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janestarzApril 10, 2024 / 080-1104
Having seen the crew manifest with their pictures, Hasta could confirm the dead body they had retrieved floating in space was indeed a crewmember. "So there's four still unaccounted for;" he said.
"And an unknown number of people possibly come on board the cryo pods." Qupar pointed out.
Hasta took the lead again, and they left the auxiliary bridge and turned right. The long hallway had a number of doors to their right, with small windows facing space to their left.
"I think we should continue searching the rooms." Myles said. "There's no reason why we can't take our time."
The life support systems had indicated there was no contagion on board, everything was in the green. "The people are friendly, to a certain extent. And if you shine a light on them they get violent." Myles continued.
Hollo was in the centre of the group. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, and she was quiet for the moment. Hasta checked the next few rooms. The mattresses and bedding were removed, possibly taken to one of the cubby holes where the crew had holed up. One of the rooms had an awful stink. As Hasta poked his flechette rifle and then his head into the room, he found a dead crewman lying on the floor. One leg had been torn off completely. "Seventeen." Hasta said, moving on to the next room.
Qupar glanced at Hollo, gauging her reaction. She didn't want to look into the room, and was obviously ignoring the dead crewman inside. He looked at the body, lying in a pool of blood. The trauma and shock of it was probably what the man had died of, or possibly he had bled out. Not something he'd need to investigate further.
The next room was again devoid of cloth and mattresses and they moved on. The room after that was brightly lit. The bed was made, the drawers closed. It looked pristine and untouched. They moved on to the next room. Here, the bed was torn from the wall, and set up like a barricade. As Hasta started to step inside, he suddenly paused. His foot was hovering just over a metal tripwire, just inside the doorway. He carefully stepped back and made another army hand signal and said; "Tripwire."
"Hello!" he called inside.
There was no response.
"I'll take a look at that wire." Qupar said and he moved towards the door. The tripwire was a metal wire stripped of its plastic coating at shin-height, leading to a sprung-loaded arm just inside the doorframe, out of sight. At the end of the arm was a sharpened metal spike.
"I don't see any explosives." He described the trap to the crew. "We could probably set it off remotely."
"I'm not going to do it." Moira said, gripping her stun stick as if it was a life line. "I've already been hurt."
"You poor thing." Qupar smiled. "Anyone want to grab me something I can set this off with?"
Myles stepped forward with his cutlass and lowered himself to the ground. With the end of the cutlass, he pushed the wire down. There was a soft click as the mechanism released, and the arm swung towards the doorway. The arm collided with the doorway with a 'boinnnggggg' sound, the pointed end harmlessly slashing the air above Myles' head.
Hasta stepped around the remnants of the trap and peered over the barricade carefully. There was another hole in the floor that cut into the fuel tank, and some bedding. In the corner was a huddled human form, trying to be very small.
"Go away. Go away, you can't see me." A man's voice trembled.
"Hi!" Hasta said cheerfully. "I can definitely see you. We're here to save you. What's going on?"
"No, you can't see me. I'm hidden in my hidey-hole. No-one can see me here. No. Who are you? I don't recognise you as a crewmember."
"Yeah, I'm not a crew member." Hasta rumbled happily. "My name is Hasta. I definitely can see you. I'm definitely here to save you. I think it's time to leave. Do you want to get out of here?"
"Can we get out?" The man slowly raised his head. "Are you here on your own? How did you get here?"
"On a spaceship. I'm here with my friends, and we found your friend Hollo, she's with us. Come on up out of that hole and we'll take you with us."
"You found the scientists -- other people -- alive?"
Hasta smiled a pleased; "Yeeeeah."
"I thought I was the only one alive. Oh my God, that is amazing."
"There's not many of you, still alive, but those of you that are still alive, we're here to save you." Hasta looked at the cubby hole. "Did you make this hole? What exactly is going on?"
"I made the hole -- it's a really good hole, isn't it? I really don't know what's going on. One night I was asleep in my bunk, and I woke up...it sounded like a huge explosion. I don't know how big. The place went crazy! There were people running around attacking each other, and I didn't want any of that. I just ran away, got back into my room, and hid! I don't want to be involved in anything that's been going on. It's been horrible."
"Fair enough." Hasta nodded. "Come on, we're getting ourselves out of here. Why don't you come with us?"
"Thank you, yes, that sounds great. I just want to get out of this hell-hole. Let's go. Let's go."
"Come on, come on." Hasta waved the man closer. "We're going to the cargo bay to look at something, and then we're going towards our ship and leave. So come with us and we won't have to collect you on the way back."
"No, no, don't leave me. I don't want to be left alone."
"Cool." Hasta helped the man out of the hole and over the barricade. "I'll introduce you to everybody. I didn't catch your name; what's your name?"
