Armed with nothing but a plasma bolt caster and two weaponized mining lasers, the surviving crew of the Cordoba made their way through the corridors of the ship, down towards its absolute lowest section, the AI core. While Chris and Owen kept an eye out for potential ambushes from the vents above, each armed with a laser rifle, Brooke closely monitored the motion sensor device in her left hand, keeping a firm grip on the pistol in her right. They moved as a single unit, each crewmember watching each other's backs. From above, Mira kept a close eye on them as well, sealing off bulkheads as they moved from corridor to corridor.
"Mira, how soon can the escape shuttle be prepped for launch?" Chris asked while training his laser rifle on the ceiling above.
"I've already begun prepping it for launch, Captain," she informed. "It should be ready by the time you've started up the self-destruct sequence. If I might make a personal request. Would you mind taking me with you? I'd prefer not to be destroyed along with the ship."
"Well, of course, we'll take you with us, Mira," Brooke assured as if that was a given. "You're a member of our crew."
Chris nodded in agreement. "Once the self-destruct sequence has started, we'll extract your memory core and bring it back to the IFC. You have my word."
"Thank you, Captain. I'll do my best to provide assistance however I can. Best of luck."
They moved forward, covering each other's blind spots, approaching the next hallway.
"Anything on the motion tracker yet?" Chris asked.
Brooke shook her head. "Nothing so far."
The next door slid open. Samantha smiled at them and waggled two little fingers.
"Hello there."
"Smoke her!" Owen shouted.
They fired their weapons, but she was already two steps ahead of them. Samantha leaped back up into the vents and was out of sight before the group could land a single hit on her.
"She got away!" Chris cursed.
"I've got multiple pings on the sensor!" Brooke declared. "They're coming from all sides! We need to move!"
The survivors sprinted for the next corridor as the sounds of creatures crawling along the walls pervaded their ears. Two girls were giggling in bubbly, playful voices, having the absolute time of their life as they chased them through the corridors. Chris and Owen fired beams of concentrated energy up into the vents above, raining metal down around them. Seeing an opportunity, Jess uncloaked herself and descended down into the corridor while the men were distracted before leaping to pounce.
She was blasted away by a straight shot from Brooke's bolt thrower, collapsing to the ground as plasma soared straight through her head. The nurse fired several times into her back for good measure. During which time, Samantha uncloaked her camouflage directly above her, moments from striking with her tail. She was knocked to the ground, writhing in pain as Chris blasted her with fire, having switched to the flamethrower setting of his rifle, charring her skin.
They took off, with Mira slamming the containment door shut behind them.
"Think we got em?!" Chris asked.
Owen shook his head, all his focus on getting to the next door. "They can regenerate! At best, we just slowed them down!"
"I've still got one signature heading towards us!" Brooke warned.
They could hear it above them. Something big moving incredibly fast through the vents directly towards their position. The survivors dashed through the next door, which slammed behind them. They were now in engineering, surrounded by metal pipes, crossbeams, machinery, and dozens of other potential ambush points.
"The signatures gone," Brooke cautioned in a quiet, wary tone as they walked much more carefully through the winding maze of pipes and circuitry.
"This is a bad place to be," Owen insisted. "That freak could pop up anywhere."
"We're almost there," Chris assured them.
The three of them moved quietly through the deck. All around, they could hear something crawling along the metal grating that composed the floor. Brooke checked her motion tracker.
"It's here...gaining fast!"
"Everyone back to back!" Chris shouted.
They stood in a triangle and waited. Wherever the attacker came from, they'd be ready. The group braced as the signature came closer and closer.
Whereupon it suddenly stopped.
"Nothing," Brooke reported.
"What?" Chris just looked confused. "Where did it go?"
Brooke's head swiveled around, gun at the ready. Was it on the ceiling? No. Was it hiding in the pipes? No. It wasn't above them. It wasn't in front of them.
Slowly, she looked down below. A wide razor-sharp smile and glowing yellow eyes stared back up at her through the metal grating of the deck.
Brooke screamed and fell backward, dropping her gun as the creature smashed its way through. Owen was knocked aside by a long segmented tail, while Chris was sent flying against a fuel pipe by a powerful arm.
Finally, the creature turned towards her. Despite the picture Owen painted, he really did not do this thing justice. It was massive! At least seven feet in height on its muscular hind legs with ghostly white skin and red markings. Its tail was segmented, just like Jess and Samantha's, and its skull was bald and elongated with two sharp horns jutting out from the side.
