Alien: Kindred

[Asmodeus]

theme

A dozen dreamers.

That was all we were. Not professional dreamers, though. Professional dreamers are highly paid, respected and sought after. Professional dreamers find new worlds, change skylines and peoples minds alike. But we - we dream without effort or discipline, the straightforward and clumsy dreams of the frail. We are colonists, good at organising stores and cargo, at pidgeon-holing carton A in storage chamber B. But in the warehouse of the mind our filing systems go awry. Hopes and fears, speculations and half-creations - they slip haphazardly from compartment to compartment.

In my frozen sleep I dream of Talamaur. That's all it is now - a dream. The Untapi Sun would not permit one second more of life. The oceans boiled. The crust melted. The precious atmosphere we had reared for twenty years burned away in seconds. And what we had known, for our part, as 'home', was lost in darkness, leaving only fragments in our dreams.

There are other dreamers here too - those who dream of different things. The crew of the Montero. They once dreamed of tidy profits, of the paycheck they would get from hauling their cargo through the inifinite night. Or perhaps of families they would return to, and children they had left in the months behind us. I wonder now if their dreams are angry ones - if they toss and turn with thoughts of how they were cheated, of how the powers that be instructed them to save us, we, the lowest echelon of colonists, the damaged and the damned. We are now their cargo, their burdens, their only guarantee of payment.

A dozen dreamers. Thrown together in the afterburn. A dozen dreamers awaiting the nightmare.

It was a violent birth. Crowther woke to find fleshy protrusions criss-crossing before her face, like snakes in frenzied dance. She realised too late that it was her own arms, slapping and pounding at the ceiling of her world. Her mind could not register it. Not only had she grown accustomed to the absence of limbs, both in her waking and dreaming life, but her mind had been unconscious for so long now. Her arms flailed despite her thoughts. And her thoughts... they swirled. The nightmare of drowning, of burial alive, of still-birth in a frozen womb. They came all at once.

She screamed.

There were shapes beyond the glass. Lights flashing on and off. The world was tilting every which way. Somewhere, far off, a voice, beyond her screams. The stumps of her legs could find no purchase. She was trapped.

The cryotube's lights went blood-red. Her air had run out.

Then something broke the glass. A crimson protruberance, solid and unyielding. It pentrated her chamber, its dome-like end cold and smooth. She gasped. The fire extinguisher retracted. And the hands that had driven it through the cryotube's glass slipped through the breach to grab her.

Crowther was hauled, mewling and screaming, into the harsh white of the waking world.

"It's alright. You're alright."

The man was dressed in the crew suit of the Montero. He was one of their hosts. He had saved her.

Crowther's screams became sobs. Her noise was replaced by the wailing alarms, the rattling of tubes and fittings, the shudder of the room. Something was pawing at their world, knocking it this way and that with monstrous strikes. She was deposited on the floor, wet and freezing, and the man rushed onwards. "We have to open the other pods!" he shouted, as he punched at the consoles of the cryo-chambers.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

[size=+1]It's a premature birth of an awakening. A circumcision.

His eyes snap open, pupils dilated and staring, a croaked scream forces itself free from vocal chords that have been inactive for far too long. Fogged glass entombs him in some space-age coffin as Elliot Ford's arms hammer desperately against the sealed pod. Cryo-stasis has left its mark on his consciousness, his mind currently attempting to make sense of the situation it finds itself in as his body is forced back into sudden wakefulness.

That's when the fear starts to take hold.

Fists still pounding against the glass, Elliot begins to feel his breathing become faster and more panicked. Some horrible voice of reason in the back of his head tells him that he's sealed in here and that the oxygen he needs to keep himself alive is no longer coming his way. Something unspeakable beneath him begins to laugh as he cries out once more, and he swears that he can feel a liquid begin to rise up around his legs.

With one final, desperate yell he slams his fist into the glass of the pod and something gives way before it. A spray of glass almost catches him in the face before he turns his head to one side and clenches his eyes shut at the last minute. The pain from the shards now embedded in his hand hits him a second later, but a welcome rush of breathable air reminds him that it was worth it.

"SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING THING!" Elliot roars through the hole in his cyro-pod, "JESUS CHRIST, HELP!" Fortunately help seems to be on hand; a figure looms over the pod, details hidden by the fogged glass. A cry of relief escapes his parched throat… only for it to be replaced with a scream as something inhuman but all too familiar leans down to peer through the hole in the glass and smile at him.

Yelling in horror, Elliot wrenches his eyes shut once again. His timing is impeccable, as a fire-extinguisher is slammed through the glass of the pod not a second later and hands attempt to pull him from it. Thinking the worst Elliot struggles and fights against this unwelcome aid, but stasis has left him drained; dragged from the coffin he was encased within, he finds himself dumped onto the cold metal floor of a ship walkway.

Forcing his eyes open again, Elliot is greeted by the sight of one of the crewmen of the Montero. He breaths a sigh of relief before a hacking cough from a parched throat overtakes him. Crimson drips from his wounded hand, but he pays it little heed just now, his mind still reeling from the shock of a forced awakening. That little voice of reason tells him that he is lucky he isn't brain-damaged from such a trauma.

More brain-damaged, he thinks to himself.

A wheezing laugh begins to emanate from him, and soon Elliot is on the floor howling with some dark mirth as the ship is rocked by some unseen force.[/size]

 

[Boone]

Boone senses a disturbance and a change in the surrounding inertia. She let her head loll to one side and her freckled cheek presses against the frigid glass of her cryo-pod. Her brow furrows in confusion and her eyes struggle to open. Her mind slowly registers what's going on and Boone has to force her panic back down as she tries to peer through the frosted glass.

Boone first takes a few swings at the glass with her petite fists. No good. The need for oxygen grows as does her panic. Boone notices one of the metal frames just over her chest supporting the glass. She begins hammering at the glass with all her might. Crack by crack and chip by chip the glass weakens until it shatters. Boone's knuckles have become bloody and bruised but she doesn't stop. Never stop, never quit.

Through her newly made peep hole Boone could make out figures moving around. She didn't even bother to attempt to call out to the figures, it's not like she could say much anyways. Boone continued to knock out little bits of glass by pushing the broken glass outwards of her cryo-pod. Finally somebody took hold of her frozen fingers and consoled her efforts. The upper glass casing was lifted away and the fluids surrounding Boone splashed to the floor. Boone rolled to her side and clutched the edge of the cryo-pod. The crew worker lifted her palid body from the frigid pool of fluid and placed her with little delicacy onto the freezing hull floor.

She brought her knees to her chest and studied her surroundings. She couldn't make much out, she had become incredibly dizzy from the sudden rush of oxygen and adrenaline. It was quite a scene. Imagine watching an action movie with no noise. Or seeing a cop's blue lights with no siren. That's all Boone ever got to see. The crew members rushed about to free the others, but Boone couldn't hear any hollow foot steps on the hull floor, or any crackling of broken glass.

Boone was tossed from her seat on the floor and flung to her side as a sudden change in equilibrium hit her. She hollered out with the closes "oomph!" sound she could manage before catching her head on the unforgiving hull wall. No sound...no words...and soon her world went black.

 

[Hounds]

It was the lack of air that awoke Yuri the suffocating feeling of death wrapping its hand around his neck, forgetting where he was Yuri lashed out in which ever way he could. Pounding at the sides of his cyro-pod, he needed to get out and soon lest he be pulled out as a cold wet corpse. Grabbing on to what reasoning he had left Yuri steadied himself and began to coordinate his strikes on the glass, he started to punch the glass with his one good arm with all his might. Bit by bit it gave way to his frantic attacks and bit by bit his arm grew tired, with no oxygen to fuel his body he could only do so much. He knew he was almost through one more hit and he'd be to get the precious air, with one last ditch effort Yuri threw his last ounce of strength at the casing. Giving way to his onsluaght the glass finally broke showering down Yuri's unprotected self leaving a series of scraps and cuts along his arm and face. Surging with adrenaline Yuri through himself out and over the edge of the pod landing with a heavy thud onto the floor. Yuri did his best to stay awake as a feeling of exhuastion washed over, the last sight he saw before passing out was on of the crew members frantically running back and forth try to break the others out of their cryopods.