"My name is Harris. I'm the astrogater on this ship." Harris was wearing an armoured jumpsuit with company logos. His head was shaved bald and he had a neatly trimmed beard.
"Hi Harris, my name is Hasta. We are here to get to the bottom of what's going on and get everybody out of here."
"Okay. Do what you need to do and then let's get off the ship." Harris nodded and then turned back. "I'm just going to take my friends with me."
The astrogator picked up a spiked club and a shield from the cubbyhole. "I'm just going to take these with me. I don't trust what's going on in this place."
"That's reasonable. I don't trust anyone in this place either." Hasta nodded.
Hasta didn't want the astrogator and his spiked club at his back, so he stood aside to let Harris pass. As the smaller man came to the door and spotted Hollo, he tensed up. In a flash, he jumped into action, sprung towards the lead scientist, screaming incoherently at the top of his voice.
Dendr stepped back quickly. He didn't want to get in the way of the attack, and perhaps he just wanted Hollo to die. Qupar's reaction was a lot different. He shoved Hollo out of the way of the attack forcibly so she wouldn't be hit, drew his pistol and fired two rounds into Harris. The man just kept coming, but now he was moving towards Qupar.
Moira tried to put some distance between herself and the people fighting. Hollo kept moving in the way Qupar had shoved her, so she was out of the way of the armed man swinging his club at Qupar.
The club connected painfully with Qupar's ribs. He had the wind knocked out of him, but the blow wasn't hard enough to puncture the suit or his skin.
Hasta slung his flechette rifle over one shoulder, and tried to tackle Harris with a flying kick. Harris saw Hasta coming though, and stepped aside. He raised his shield, and in an uncanny reaction managed to swipe Hasta's leg out from under him before he could kick. The big man went flying and landed on the plating of the corridor with a loud thump.
Myles, meanwhile, had his cutlass out. He took a swing at Harris, gouging him across the midriff. The man was still standing, but he took a step back from the blow.
Parappa raised his laser pistol and fired off a shot at Harris. The shot left a gaping, smouldering hole in both Harris' piecemeal armour and his abdomen, but somehow the man was still standing. Parappa flinched, and looked at his gun with horror in his eyes. He usually dealt with troublesome spreadsheets, and all of a sudden he was firing a weapon on some strange laboratory vessel. He wondered briefly how his life ended up taking such a wrong turn.
Dendr had finally moved, grabbed his laser pistol with a determined look in his eye. He squeezed off a couple of shots, but he missed Harris completely. In a true stroke of luck, his bullets didn't hit anyone else in the crowded corridor either.
Qupar was closest to Harris. Despite having a gaping hole in his abdomen from Parappa's laser pistol, and the cutlass cut over his chest, and the two shots Qupar had fired earlier, Harris showed no sign of slowing down. Qupar tucked his pistol away and decided to try and grapple the man, try to bring him down. In a flash he remembered a similar attempt all those years ago in a warehouse back on Iderati. Perhaps the memory made him pause at the worst possible moment, or perhaps Harris was too doped up on adrenaline. Harris stepped aside, dodging Qupar's clumsy grab, and gave him a shove. Qupar stumbled several metres down the corridor before catching himself with a thump against the side wall of the hallway.
In the meantime, Hollo was still trying to move away from Harris and the fight. With her arms bound behind her back, there was no way for her to defend herself. Moira watched the woman warily. Hollo was edging ever closer to her, and Moira wasn't having any of that. She grabbed the stun stick tightly in both hands, and decided to stand her ground. She really didn't want to keep moving away from the group, and as soon as Hollo took another step, Moira tried to stab her with the stun stick. The jab completely missed the scientist and harmlessly wooshed through the air. Hollo's head whipped round to glare at Moira, and she just kept moving towards her. Getting away from the crazy maniac with a spiked club might be more important than picking a new fight with Moira and Hollo kept running down the corridor, towards Dendr and Parappa. But as she passed Moira, Hollo jutted out her shoulder and knocked Moira to the ground. Moira winced as her injured shoulder jolted painfully upon hitting the floor.
Parappa had recovered somewhat from his earlier shock, but he still seemed uncomfortable that he had fired his gun. As Hollo was standing over Moira, he jumped into action. With the butt of his laser gun he whacked the scientist over the head. Her knees buckled and Hollo was knocked to the ground.
Harris raised his spiked club. Hasta and Moira were on the ground and Qupar was too far away, but Myles was still standing and he was close enough. The astrogator advanced on him menacingly. He swung the club with a mighty swing, but Myles raised his cutlass, and managed to deflect the blow. Behind Harris, Hasta quickly scrambled to his feet. He jumped on Harris, and with a spinning roundhouse kick managed to kick the spiked club from his grip. The fearsome weapon tumbled to the ground a little way off.
