, almost losing consciousness.
"This is a warning shot," the woman stated, "And I think I may have to drive my point home a little more."
She changed the settings on her rifle, and shot the man in his legs, using a narrow, focused beam. Screaming in agony, the man cursed at the intruder as his world faded to black.
The woman looked over the unconscious soldier before making her way to Operations. She needed to lock out the system until the others could escape. She found a few other officers on her way there, and promptly stunned all of them, taking their weapons as she did in case her rifle ran out of charge.
Ops was empty, with some pads, styluses and other equipment littering the floor. The intruder went to the panel and reached into her duffel bag, taking out a device and plugging it into a port at one of the panels. She would have to connect directly to the systems using the codes she had stolen from Central, and even with those hacking would not be easy. One false move and the emergency protocols would activate, locking her into Ops and shutting down life support.
She fed the codes into the computer, then sighed in relief as the computer's voice announced the command lock-out. Her work done, the woman unplugged the device and punched the code for the exit. She headed over to Deck 15, where the docking bays were located. She would have to manually override the airlocks as her ship was not in any of the escape pod bays.
Looking around and seeing that the area was clear, the woman ran to Airlock 17, where her ship, The New Holland, was docked. She punched in the command for the airlock to open in two minutes, then opened door to the airlock and ran inside, and pulled out a small object with a few buttons on it. The woman keyed the code into her remote control, and the door to her ship opened, allowing her to enter. A few seconds after she got into the ship, the door closed again and she sat down at the helm, ready to engage.
The airlock opened, and she powered up the engines, then fired the thrusters, maneuvering out a little shakily. She knew there was no time to relax, as the military would be looking for her. The woman had already committed many crimes against the Sol Federation, and would be facing life in solitary if caught. She needed to find that creature, deal with it in a way that would mean a minimal loss of innocent lives, and get some information on the experiment which had taken place thirty years before in the Hyperion Sector.
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