 

[Apro]

Blaring alarms in his pod woke him. He, however, woke to a panicked state. He smashed at the glass with whatever he could use, his Head, his arms, hands, knees, feet. None of it worked, he was trapped, and being claustrophobic, it was bad news for him. "WHERE THE HELL AM- AHACHHHH HACHHHH KUACHHHH!!" He started but his lungs wouldn't follow they had hacking in mind as they were slowly eaten by cancer. He kept trying to fight his way out, smashing at the glass with no avail, no avail until a red protrusion smashed it in from the outside.

The sudden blast of air didn't calm him down and as the extinguisher left the hole it made and hands started coming through, he freaked out more. Struggling and smashing at the broken glass. Finally, covered in cuts and gashes all over his body both old and new, he flung himself onto the ground, his coughing beginning again through his pained screams. "KUACHHH KUACHHH HAACHHHHHH!!!" His lungs exclaimed in their sickened way. Rolling over, he saw his sister, covered in blood and staring down at him, "You're awake now.....good..." She said, "It was getting lonely here with you sleeping so long......" She finished flickering out along with the purple shades that filled his vision before. "She dead...She's Dead She's DEAD, she can't talk to you cause she's dead." He muttered weakly, speaking only to himself, though it was more of thinking out loud as he fought another panic attack. Erik had awaken to the world again, and to his mind, he had brought back from the dead......

 

[Lawkheart]

Jayelyn gasped as the alarm that was not too loud to most, made her ears ring. She opened her eyes but could only see fuzz. She began coughing as the air seemed to disapate. She felt in front of her, feeling the dewy glass and then covering her ears as the alarms got louder. "Please someone make it stop!" she cried desperatly but her voice was cut short as the air finally ran out. She began thrashing inside her pod. Punching and kicking the glass as hard as she could. She had to give up punching since her ears were hurting. She kicked and kicked and kicked more until the glass covering popped open. She gasped in air and felt her way, pushing the pod open for her. She fell out yelping as she landed on the hard wired floor. She sat up and felt around. She could hear faint voices since her ears were just starting to calm down from the blaring alarms. "Hello?" she called looking about but not seeing anything. Her voice was horse and she had to cough badly after she finished saying that one word. Her throat hurt and her body was begining to tremble uncontrolably. She felt so cold and her skin was clamy and felt sticky; her hair still in the cap they had used to keep her hair from getting caught up in the ventilation of the tube. She continued to cough until she calmed down some what and her lungs did not burn when she breathed.

 

[Asmodeus]

"We're making planetfall!" the crewman yelled as he tossed the extinguisher aside and knelt on Erik's chest. He was trying to hold the youth down as he panicked. "Just stay calm!"

He was shouting above the chorus of alarms and howling laughter from another patient. Crowther watched all this, splayed on the floor where the man had left her. The amputee screamed as Boone collided with the wall and fell unconscious by her side. Grabbing hold of the other woman, her eyes were wide as she beheld Boone's small and bloodied fists. And a few feet away Yuri, likewise, lay unconscious.

The world shifted again. The chamber lurched violently. One of the remaining pods disengaged its locks to allow Jayelyn out, but the seventh pod was still sealed and the man inside trapped. With the crewman distracted by Erik, there was no hope for this last dreamer.

Their stomachs leapt into their mouths. Crowther twisted with Boone, vomitting cryogenic fluid across the floor as the room seemed to drop in freefall. A great force shook the room, then another, then a third more violent than before. Anything not bolted down was thrown, and Elliot's laughter stuttered and choked. The room was dragged for painful seconds to the tune of squealing metal then halted with bone-rattling force.

Everything came to a stop.