"What are you doing?" Hasta said slowly, to emphasise his meaning. "We do not. Want. To kill you."
Myles raised his cutlass. Harris wasn't replying to Hasta and showed no intention to stop fighting, so Myles attacked him again. The cutlass bit into Harris' shoulder, but with the armour pieces the man was wearing, it didn't cut very deep.
Dendr looked at Harris, the spiked club several feet away on the floor, but he was still carrying the shield. He had not replied to Hasta's warning growls nor shown any indication that he had heard the warning. Despite his wounds, Harris was still raring for a fight.
"Dendr, this is the guy that was implicated in the logs." Qupar reminded him. "We want him alive."
In a move of desperation, Dendr tried to mimic Parappa's move of whipping Harris with the butt of his pistol. Being unaccustomed to the vacc suit and fighting in any form, he completely lost his balance. At the last moment, Dendr managed to change direction, and kind of stumbled into Harris in a one-armed hug. "Heeeeyyyy you." Dendr tried to salvage the situation, but Harris was in no mood to be hugged and stepped away from the weirdo that was trying to show him this strange affection.
Qupar moved up in a flash, grabbing Harris around the throat with his arm and choking him. Harris clawed at Qupar's arm unsuccessfully, and soon his arm went limp and his eyes closed. Qupar winked slyly at Dendr, and then slowly sank the unconscious astrogator down to the floor.
Hollo was lying prone on the floor with her arms bound behind her back and she was eyeing Moira with a murderous look. Moira pointed the stun stick at Hollo in a menacing way. "If you try to do anything, I'm going to *zap* you!"
This didn't stop Hollo though. She tried to kick at Moira, trying to reach her. One of her kicks connected to the stun stick, and it flew out of Moira's hands, bouncing down the hallway.
Hasta walked up to Hollo, pulled her away with an arm around her shoulder, and looked her in the eye. "Behave yourself, otherwise I'll shoot you."
Hollo writhed wildly, and Hasta fumbled his grip on her arm. She broke free and stepped back, growling softly.
"HOLLO EZRAHM!" Myles shouted in a commanding voice. "This is enough! Control yourself! STAND DOWN."
Hollo stopped, blinked and stumbled, dazed, into the wall behind her. She collapsed down, half leaning, half lying down against the floor and the hallway wall. She started to cry, great heaving sobs.
Myles moved over to her, and started consoling her. Her sobs slowly became more quiet and Hollo seemed to calm down a bit.
"I could use the handcuffs to tie these two together so they're both restrained." Qupar suggested as he stood over the unconscious form of Harris. "They could also..."
"...kill each other." Moira finished the sentence for him as she was getting up.
"He's unconscious right now, but if he wakes up and turns on her..." Qupar shrugged. "...that could be a problem. They both flew off the handle at a moment's notice."
"He sounded pretty coherent until he came into the hallway and saw Hollo." Moira pointed out.
"So did she." Qupar replied. "She was pretty coherent, but she still attacked me. And then we had a good talk. And then she flew off the handle. They're both irrational."
Everybody was quiet for a moment. Then Moira stated: "I think I'm ready to leave this ship."
"I think we all are." Myles replied. "I think it's time we hand this over to whoever is more equipped to deal with these kinds of situations. Like police, or...you know...the authorities."
Qupar removed one of the handcuffs from Hollo and snapped it around Harris' wrist. It probably was a bad plan to have the two manacled together, but they really didn't have much of a choice. While administering the coagulant spray and some antibiotics, Qupar considered what would happen if they were in the air raft and the two scientists would have a fit. Everyone in vacc suits...in such a dangerous situation it would make a mess for sure.
By the time Harris regained consciousness, Hollo had calmed down and the both of them looked very tired. Neither of them seemed in the mood to start another fight.
Hasta looked them over, and then cheerfully told the group: "Eightteen."
He turned away and led them down the corridor. "We need to get a move on." When he noticed the prisoners were dragging their heels he turned back for a moment. "I'm also tired. Tired of people's shit. Let's get a move on."
They checked another couple of staterooms down the hall - all empty - and finally came to another iris door at the end of the corridor. The indicators around the door all read green, indicating pressure and atmosphere on the other side would be good.
As the door opened, they entered the main laboratory. The ceiling fixtures closest to the iris door were still intact, but the rest of the room was dark. They could see flickering lights from a computer terminal in the middle of the room. There was a mechanical stink to the air, something indeterminate they couldn't quite place. Along the sides of the lab and down the centre of the room were long lines of experimentation tables. There were a number of chemical apparatuses on the tables, but only a few of them were broken. Some were dirty and abandoned and in disrepair while others were still operating.
