Futuristic Sealed In With A Beast

[Jasminum]

How will you survive when you're sealed away from all help?

In a large space craft carrying over 600 million people, a superpredator has invaded and threatens life on the ship as we know it. The space craft sent out shuttles carrying scouts to investigate a foreign landmass they hadn't come across before, and when those scouts were returning to their shuttle one of them was attacked by a large, black, fast-moving creature.

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Spoiler

The creature is completely foreign, never seen or recorded by any government in history.

The young man was killed nearly instantly and when the other scouts rushed to his aid, the creature ran off. However, when the body was returned to the shuttle something exploded out of the man's stomach and quickly slithered off.

That was several months ago. The shuttles have since reconnected with the main ship and the creature has escaped into the main ship without anyone's knowledge. Today, that creature is fully grown and looks the same as its' parent, if not even more menacing and deadly. It's now fully grown and is in a highly populated section of the ship, sector 6C13. So far, it's killed seventy four people. Luckily, due to the security cameras and patrols, Captain Malusnik was able to find out quite quickly and evacuate people from that section. Most people. Some got left behind. They were sleeping and didn't hear the alarm to evacuate or they were running to evacuate but they didn't make it out fast enough. Some had older family members who couldn't evacuate fast enough, so they stayed with them. Others were disabled. You are someone who didn't make it out, whatever the reason. Just an ordinary, unarmed civilian trapped in space with a large killing machine. You have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. No big deal.

The captain has made contact with the sector, although she refuses to restore power to the sector to open the doors to allow you to evacuate OR send the military in to kill it. She says it is too risky and that the alien could escape, leading to an untold amount of deaths. She has said that after the creature and any of its offspring that it might've produced is killed or somehow dies and everyone in that section undergoes vigorous medical screening that she will allow you to return to the rest of the ship.

So, now you know what you must do. Will you give up and die? Or will you fight for your right to survive and show this foreign invader who's really in charge?

 

[Jasminum]

Jasmine Jordana Bloom

Time: 5:30 pm


Outfit


Location: Near the sector 6C13/6C12 border doors.

Jasmine pushed herself off the wall next to the door and stood slowly, letting out a defeated sigh. "Now what?" she asked to no one and particular. Several groups of people still lingered around the door and a few looked at her, each giving their own quiet responses. She ignored them and walked down the hallway for a moment when all of a sudden the power cut. After about a minute of darkness the emergency lights came on and the Captain's voice could be heard over the comm system. "Hello remaining residents of sector 6C13. As you may have just noticed, I've cut your power. This is to divert resources to other, more important parts of the ship, seeing as we have now taken most of your residents and they've been displaced elsewhere, this is causing problems for us. So to fix that, we are diverting main power from your sector and rerouting it to others." she spoke emotionlessly. Several loud disappointed groans behind Jasmine were head. Someone yelled "That bitch!", but Jasmine ignored them. That was common to hear about the captain these days. "She just had to fuckin' do it... didn't she? She had to make things even harder for us." Jasmine mumbled under her breath. "This also means that the doors will be sealed until I restore power, and that is only possible from the helm of the ship. This was done to also protect the safety of the other residents in other sectors. The council and I have made a final decision. Until you deal with the alien, we will not restore main power, meaning you will not be able to force the doors open or hack them or anything you might think you can do. I'm sorry, but we must do what is best for the good of the entire ship. If that means sacrificing a few lives in order to save many, then so be it. Hopefully that will not be the case and you can put your heads together and get rid of this alien. If that is done, you will all be heroes. Please, be safe. Any attempt to break the doors or find a way out will be met with lethal force." and just like that she disappeared. The message would've been broadcast across the whole sector, so anyone remaining would've heard it. Jasmine sighed sadly once more and walked down the corridor. "At least Emily is okay." she thought. Meanwhile, an ominous growl echoed throughout the floor she was on.

 

[Binarydivide]

Markus slowly progressed down the corridor, stained red both by the emergency lighting and faint trickles of blood in his wake. Most of his blood-flow had been shunted away from the damaged areas, but enough remained to trickle out of him, forming a pungent trail behind him. Hopefully this xenoform would select prey based on fitness to consume, because unless his high degree of prosthesis augmentation and mildly radioactive tissues deterred it, it was likely that he would be dead before he had a chance to pose any significant threat to the xenoform.


With that in mind, he retrieved a data storage drive from his person. Unlike most of his utility belt, it had survived its encounter with the grenade quite unharmed, but then again, they were designed to survive hard vacuum and exposure to direct solar radiation, a little bomb wasn't going to do much damage to it. Jerkily, Markus slotted it into one of the exterior ports of his cerebral implant, and started the far too slow process of transferring the data and emergency passkeys required to enact the plans that he had been concocting on his slow, slow journey to the research sector.


It would have been so much nicer if he specialised in nanotech, just one deconstructer nanoswarm keyed to the xenoform’s unique biology, and all this mess would be over with before anyone could start asking awkward questions about the risk management of a loose deconstructor swarm. Of course, if he wanted to spend all day wishing about things he didn't have, not having behavioural blocks that prevented him from swearing the air blue at the sheer inefficiency at the Captain's stated goals. She was meant to be Core Systems, wasn't she?


As a mental chime alerted him to the conclusion of the data copying, he buried mutinous mutterings about how she could have just vented the atmosphere if she was that worried, and began step two of his not dying horribly in vain plan. One Core Systems priority override to the emergency comms later, he prepared to address whoever remained within the section. It seemed that with the loss of main power, he had also lost his ability to monitor the section RFID beacons. If he ever got out of this alive, he was going to have words with whatever power systems monkey had wired such a crucial emergency sensor to only non-emergency power sources.


Over the station comms, a far less grating voice than the last came on air.


"Attention all surviving personnel. This is Core Systems Engineer Neumann."


"There are currently three options available to survivors who wish to oppose the xenoform outbreak. The first will guarantee the death of the xenoform at the cost of all lives currently present; which is activation of the explosive bolts that will separate the section from the ship, and venting of the section atmosphere. Unless other Core Systems personnel are present, I am the only one capable of granting access to those protocols. They will only be enacted when I am convinced that there is no prospect for survival for any remaining within the section."


He heard a clanging far behind him, and though he couldn't force himself to walk faster, a note of haste made itself clear in his tone, despite the artificial tone suppression that he had installed into his vocal synthesiser, from when his larynx had finally given up the ghost.


"The second gives a much greater probability of personnel survival. All survivors make their way to the biolabs, I shall assist in diversion of emergency power to allow full hazmat protection protocols to be enabled. Once secure, biological agents shall be released into circulation via the mass-inoculation atomizer module within the life support atmospherics. If peripheral systems crew with specializations in bio-chemistry, adaptive memetics, or nanotech are present, your contributions would be valued as well."


"The third is the back-up should the other two fail, and behavioural limitations prevent me from disclosing it. I am making my way to the biolabs via arterial corridor 34-b. I am wounded, and leaving traces for the xenoform to track. Assistance would be appreciated, but done at the own risk of the personnel in question. Every 5 minutes, I shall broadcast three tones, should that fail to occur, then I am dead or incapacitated. In that case, on my person is a data storage drive that possesses on it all the information required to enact all three plans. My path is a linear one, should the worst occur, my remains should not prove difficult to locate."


There is a pause in the transmission, and the hum of static fills the air for a moment, before he concludes his transmission, and tries and fails to keep from feeling the hair rising on the back of his neck.


"Good luck. This is Core Systems Engineer Neumann signing off."