Crowther was locked in foetal state, curled over Boone, blonde hair sodden and shivering as she wept. The stillness was sudden and numbing, like death. And through it all the klaxon continued, a quiet female voice uttering those lifeless words:

"...Attention...landing strut three compromised..."​

 

[Hounds]

Yuri was thrown hard against one of the walls the impact jarring him awake he tried to get up his legs still numb from his previous state, he heard a man shout something from across the room but coulodn't make out what it was soon after a monotoned voice mention something about on of the landing struts. They were landing already, first a premature awakenong and know they were landing on god knows what planet? What the hell had happened while he and the others were out? He tried to make his way across the room to one of the crewmen to get a better explanation of what was going on, but his lower half wouldn't allow it. He stumbled with each step not even making it half way acroos before they gave out from under him, he tried to shout at the man but the alarms were too loud. What ever was going on he wouldn't be able to find out till afterwards.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

[size=+1]His laughter cuts in and out amidst the sound tearing metal and terrible crashing.

From his crumpled position before the cryo-pod Elliot is hurled about the room amongst the others who managed to pull themselves from stasis. He's not aware of them yet, however, caught up in a whirlwind of pain and confusion as the world around him loses solidity for a time.

Just as he was convinced he was going to die in this screaming metal coffin there is a final crash and the sound of something heavy grinding to a stop. Elliot lies shaking in a corner of the room, clutching his bleeding hand and whimpering softly. Somewhere a female voice, automated and unnaturally calm amidst this chaos, filters through the haze that fills his reeling mind.

"...Attention...landing strut three compromised..."​

Unsteadily and nervously he pulls himself to his feet, blood still running from his wounded hand. He's delirious from the crash and the sudden wake-up from stasis but something in the back of his mind tells him that he's going to need to get his hand looked at pretty soon.

Finally his eyes start to register the other forms that dot the room, and his heart leaps at the realisation that he's not alone in this predicament.
"Everyone--" he begins, but his dry throat catches up with him again and he's reduced to a coughing fit for a moment. Regaining his composure he tries again.

"Everyone alright?"[/size]

 

[Ming - Ladd Russo]

~`-_Sleeping, atleast that's what it felt like. Jeff lays there, standing ironicly, in his cryo-pod thinking to him self. He never really had dreams, all he saw while looking at his eyelids was a white-noise like movement from his eyes failing. He would flintch some times, only a slight twitch above his eyebrow. his arms were crossed above his chest, intertwined with one another. His hair was matted, he dearly needed a shower and a shave, his 5 o'clock shadow was scratching him as it grew in his sleep. He needed glasses, but wasnt wearing them in his cryo-pod because they dug them selves into the bridge of his nose, the last thing he needed was an eritating scab next to his eyes.

He feels the air slowly slipping out of his lungs but does not panic, he can tell that something has happned to the Cryo-pod system, perhaps a malfuncsion. His lungs feel heavy, he hears a slight murrmer, a masked alarm with words he can not understand. His ears seem to be underwater, everything is rippled and hard to hear. His limbs are slowly losing wormpth, he's slowly dieing. It's not hard to imagin what's going to happen to Jeffery, being smuthered by your own gases you have exspelled is ironic, he's poisoning him self.

Jeff's lungs begin to buck back, lacking the air to pump blood with their oxegen that they needed. He coughs him self awake, eyes tightly enclosed but not fully as he views the blured area which was infront of him. He placed the palm of his hand onto the glass, holding onto his chest with his fist as he looked from right to left, coughing a fit as he tapped the glass. His vision getting worse with every moment he was inside that chamber, he can't even speek pleads of help to the moving blurred figures outside the glass wall which seperat them. He passes out, closing his eyes and loses feeling. The last thing he hears was the glass breacking, the shadering glass bouncing off something metal and the exspelling of the gas which poisoned him escaping the chamber. The last thing he feels is being pulled out of the pod, and that is all. Everything else was blank, atleast for a while._-`~

 

[Apro]

Erik coughed harder as the crew struggled to calm him down. He needed his meds, but pushing the man off him was proving to be difficult. "CHACHHHH GET OFF!" He exclaimed before the sudden stop Erik getting thrown from the floor to the wall, the clammering thud of his body smashing into the metal almost drowned out by the other noises, noises of damaged metal twisting, psychotic cackling, Alarms and the computerized female voice alerting to everyone that a landing strut was out.