Moira looked at the room and the tables and paused, lagging behind a bit. Meanwhile Dendr moved over to the tables almost greedily, perhaps in search of more vials to pocket. His hand touched the pocket on his vacc suit that held the vials they had found in the auxiliary lab for a moment, and then he started rummaging through the things on the tables.
Hasta gestured another military gesture at them, moving off to one side of the room with his rifle at the ready. Myles stepped forward on the other side of the centre tables, keeping pace with the big man.
Qupar stayed close to the two prisoners, not paying much attention, but Parappa had a spring in his step. He was curiously eyeing the equipment, just itching to get his hands on some of the experiments and the lab reports. As they came up to the computer terminal in the middle of the room, they could see the screen was cracked, but readable. Data flashed across the screen, some information about the current experiments came up and soon was replaced by another report, and then another.
At the other end of the lab, the tables were overturned. It looked much like some of the other barricades they had found, and this was no different. A lair of some kind.
"Another one." Moira sighed at seeing the den.
"If we're lucky...just one." Qupar replied.
Hasta approached it, rifle at the ready. There was a rustling sound behind the tables.
"We are a rescue group from Lysari Laboratories. We're trying to find out what happened here. We're trying to get everyone out safely." Myles called out. "We're not here to do any harm to you, but we need to get off this ship to get you people to safety."
There was some more rustling, and a canine head with grey fur and pale blue eyes popped up over the edge of the tables. It fixed Myles with a stare as Myles extended a hand and spoke softly to it.
"I'm not a dog, you know." the canine said, perplexed.
Myles stepped back.
"It's rather insulting to think I'm a dog;" it continued; "I'm a bloody scientist. Who are you and what are you doing in my laboratory?"
Myles blinked a few times. He had been so sure it had been a dog, but apparently the person behind the tables was a vargr. Then he recovered from his surprise. "You've been out of contact for 160 hours with your parent company, so they sent us to find out what's happened. And er... it's been an interesting experience. Not something I'd want to repeat... " He swallowed quickly. "We need to get communications back up so we can let people on the planet know, so we can get off this fucking ship."
The vargr stood up. He wore a lab coat with some smudges, but overall it looked intact. "My name is Jan Vartha. I'm one of the scientists here and er...I think you mistook me for a dog? I'm a vargr." He chuckled. "Slight difference. Anyone with any brain cells knows dogs have very little intelligence, whereas I'm a very intelligent scientist."
"Your laboratory looks like shit." Moira pointed out.
"Smells like shit too;" the vargr replied; "but what do you expect with the chaos that's been going on around here?"
"What the fuck is going on here?" Hasta interrupted.
"I really don't know. One night I was fast asleep in my state room, there was an explosion, chaos ensues, people start attacking eachother and I just hid. I've been surviving and making my way by barricading myself into this lair. Waiting for some sort of rescue mission to come and take me away from this bedlam."
"Well, you're number nineteen." Hasta replied.
"No, my name is Jan."
"You're body...or person nineteen." Hasta said stubbornly. "We found these two still alive. Most of your colleagues are dead."
"Ah." Jan said sadly. "I feared that was the case. Most unfortunate."
"Have you been hiding here this whole time?" Myles asked.
"I've moved around a little bit from room to room. When the chaos was at its worst I cut the hole into the fuel tank and snuck away. Just waited it out until it went quiet. I hid the hole with a mattress on top, so no one could see me."
"I think we found that one." Myles said. "You know that something has been hunting your crew members?"
"I just thought they went mad and were fighting amongst themselves. Not hunting, per se."
"We're going to the main bridge to call for assistance."
Jan nodded vehemently. "I just want to get off this hell hole. It's just been chaos. I've seen enough."
Myles nodded to Hasta to stay with Jan, while he went back to the group. He whispered softly to them so Hollo and Harris couldn't hear. "We've found a vargr, but keep an eye on this person, because this could be the only thing that matches the damage to those bodies we found in that room."
Qupar thought back to the unfortunate souls in the meat locker. It was an obvious assumption to think a vargr could have inflicted those claw marks and bite wounds, but he wasn't fully convinced. "Maybe, but we can't be sure."
"We'll keep him away from Hollo and Harris at the very least." Myles replied. "Make sure to keep them in your sight."
Dendr was still at the computer terminal in the centre of the lab. Upon touching the touchpad, the rolling display on the screen stopped and he browsed through the screens one by one. The computer had just been looping through at random, and as he looked at each screen in turn, he noticed the experiment numbers were 1067, 1077, 1079, 1101, and 1103.
He checked the vials in his pockets and sure enough: they had 1077 and 1079 written on them. The vials must have something to do with the experiments.
He called Qupar over.
"You do realise I have a degree in hydroponics, not...chemistry?" Qupar said sceptically. He started reading the data, scrolling down the screens. "These are experiments on creating combat-enhancing drugs."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Read the next entry in this campaign.
