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Stowaway Part 2 (3 of 3)
Posted By: Dispraiser<dispraiser@netzero.com>
Date: 30 May 2003, 2:18 AM
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Again, the vocab. A mathean is a Westerner, Arrel is easterner. Both are interpeted as racial slurs, but mathean is not specifically meant as one.
I looked over as the ONI creep suddenly ran into the room. He tripped over one of the various traps we were setting up and shot a wooden stake across the room, it coming within inches of splitting his skull. He lie shivering on the floor near to crying from terror. Three people were already hovering above him asking him what happened.
"The Mathean, he got him! He took out the Doctor and near to killed me!"
"Damn Mathean!" I shouted.
"Yeah, he got the jump on us, he wasn't using a sonic weapon though, it was some sort of... I don't know... Shredder cannon!"
"Crap, he is armed... That could be a big problem... Alright, we need to have an active patrol to keep us safe, just a group to patrol the hallway. Three armed people in each division, each on an eight hour shift, one of us will have to take two shifts, I think I'll do that because this is my plan. Each person will take a shift patrolling and a shift guarding then they can wrest, we should be there within two cycles, I am sure that the authorities can take out that scumbag."
"Sounds good, wanna draw straws for shifts?" Fats suggested.
"Alright, someone have straws?" I looked at the motley group of sailors turned combatant. "Anyone?" I trailed off. "Alright, everyone pick a damn number between 1 and 21." Everyone said a number, "Alright, 1-7, first shift, 8-14, second, 15-21, third shift, I will fill the two small shifts." I had to fill the first and third, the first with Rob and Fats and the third with Tabs and the ONI guy.
I looked at my watch as we walked down the back hallway of the ship again. The Rolex seemed out of place when I noticed the muzzle of my rifle no less than a foot away. I was no soldier, I was a Sailor. I hate this ship. "Hey, Rob," Rob looked towards me, "Is it just me or does this suck?"
"Does what suck?"
"Everything! Look at this, we are stranded at sea with no radio communications whatsoever, three, maybe four dead crewmates and one on a rampage, I mean, this really sucks."
"Yeah, you're right, this is the worst transport run I have ever been in. Damn storm, if the Mathean wasn't bad enough... Look at this, it knocked out a ceiling tile... Gonna destroy this 'unsinkable' ship..." he gestured to a ceiling up the hallway a dozen feet. The ceiling tile had fallen recently; otherwise we would have seen it before. It lay on the ground, broken, and cracked. I looked up at the exposed hole in the ceiling. Some raindrops fell from the area above it, that or a leaky pipe. Either one could be the primary reason as to why it fell. Rob walked forward into the area where it had fallen and stood beneath the hole and flung his arm up into the air angrily, pointing at the hole. "This ship sucks!" I began to walk over to the hole and looked up into the ceiling to see only the infinitely deep abyss of darkness. I took one more step forward to get a better angle to look into the ceiling when I suddenly slipped on some rainfall. My vision began to recover a second later and I saw a menacing face above us, though I was certain it was not Human.
"Rob! Look--" Suddenly a tail swung down and, using one of the spikes on its tail grabbed Robs side. He let out a quick scream of terror and dropped his rifle before he was dragged into the ceiling. His kicked his legs and thrashed his arms to no avail, trying to break his attackers grip. I looked upwards, shining my flashlight into the area and watched helplessly as I saw the dinosaur like monster pull Rob into its grasp. Suddenly his struggling proved to be useful and he managed to break one of his arms free, grabbing his lucky Swiss army knife and quickly flipping it open. He drew his arm back as the beast clawed his chest and prepared to stab the monster. He swung his knife downwards into the beast's chest. It shrieked in pain as Rob twisted the short knife in its chest hoping to break free, but having no such luck. The beast lunged it's ferocious mouth at Rob's hand and ripped his arm fro its socket with no pause, bone and tendon ripped alike as the incredible monster shredded Rob's arm. I watched in terror as blood spurted from Rob's new amputation, and the beast moved to make another. It drew back its head like a snake coiling for attack and lunged forward, biting Rob's throat. It pulled hit throat free with a final violent jerk and began to move to flee. I stood up quickly but was showered in Rob's blood, causing me to slip again. I grabbed my rifle and flipped the safety off, firing the full thirty round magazine into the abyss. Fats fired his rifle into the ceiling too, and the others who were gathering to see what was happening began to follow suite, and soon a hail of gunfire coated the area. I heard a loud thump as Rob's bullet torn and mangled body fell from the ceiling and another as whatever got him landed some distance around the corner. I reloaded the rifle with my last magazine and charged around the corner to see the glass shatter outward as what appeared to be a dinosaur smashed its way out the window and onto the deck of the ship. It fell forty feet to the ground and quickly returned to running. I shot my machine gun out the window at it in futility; it was able to disappear into the fog and rain...
I threw the ONI man against the wall in the detention cell. We had considered it best to leave the area we had been before to avoid the monster, so we went down a deck and headed for the back of the ship. "The Mathean did this!?!" I shouted at him.
"I SWEAR!!! It was dark! I thought it was the Mathean who got him!"
"Well, I'm pretty sure we didn't grab that monster out of the ocean! An ONI crate is busted open, unknown contents and ONI sent you with us because it is so important that someone of their own has to defend it. What the hell was it!?!" I shouted hitting the wall next to the ONI man.
"I don't know!"
"Yes you do. Do you know how we settle our revenge on Lunar 4?" I asked him, drawing a long, curved dagger and flaunting it in the air.
He swallowed, "Blood?"
"Something like that. Pain.", I stepped closer to the ONI man and suddenly stabbed towards his head, narrowly missing him and cutting his ear slightly, "Oh... Did I cut you?" I asked rhetorically as I drew the knife back again, "I had assumed I would miss, but we all make our mistakes... Mistakes like letting crap like you aboard. You know what's going on here and you are trying to cover it up. And, trust me, I have four guys here that would be more than willing to kill you brutally and whatever the hell that thing was."
"You can't kill it." He spat some blood onto the floor, "It is better than you." He looked around spotting each of our faces in the dimly lit room, ""It is stronger, faster, smarter, it is everything."
"None of those things matter, we can kill it."
"No you can't. It is designed to hunt soldiers, you are no soldiers, you are just some Arrel Garbage going on some little crusade."
"What, you're a Mathean too?"
"No, but no one on Lunar 4 has any respect for your kind. I hope the AE kills you all."
"The AE?"
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