His body still ran red with his own blood as he managed to get himself to his feet and struggle himself to his locker, and as he opened it, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and grabbed a bottle of pills, anxiety meds, to help his hyperventilation and overactive mind slow the hell down. He popped two and grimaced at the taste while they dissolved in his mouth. He looked over at Elliot, and after a fit of coughing he gave the troubled man a simple but weakened thumbs up, however, he couldn't help but look over at the unopened pod, seeing the EKG screen on the side of it flatlined. He looked down, a feeling of guilt washing over him, another dead because he couldn't control his own mind.

 

[Warmaster Death]

Tattered Dreams and Fitful sleep;
Thunderous crashes, tremendous banging, wailing sirens and maniacal laughter awoke him from his deep sleep, and his fingers scrambled at the hot fleshy cage keeping him imprisoned, he heard the demons outside, heard their cackling at his capture, and Vladimir pressed his fingers to either side of the coffin like cage, pressing against it, screaming his rage, fear and frustration as he did so, but one particularly violent lurching crash slammed his head against the side of his cage, his eyes closed and consciousness fled him.


He awoke, moments? hours? later, time was an abstract position here, but the the hot fleshy cage was gone, replaced with cold white steel and glass, the lighting in the pod flickered from stark white to blood red and the ex security tech knew what that meant, attempting to still his heart he pressed his hands to the cold metal, noting that they were already partly ajar, whether from the ships wild thrashing or some external savior's work he was unsure, but he felt cool air blowing in from outside, and he bunched his muscles, pushing with every bit of strength his whipcord muscular frame had, forcing the pod door to open wide enough to fit through, before dragging himself out from the pod, spilling onto the decking as the ship slammed home in one final, tremendous explosion of force.

He lay there for some time, gathering his thoughts, until his survival instinct kicked in, to remain so vulnerable so long was a sure way to have his pursuers, the macabre legions of hell find and destroy him, and he would not die lying on his back to some demon's claws.
[SIZE=+1]
"Everyone alright?"[/SIZE]

He recognised the voice, one of the few others with whom he shared an occasional place in the Colony Med bay, before the Evac
"aye" he called out, tearing himself off the floor and looking around as if searching for hidden eyes, fire holes, creatures lurking in the shadows waiting to take him and flay hime alive.

 

[Asmodeus]

The dreamers had awoken.

All but one, that is. A man named Keith had sunk to the deeper sleep, to the ocean beneath this life. In waters strange and unknowable he would break apart, till nothing remained. Falling debris in the liquid oblivion, drawing passing stares. And like flotsam he would leave only the echoes of his pain and terror for the others on the surface.

The dining area was cramped, like every room on the Montero, but this one moreso for the plastic table at its centre. The autochef on the counter offered the finest reconstituted shit - artificial meat and vegetables. There was coffee too, if it could be called that. And seven chairs - eight if you included the wheelchair that had been found for Crowther.

Just enough, it seemed. Like some cruel joke, their number had been reduced by one, as if to keep things tidy.

Through a corridor, the crewman who had woken them all had remained in the cryo-room, easing the corpse of Keith Soma into a bodybag. It was cardiac failure, the crewman had reported - not something a middle-aged colonist should fear, but some of the survivors recalled that Keith had been the one with hysterical claustrophobia.

A claustropbic janitor... that was all Crowther remembered of Keith, back in the colony medical bay. They were the only two words she associated with the bald, twitching patient who had taken the bed across from her. In her mind she carved those words into his phantom headstone, chiselling them into the stasis ice where Keith's body would lie now for the rest of the journey.

The stumps of her legs twitched as she gripped the table and pulled herself closer, her other hand taking up the thin, plastic cup of coffee. It was bitter, sour with powdered milk, but it got rid of other tastes - tastes of ice and bile. The crewman had let them dress and move to the dining area while he saw to Keith, but so far that was it. The other doors from the cyro-room, canteen and adjoining corridor were sealed, and there were no windows. Someone had mentioned that they had landed, but that was it. With the emergency klaxons deactivated, they could hear a slight rumble around them, like wind catching on metal edges.

But nothing more.

Crowther looked slowly around the room to where the others either sat, leant on the counter, or paced beside the autochef.