Read the first entry in this campaign.
Having seen the crew manifest with their pictures, Hasta could confirm the dead body they had retrieved floating in space was indeed a crewmember. "So there's four still unaccounted for;" he said.
"And an unknown number of people possibly come on board the cryo pods." Qupar pointed out.
Hasta took the lead again, and they left the auxiliary bridge and turned right. The long hallway had a number of doors to their right, with small windows facing space to their left.
"I think we should continue searching the rooms." Myles said. "There's no reason why we can't take our time."
The life support systems had indicated there was no contagion on board, everything was in the green. "The people are friendly, to a certain extent. And if you shine a light on them they get violent." Myles continued.
Hollo was in the centre of the group. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, and she was quiet for the moment. Hasta checked the next few rooms. The mattresses and bedding were removed, possibly taken to one of the cubby holes where the crew had holed up. One of the rooms had an awful stink. As Hasta poked his flechette rifle and then his head into the room, he found a dead crewman lying on the floor. One leg had been torn off completely. "Seventeen." Hasta said, moving on to the next room.
Qupar glanced at Hollo, gauging her reaction. She didn't want to look into the room, and was obviously ignoring the dead crewman inside. He looked at the body, lying in a pool of blood. The trauma and shock of it was probably what the man had died of, or possibly he had bled out. Not something he'd need to investigate further.
The next room was again devoid of cloth and mattresses and they moved on. The room after that was brightly lit. The bed was made, the drawers closed. It looked pristine and untouched. They moved on to the next room. Here, the bed was torn from the wall, and set up like a barricade. As Hasta started to step inside, he suddenly paused. His foot was hovering just over a metal tripwire, just inside the doorway. He carefully stepped back and made another army hand signal and said; "Tripwire."
"Hello!" he called inside.
There was no response.
"I'll take a look at that wire." Qupar said and he moved towards the door. The tripwire was a metal wire stripped of its plastic coating at shin-height, leading to a sprung-loaded arm just inside the doorframe, out of sight. At the end of the arm was a sharpened metal spike.
"I don't see any explosives." He described the trap to the crew. "We could probably set it off remotely."
"I'm not going to do it." Moira said, gripping her stun stick as if it was a life line. "I've already been hurt."
"You poor thing." Qupar smiled. "Anyone want to grab me something I can set this off with?"
Myles stepped forward with his cutlass and lowered himself to the ground. With the end of the cutlass, he pushed the wire down. There was a soft click as the mechanism released, and the arm swung towards the doorway. The arm collided with the doorway with a 'boinnnggggg' sound, the pointed end harmlessly slashing the air above Myles' head.
Hasta stepped around the remnants of the trap and peered over the barricade carefully. There was another hole in the floor that cut into the fuel tank, and some bedding. In the corner was a huddled human form, trying to be very small.
"Go away. Go away, you can't see me." A man's voice trembled.
"Hi!" Hasta said cheerfully. "I can definitely see you. We're here to save you. What's going on?"
"No, you can't see me. I'm hidden in my hidey-hole. No-one can see me here. No. Who are you? I don't recognise you as a crewmember."
"Yeah, I'm not a crew member." Hasta rumbled happily. "My name is Hasta. I definitely can see you. I'm definitely here to save you. I think it's time to leave. Do you want to get out of here?"
"Can we get out?" The man slowly raised his head. "Are you here on your own? How did you get here?"
"On a spaceship. I'm here with my friends, and we found your friend Hollo, she's with us. Come on up out of that hole and we'll take you with us."
"You found the scientists -- other people -- alive?"
Hasta smiled a pleased; "Yeeeeah."
"I thought I was the only one alive. Oh my God, that is amazing."
"There's not many of you, still alive, but those of you that are still alive, we're here to save you." Hasta looked at the cubby hole. "Did you make this hole? What exactly is going on?"
"I made the hole -- it's a really good hole, isn't it? I really don't know what's going on. One night I was asleep in my bunk, and I woke up...it sounded like a huge explosion. I don't know how big. The place went crazy! There were people running around attacking each other, and I didn't want any of that. I just ran away, got back into my room, and hid! I don't want to be involved in anything that's been going on. It's been horrible."
"Fair enough." Hasta nodded. "Come on, we're getting ourselves out of here. Why don't you come with us?"
"Thank you, yes, that sounds great. I just want to get out of this hell-hole. Let's go. Let's go."
"Come on, come on." Hasta waved the man closer. "We're going to the cargo bay to look at something, and then we're going towards our ship and leave. So come with us and we won't have to collect you on the way back."
"No, no, don't leave me. I don't want to be left alone."
"Cool." Hasta helped the man out of the hole and over the barricade. "I'll introduce you to everybody. I didn't catch your name; what's your name?"