What disturbed her the most, however, was just how human the creature's face almost appeared to be. Those beady glowing yellow eyes and sparkling razor-sharp maw were set against an eerily humanlike facial bone structure, including humanoid cheeks, chin, and a nose.
Its lips stretched to the corners of its mouth, eyes seemingly wide with unbridled excitement as it approached her, bearing the razor-sharp talons it possessed on each of its ten boney fingers. Brooke slowly scooted away, unbridled terror in her eyes as it prepared to strike.
The creature was blasted in the back by flames from Chris and Owen's weapons. It let out a disturbingly human shriek in rage and pain before vaulting into the pipes, retreating to safety. The Captain took her by the hand and helped her up.
"Pretty sure we just pissed it off. We need to move!"
"Hold on! I need the tracker!" she insisted.
"It must have fallen through the grating. I don't see it anywhere," Owen observed.
"Fuck!" she shouted.
Chris grabbed her by the arm. "Forget it! Just grab your gun, and let's go!"
They made a break for it. The sound of that thing bellowing and shouting filled their ears as it gave chase. Whatever that noise was, it turned their blood frigid. Something about it was so distinctly human in quality and yet sounded...off. Like an alien creature trying to mimic what a human might sound like when it shrieks.
"Behind us!" Owen shouted.
Brooke looked back for only a moment. Just long enough to see that hideous smile come barreling towards her along the ceiling. The creature opened its mouth, and a long prehensile tongue launched from the back of its gullet. She felt something snag her right ankle, whereupon the nurse was sent tumbling to the ground.
"Brooke!" Chris shouted in horror as she was reeled in like a fish on a line.
She managed to keep a hold of her weapon and rolled onto her back. Brooke fired into the tongue, severing it from the body. The creature screamed in pain before snarling at her, its predatory grin returning in full as black ooze dribbled from the open wound, seemingly cauterizing it only for the missing section of tongue to come bursting forth out of the stump, good as new.
Chris and Owen fired with their rifles, successfully cutting through its arms and dropping it onto its back from the ceiling above. Brooke quickly got back to her feet and they unloaded their arsenal, completely cutting the creature down to size until all that was left was a plasma-ridden torso.
"Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about!" Owen celebrated.
"Did we kill it?" Chris asked.
Brooke pointed at the mass of limbs and charred body. "Look at it, Chris. No way it's not dead."
She'd spoken too soon. The torso began to writhe on the ground as black tendrils burst from its wounds, sealing them shut and healing the carapace before reaching out and grabbing dissected limbs for reattachment.
"You have got to be shitting me!" Owen shouted in angry disbelief.
"Down the ladder! We need to get to the bottom floor!"
They descended the nearby ladder to get to the lower engineering deck. It wasn't long before they could hear that monster hot on their trails again as it swiftly crawled down after them and darted along the ceiling to catch up. Chris and Owen turned around and fired, only to lose it in the pipes.
"Dammit! We can't keep this up forever. The energy cells on these things are gonna run out soon. We're toast!"
Owen considered the Captain's words for a moment before staring down a side passage away from their objective. After making up his mind about something, he turned back towards the others.
"Alright..." His voice was calmer than it was before, more put together. "...you two go on ahead. I'll lure that thing away and catch up."
"What?!" Brooke shouted in disbelief.
"It won't be long before the succubus twins catch up to us. And when that happens, it's over. You two need to get to the AI core and make sure these freaks do not leave this ship."
Chris stared at the engineer searchingly.
"Owen, no! We've lost enough people already," Brooke insisted. "We're not leaving anyone else behind."
"I'll catch up," he insisted good-humoredly before turning to Chris. "You good with that, Captain?"
The Captain lowered his head remorsefully before smiling at him and nodding. "We'll be waiting for you at the shuttle."
The engineer smirked at them and raised his rifle into the air. "Ten units says I beat you both there."
A tense silence followed.
"It's been an honor, Captain," Owen assured in a slightly more aware tone.
"That it has," Chris replied before taking a completely distraught Brooke by the hand and leading her away.
"Hey, Boss?" the engineer called out to him.
He stopped and turned around. "Yeah?"
"Kevin was right about one thing. We're not getting paid nearly enough for this shit."
Chris laughed. There were tears in his eyes, but he still laughed.