There was Elliot, the man who had been laughing during the crash. His hair and beard were a mess and his eyes seemed unnaturally large, as if some terror was holding them open. Then Erik, perhaps the youngest and angel-faced, although he seemed to have problems breathing. Crowther had stared a little too long at this boy's face, but in the wake of death it was nice to be reminded of beauty. Then there was Lawkhart, who she remembered was visually impaired. The girl's eyes were a strange, icy blue, almost ghoulish. Then Yuri, the muscular one-armed engineer, whose remaining hand was bandaged heavily. He had punched his way out of the cryopod - something that showed an incredible will to live. Another girl called Boone had done the same, pushing out smaller pieces of glass from around the locking mechanisms, and this had got her hands sliced to pieces. The paleness of her skin accentuated her freckles in the artificial light. Then Jeffery, who she remembered once worked in the colony medical bay before an accident had made him a patient. The rumour was that he had stabbed himself in the leg with his own scalpel. The man had eye-glasses attached to the bridge of his nose and would flip them down whenever he looked at anything. Then Nichols, part of security on the colony, with hideous scars around his head and neck. This man frightened Crowther more than the others.

The silence was terrible in the dining area. Crowther felt it suffocating her, like the cryopod. Keith's death hung over them. Searching for something to say, her eyes came to rest on the autochef machine on the counter. It was a reminder of her days at the colony, where she had used one at the bar whenever the patrons wanted some gruel to line their stomachs before the booze. The woman's voice was dry and scratchy as she spoke up.

"I know... how to change the salt levels... if you want." She glanced at the other survivors then nodded weakly at the machine. "It makes the meat taste better."

 

[Ming - Ladd Russo]

~`-_Jeff could hear silent whispers around him. They might not of been whispers, but in the state he was in, they might as well be. It would appear that he had became unconsous from the "crash landing" the auto poilet flew them into. This is why Jeff didnt trust technology, more or less put a magnet to a toaster before even comming close to an Automated, Mechanized Humanoid he has been hearing about around the Med lab. Just from the thought that enginers creat Androids sickins him to the core, but he digresses while under his state of being right now. Right now to him, he was still sleeping in his Hyper Chaimber, waiting to be awaken from the gases that poor into them to wake the sleeping beauties up so they can move again, so they were no longer under paralasis, as he says it.

Jeff's eye lids would feel heavy, but slowly and surely, he forced them open. His vision was blury, what did he exspect from not having his glasses on. He kept them in his desk in the medical bay, but because of the crash, were probely broken or unobtainable by now, so he would have to go blind, seeing double of everything which threw him off. He hated his left eye, allways giving his brain two images of the same image to comprehend. Jeff couldn't tell which one was which, wither the person to the right was the real one, or the left one was. He kept that eye closed as he looked around the area, he could atleast tell who or what was in the room with one eye closed. He could see that he was on the coutch of the Dining Area, the Octagon table ready to searve all the "meals" it was ready to serve.

Groggy, he rubbed the back of his head and asked them, "Gr-ahhh!.... What time is it?" his voice was like a whisper as he tried to awaken from his longer slumber then the rest of the group. he could tell they were around form the moving, humanoid figures, but couldn't tell who he was talking to.

 

[Boone]

Boone peers up at the attractive blonde woman speaking. She finds herself smiling meekly in spite of the "situation" at hand and manages to catch Crowther's eye as she nods not-so-enthusiastically about raising the MSG percentage on the autochef. Boone would never consider herself an optimist but she was a realist. This ship...this peanut that had crash-landed on a rock in space was their private cruiser to hell and why shouldn't it be? The Colony had made a smart decision. You're only as strong as your weakest man so why not get rid of the weak men? And women for that matter.

Boone's chest rose and fell as a great sigh of apathy expelled from her body. She took a moment to study the ship's inhabitants and finally found herself thinking: At least I'm not the weakest link.

A voice from a cross the room resulted in Boone turning to gape at the man who had been passed out on the couch in the mess hall since everyone else had awoken roughly an hour before hand. He must really not give a damn. I bet everyone else is scared shitless. I'm not scared. I'm not scared of death.