"My name is Harris. I'm the astrogater on this ship." Harris was wearing an armoured jumpsuit with company logos. His head was shaved bald and he had a neatly trimmed beard.
"Hi Harris, my name is Hasta. We are here to get to the bottom of what's going on and get everybody out of here."
"Okay. Do what you need to do and then let's get off the ship." Harris nodded and then turned back. "I'm just going to take my friends with me."
The astrogator picked up a spiked club and a shield from the cubbyhole. "I'm just going to take these with me. I don't trust what's going on in this place."
"That's reasonable. I don't trust anyone in this place either." Hasta nodded.
Hasta didn't want the astrogator and his spiked club at his back, so he stood aside to let Harris pass. As the smaller man came to the door and spotted Hollo, he tensed up. In a flash, he jumped into action, sprung towards the lead scientist, screaming incoherently at the top of his voice.
Dendr stepped back quickly. He didn't want to get in the way of the attack, and perhaps he just wanted Hollo to die. Qupar's reaction was a lot different. He shoved Hollo out of the way of the attack forcibly so she wouldn't be hit, drew his pistol and fired two rounds into Harris. The man just kept coming, but now he was moving towards Qupar.
Moira tried to put some distance between herself and the people fighting. Hollo kept moving in the way Qupar had shoved her, so she was out of the way of the armed man swinging his club at Qupar.
The club connected painfully with Qupar's ribs. He had the wind knocked out of him, but the blow wasn't hard enough to puncture the suit or his skin.
Hasta slung his flechette rifle over one shoulder, and tried to tackle Harris with a flying kick. Harris saw Hasta coming though, and stepped aside. He raised his shield, and in an uncanny reaction managed to swipe Hasta's leg out from under him before he could kick. The big man went flying and landed on the plating of the corridor with a loud thump.
Myles, meanwhile, had his cutlass out. He took a swing at Harris, gouging him across the midriff. The man was still standing, but he took a step back from the blow.
Parappa raised his laser pistol and fired off a shot at Harris. The shot left a gaping, smouldering hole in both Harris' piecemeal armour and his abdomen, but somehow the man was still standing. Parappa flinched, and looked at his gun with horror in his eyes. He usually dealt with troublesome spreadsheets, and all of a sudden he was firing a weapon on some strange laboratory vessel. He wondered briefly how his life ended up taking such a wrong turn.
Dendr had finally moved, grabbed his laser pistol with a determined look in his eye. He squeezed off a couple of shots, but he missed Harris completely. In a true stroke of luck, his bullets didn't hit anyone else in the crowded corridor either.
Qupar was closest to Harris. Despite having a gaping hole in his abdomen from Parappa's laser pistol, and the cutlass cut over his chest, and the two shots Qupar had fired earlier, Harris showed no sign of slowing down. Qupar tucked his pistol away and decided to try and grapple the man, try to bring him down. In a flash he remembered a similar attempt all those years ago in a warehouse back on Iderati. Perhaps the memory made him pause at the worst possible moment, or perhaps Harris was too doped up on adrenaline. Harris stepped aside, dodging Qupar's clumsy grab, and gave him a shove. Qupar stumbled several metres down the corridor before catching himself with a thump against the side wall of the hallway.
In the meantime, Hollo was still trying to move away from Harris and the fight. With her arms bound behind her back, there was no way for her to defend herself. Moira watched the woman warily. Hollo was edging ever closer to her, and Moira wasn't having any of that. She grabbed the stun stick tightly in both hands, and decided to stand her ground. She really didn't want to keep moving away from the group, and as soon as Hollo took another step, Moira tried to stab her with the stun stick. The jab completely missed the scientist and harmlessly wooshed through the air. Hollo's head whipped round to glare at Moira, and she just kept moving towards her. Getting away from the crazy maniac with a spiked club might be more important than picking a new fight with Moira and Hollo kept running down the corridor, towards Dendr and Parappa. But as she passed Moira, Hollo jutted out her shoulder and knocked Moira to the ground. Moira winced as her injured shoulder jolted painfully upon hitting the floor.
Parappa had recovered somewhat from his earlier shock, but he still seemed uncomfortable that he had fired his gun. As Hollo was standing over Moira, he jumped into action. With the butt of his laser gun he whacked the scientist over the head. Her knees buckled and Hollo was knocked to the ground.
Harris raised his spiked club. Hasta and Moira were on the ground and Qupar was too far away, but Myles was still standing and he was close enough. The astrogator advanced on him menacingly. He swung the club with a mighty swing, but Myles raised his cutlass, and managed to deflect the blow. Behind Harris, Hasta quickly scrambled to his feet. He jumped on Harris, and with a spinning roundhouse kick managed to kick the spiked club from his grip. The fearsome weapon tumbled to the ground a little way off.