 

[Apro]

He scrambled to a spot on the table, it wasn't fast nor did he have a sense of urgency about his actions his muscles spasmed from the meds calming his brain, and clumsily jerked for the table. He'd gotten dressed and cleaned his wounds before he came to sit. He was dressed in tattered bloodied clothes, his work boots covered in frayed nicks and burns from flying sparks, rough black cargo pants ripped asymmetrically at the knees and across the right calf, the left leg of them mottled by tiny holes where sparks had erupted at him. His skin showing from the holes was visibly burned and his right calf though not deep was cut open, the bleeding having stopped sometime during stasis. His shirt appearing from the open jack was a dark grey, but stained heavily from blood, most not even his own and the brownish grey thick rough canvas jacket was torn and frayed over the arms stopping over the right collar with harsh bloody vertical tear over it a wound visible behind it as well.

He had gloves on torn midway up the first segments of his fingers, green and damaged. His hair was wet from his quick clean up and shook as he bobbed his head over a bowl of oatmeal, or what looked like oatmeal, his brownish green eyes held up darting around to the others, the one called Crowther he'd noticed was looking at him, and unintentionally his eyes locked on his, a truly terrified soul apparent behind the eyes shed be able to see, the results of his panicking nature. He didn't say a single word as he ate, shoveling little spoonfuls of oatmeal down his throat until the bowl was nearly clean, then he stood up, shaking a bit and he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, asking quietly, "there anywhere to smoke on this ship?"

 

[Ming - Ladd Russo]

Seeing that no one would awenser him right away, he desided to just ignore them, and continue twards what he saw to be the coffee maker. He was still blind in one eye with this hand covering it, he did not care to see everything doubled infront of him, it threw him off. That might of been the main reason why he "accidently" stabbed him self in the leg, didn't know if it was his or the pasients...

He felt around, placing his hand onto the cooling surface of the counter of the feeding chaimber and moved with it, placing his palm firmy against it as to know where he was going. When he got to the machine, he smiled with happyness, as if joy filled his body. Was it him or did it seem that coffee was the main source of everyones joy, because when he placed his hand onto the burning glass of the pot, he knew it was fully brued and ready to be searved. He took a plastic cylinder from his pocket and poped it out, making it a cup that can fold into its self and poored him self a cup of coffee, natures favored necture. He took the small cup into his mouth and drank the hole thing without hesitasion. His sloutched posture turned to that of tingling awakeness, body twitching as he took the first sip of coffee for over three mounths, atleast thats what it felt like.

After giving a greatful sigh to it, he took another cup of it and sat down with the group, looking around with his vision no longer strained as what it used to be. The images would be clearer and less doubled then they were before. He saw the sorrowful faces of the crew and pasengers and wondered what was wrong, not knowing the full situasion at hand. All he knew was that they has an emergency, something happened, and all the cryo-pods were forced open due to lack of O2 in them. He looked twards the person who looks like they knew what was going on, the women with amputated legs, and asks, "Did I miss something in my slumber? I'm terribly sorry for keeping you waiting for my arival." Trying to lighten the mood.

 

[Asmodeus]

Another hour passed. The survivors ate what food they could stomach and exchanged the smallest pleasantries. It was enough to learn each other's names or recognise old faces they had seen on the colony. But for the most part it seemed they did not know one another, that the paths of these survivors had not crossed until now.

The crewman - the only one they had seen so far - the one who had got them out of the cryopods - eventually finished placing the corpse of Keith Soma into cold storage. As the compartment slid shut on the bodybag the crewman turned and approached down the corridor that divided the cryo-chamber from the dining room. He was tall and had to stoop in the passageway.

Straightening, he swept the table with a glance. His eyes seemed intense - a common look for deep-space crew who had spent too long in the void. And his skin was pale, from the cycles of darkness and cryo-sleep. Crowther guessed this was his tenth, maybe fifteenth year in commercial haulage. She wondered if he had a family back on Earth or one of the inner colonies - loved ones who waited on the monthly paychecks from Weyland Industries.

His lips parted and he went to speak.

NEEEERP!