"What are you doing?" Hasta said slowly, to emphasise his meaning. "We do not. Want. To kill you."
Myles raised his cutlass. Harris wasn't replying to Hasta and showed no intention to stop fighting, so Myles attacked him again. The cutlass bit into Harris' shoulder, but with the armour pieces the man was wearing, it didn't cut very deep.
Dendr looked at Harris, the spiked club several feet away on the floor, but he was still carrying the shield. He had not replied to Hasta's warning growls nor shown any indication that he had heard the warning. Despite his wounds, Harris was still raring for a fight.
"Dendr, this is the guy that was implicated in the logs." Qupar reminded him. "We want him alive."
In a move of desperation, Dendr tried to mimic Parappa's move of whipping Harris with the butt of his pistol. Being unaccustomed to the vacc suit and fighting in any form, he completely lost his balance. At the last moment, Dendr managed to change direction, and kind of stumbled into Harris in a one-armed hug. "Heeeeyyyy you." Dendr tried to salvage the situation, but Harris was in no mood to be hugged and stepped away from the weirdo that was trying to show him this strange affection.
Qupar moved up in a flash, grabbing Harris around the throat with his arm and choking him. Harris clawed at Qupar's arm unsuccessfully, and soon his arm went limp and his eyes closed. Qupar winked slyly at Dendr, and then slowly sank the unconscious astrogator down to the floor.
Hollo was lying prone on the floor with her arms bound behind her back and she was eyeing Moira with a murderous look. Moira pointed the stun stick at Hollo in a menacing way. "If you try to do anything, I'm going to *zap* you!"
This didn't stop Hollo though. She tried to kick at Moira, trying to reach her. One of her kicks connected to the stun stick, and it flew out of Moira's hands, bouncing down the hallway.
Hasta walked up to Hollo, pulled her away with an arm around her shoulder, and looked her in the eye. "Behave yourself, otherwise I'll shoot you."
Hollo writhed wildly, and Hasta fumbled his grip on her arm. She broke free and stepped back, growling softly.
"HOLLO EZRAHM!" Myles shouted in a commanding voice. "This is enough! Control yourself! STAND DOWN."
Hollo stopped, blinked and stumbled, dazed, into the wall behind her. She collapsed down, half leaning, half lying down against the floor and the hallway wall. She started to cry, great heaving sobs.
Myles moved over to her, and started consoling her. Her sobs slowly became more quiet and Hollo seemed to calm down a bit.
"I could use the handcuffs to tie these two together so they're both restrained." Qupar suggested as he stood over the unconscious form of Harris. "They could also..."
"...kill each other." Moira finished the sentence for him as she was getting up.
"He's unconscious right now, but if he wakes up and turns on her..." Qupar shrugged. "...that could be a problem. They both flew off the handle at a moment's notice."
"He sounded pretty coherent until he came into the hallway and saw Hollo." Moira pointed out.
"So did she." Qupar replied. "She was pretty coherent, but she still attacked me. And then we had a good talk. And then she flew off the handle. They're both irrational."
Everybody was quiet for a moment. Then Moira stated: "I think I'm ready to leave this ship."
"I think we all are." Myles replied. "I think it's time we hand this over to whoever is more equipped to deal with these kinds of situations. Like police, or...you know...the authorities."
Qupar removed one of the handcuffs from Hollo and snapped it around Harris' wrist. It probably was a bad plan to have the two manacled together, but they really didn't have much of a choice. While administering the coagulant spray and some antibiotics, Qupar considered what would happen if they were in the air raft and the two scientists would have a fit. Everyone in vacc suits...in such a dangerous situation it would make a mess for sure.
By the time Harris regained consciousness, Hollo had calmed down and the both of them looked very tired. Neither of them seemed in the mood to start another fight.
Hasta looked them over, and then cheerfully told the group: "Eightteen."
He turned away and led them down the corridor. "We need to get a move on." When he noticed the prisoners were dragging their heels he turned back for a moment. "I'm also tired. Tired of people's shit. Let's get a move on."
They checked another couple of staterooms down the hall - all empty - and finally came to another iris door at the end of the corridor. The indicators around the door all read green, indicating pressure and atmosphere on the other side would be good.
As the door opened, they entered the main laboratory. The ceiling fixtures closest to the iris door were still intact, but the rest of the room was dark. They could see flickering lights from a computer terminal in the middle of the room. There was a mechanical stink to the air, something indeterminate they couldn't quite place. Along the sides of the lab and down the centre of the room were long lines of experimentation tables. There were a number of chemical apparatuses on the tables, but only a few of them were broken. Some were dirty and abandoned and in disrepair while others were still operating.