It was a strange electronic sound, a buzzing that was startling and loud. The survivors looked confused for a moment, then realised that the man had not in fact spoken, but that an intercom on the wall beside him had buzzed. The man turned and pressed his finger on the one of the buttons, leaning close to the grill.

"Waker... goddammit, where are you?" the voice from the intercom was faint, crackling. It seemed to be miles away.

The crewman pressed another button to answer. "I'm here, Aaron." His voice was smooth, eloquent... almost cold.

"Open the airlock, Wakefield. We're coming in." The distant man... Aaron... seemed out of breath and there was strain in his voice. Exhaustion and fear.

"Certainly, Aaron. Was your foray successful?"

"JUST OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!" Another voice screamed down the intercom. It was a woman, as crackling and distant as Aaron, and twice as terrified.

The crewman - the one identified as Wakefield - raised an eyebrow. "Verger? You sound a little anxious."

"NO SHIT! NOW O--"

Aaron cut back in, his voice trying to calm the woman's. "She's fine, Wakefield. I'm fine. We just want to come back aboard. We're tired."

"That's understandable. The gravity out there is a little lower than we're used to." Wakefield went to move, then paused. His eyes narrowed and he pressed the intercom again. "And where is Lissa?"

There was silence on the line... only static and short, anxious breaths. It sounded like there was a storm wherever the two voices were. "She's fine too," Aaron said at last. "She's right here with us."

"Can she talk?"

The woman, Verger, cut back in. She was almost sobbing. "Goddam it, Waker! Look, she's hurt. We have to get her inside."

Wakefield ran a finger across his lips, pondering. "Hurt how?"

Now Aaron asserted his authority again. "Look, it's not a problem. There's something on her. We just need to get her to the infirmary."

"Please clarify, Aaron." Wakefield's voice was getting colder.

"Something attacked her, out on the rocks. It's a... dammit, Waker, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS! But it's still on her!"

"Open the fucking airlock! Lissa needs help."

The crackling grew harsher and there were booms now and then. Perhaps thunder. Perhaps someone hammering on the airlock. Wakefield had remained calm throughout the entire exchange, stroking a finger on his lips, calculating, contemplating. It was a long time before he spoke into the intercom again. "I'm sorry, but no."

There was a sob of disbelief on the line. "WHAT?"

"Wakefield!"

"No. I am not prepared to admit a foreign organism onto this ship. I have eight patients under my charge here, and I will not endanger them by breaching quarantine procedures."

"YOU FUCKING ROBOT! SHE'LL DIE OUT HERE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

"The two of you are free to board. But I will not let Lissa onto this ship until the rest of the crew have returned and a field examination can be conducted."

"Listen to me, Wakefield. I outrank you! I'm ordering you to open that airlock."

"I have acting command of this ship until the captain returns. Your request is denied." And with that, Wakefield turned off the intercom, cutting out on the sound of tears in the distance... of angry screams in the hostile night.

 

[Ming - Ladd Russo]

Right when the intercom shouted, "Robot!" Jeff looked at the person whohad saved him with fear stricking his eyes. 'I was saved by an android?...' his eye twitched as he unknowingly poored coffee onto his lap. he was about to take another sip when he heard what he did. He ignored the pain and focused only ont hat word spoken, "Robot"

... He stood up and shouted at himin protest, "Let them in you damn Machine! You are Waylond Property, which means you have to make sure All human life is considered safe under your care, All humans! Including the ones out there, now let them Right this instant!" He slamed his fist onto the table as he looked at the mechanized humanoid with fury in his eyes. After a moment of silent, from his sudden burst of rage, Jeff tossed his cup aside and stompped over to the intercalm and ased who ever was on the other side, "How the hell do I open this Airlock? Your walking toaster is malfuncioning!"

 

[Asmodeus]

"Manual override, on the airlock terminal. Go to the cargo ba--"

Aaron's voice was cut off as Wakefield gripped Jeff's hand and removed it from the transmission button. The crewman's eyes were stern, unblinking.

"Please don't do that. I am following regulations."

Tension gripped the air between them. Wakefield was still holding Jeff's hand. Their gazes were locked.

"If you breach quarantine, you endanger us all."