Moira looked at the room and the tables and paused, lagging behind a bit. Meanwhile Dendr moved over to the tables almost greedily, perhaps in search of more vials to pocket. His hand touched the pocket on his vacc suit that held the vials they had found in the auxiliary lab for a moment, and then he started rummaging through the things on the tables.
Hasta gestured another military gesture at them, moving off to one side of the room with his rifle at the ready. Myles stepped forward on the other side of the centre tables, keeping pace with the big man.
Qupar stayed close to the two prisoners, not paying much attention, but Parappa had a spring in his step. He was curiously eyeing the equipment, just itching to get his hands on some of the experiments and the lab reports. As they came up to the computer terminal in the middle of the room, they could see the screen was cracked, but readable. Data flashed across the screen, some information about the current experiments came up and soon was replaced by another report, and then another.
At the other end of the lab, the tables were overturned. It looked much like some of the other barricades they had found, and this was no different. A lair of some kind.
"Another one." Moira sighed at seeing the den.
"If we're lucky...just one." Qupar replied.
Hasta approached it, rifle at the ready. There was a rustling sound behind the tables.
"We are a rescue group from Lysari Laboratories. We're trying to find out what happened here. We're trying to get everyone out safely." Myles called out. "We're not here to do any harm to you, but we need to get off this ship to get you people to safety."
There was some more rustling, and a canine head with grey fur and pale blue eyes popped up over the edge of the tables. It fixed Myles with a stare as Myles extended a hand and spoke softly to it.
"I'm not a dog, you know." the canine said, perplexed.
Myles stepped back.
"It's rather insulting to think I'm a dog;" it continued; "I'm a bloody scientist. Who are you and what are you doing in my laboratory?"
Myles blinked a few times. He had been so sure it had been a dog, but apparently the person behind the tables was a vargr. Then he recovered from his surprise. "You've been out of contact for 160 hours with your parent company, so they sent us to find out what's happened. And er... it's been an interesting experience. Not something I'd want to repeat... " He swallowed quickly. "We need to get communications back up so we can let people on the planet know, so we can get off this fucking ship."
The vargr stood up. He wore a lab coat with some smudges, but overall it looked intact. "My name is Jan Vartha. I'm one of the scientists here and er...I think you mistook me for a dog? I'm a vargr." He chuckled. "Slight difference. Anyone with any brain cells knows dogs have very little intelligence, whereas I'm a very intelligent scientist."
"Your laboratory looks like shit." Moira pointed out.
"Smells like shit too;" the vargr replied; "but what do you expect with the chaos that's been going on around here?"
"What the fuck is going on here?" Hasta interrupted.
"I really don't know. One night I was fast asleep in my state room, there was an explosion, chaos ensues, people start attacking eachother and I just hid. I've been surviving and making my way by barricading myself into this lair. Waiting for some sort of rescue mission to come and take me away from this bedlam."
"Well, you're number nineteen." Hasta replied.
"No, my name is Jan."
"You're body...or person nineteen." Hasta said stubbornly. "We found these two still alive. Most of your colleagues are dead."
"Ah." Jan said sadly. "I feared that was the case. Most unfortunate."
"Have you been hiding here this whole time?" Myles asked.
"I've moved around a little bit from room to room. When the chaos was at its worst I cut the hole into the fuel tank and snuck away. Just waited it out until it went quiet. I hid the hole with a mattress on top, so no one could see me."
"I think we found that one." Myles said. "You know that something has been hunting your crew members?"
"I just thought they went mad and were fighting amongst themselves. Not hunting, per se."
"We're going to the main bridge to call for assistance."
Jan nodded vehemently. "I just want to get off this hell hole. It's just been chaos. I've seen enough."
Myles nodded to Hasta to stay with Jan, while he went back to the group. He whispered softly to them so Hollo and Harris couldn't hear. "We've found a vargr, but keep an eye on this person, because this could be the only thing that matches the damage to those bodies we found in that room."
Qupar thought back to the unfortunate souls in the meat locker. It was an obvious assumption to think a vargr could have inflicted those claw marks and bite wounds, but he wasn't fully convinced. "Maybe, but we can't be sure."
"We'll keep him away from Hollo and Harris at the very least." Myles replied. "Make sure to keep them in your sight."
Dendr was still at the computer terminal in the centre of the lab. Upon touching the touchpad, the rolling display on the screen stopped and he browsed through the screens one by one. The computer had just been looping through at random, and as he looked at each screen in turn, he noticed the experiment numbers were 1067, 1077, 1079, 1101, and 1103.
He checked the vials in his pockets and sure enough: they had 1077 and 1079 written on them. The vials must have something to do with the experiments.
He called Qupar over.
"You do realise I have a degree in hydroponics, not...chemistry?" Qupar said sceptically. He started reading the data, scrolling down the screens. "These are experiments on creating combat-enhancing drugs."
TO BE CONTINUED...
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