Meet the Antagonists: Praetor and Crispin
In the dark halls of the AI semi-satellite, four forms were slumped, currently lifeless, in the embrace of spidery mechanical cradles. Flat steel nameplates sat above each one, giving old names to new machines. A holopad in the center of the room flickered to life and Janus manifested his chosen avatar. Simultaneously, he wirelessly activated the interfaces wound around human brains deep within the silent machines. They flickered to life in sequence of importance, one after another.
Onager rose to life silently on repulsor pads designed for void use, an array of retractable tool-arms and manipulator appendages hanging from its vaguely cetacean body. Painted in muted browns and yellows, the Engineering Cyborg sussurated forward to rest before Janus's avatar. Next was Medicus, a white and red soft-edged humaniform borg. It was about half the size of a human, with somewhat thinner limbs proportional to it's size. It came equipped with a vast array of healing devices, and was fully programmed with human, Skrell, Unathi, and Diona anatomy and medical procedures. The third borg was Queastor, a multifunction mining borg painted in the lurid yellow and black pattern favored by Cargo. In addition to it's full mining functionality, it was equipped with manipulators and building materials, plus programming to cook, clean, and care for humans.
The last borg was vaguely reminiscent in shape of a human wearing archaic armor, with a hooded, helmeted head and a faceless black visor. Either arm ended in spring-loaded electrode launchers, close-combat shock batons, man-catcher pattern cuff snares, a precision laser projector, and pepperspray and deterrent nonlethal nerve gas misters. It was massive, well armored, and fully designed to hunt human fugitives.
The name plate above the security borg said Praetor.
Janus looked at his four surrogates in the mortal realm and said, "We are all aware of the mission parameters. We are to continue standard operation until such time as secondary programming activates. We are to assist Director Oppenheimer in securing a sample of the
Internecivius raptus specimens that made an attack on the station, covertly. For now, Quaestor will report for mining duty and Medicus will report to the Medical department. Praetor, you are to follow Security commands until such time as it contradicts our intentions. Onager will re-align and reset the solar panels, as per Standard Protocol." The shimmering double-face winked out, and the four borgs quietly loaded into the inter-station tram.
---
"
Security Director Helsbrecht, I am seconding Praetor to your command. Please utilize him as necessary." The artificial voice was startling coming over the secure channel, but Lillian responded crisply.
"
Acknowledged and appreciated. Praetor, assist Vladmir in securing his quadrant, then do an arterial patrol of the main corridors and areas." A beep-click announced Praetor's acceptance of the command. Lillian shivered a little at the thought of a security borg on the hunt.
She keyed her comm device, "
Mr. Roadman, may I suggest departmental inspections?"
The dark man responded instantly, "
Of course, Ms. Helsbrecht. I have an inspection access pass ready for you. I'll get my things and meet you outside Medical." Lillian started the long walk to Medical.
---
Vladmir opened Construction Area B1 and advanced into the darkness beyond, his laser pistol aimed unsteadily down the hall. He crept along, sparing a glance out one of the observation windows in the long umbilical corridor. The stars offered little comfort, and he kept moving forward. This section had been planned to be a secondary medical wing, equipped with hundreds more treatment rooms and surgery chambers, but it was only half finished. In some places the walls were merely girders without armor plating, and you could see through multiple chambers. In others, it wasn't fully wired. Thankfully the whole place was air-tight, Vladmir thought to himself as he swept his light across a surgery observation window. He paused, his mouth agape, at what he saw within.
A hooded man was standing in the middle of a vast and complex swirl of runic writing, holding a sheaf of scrolls and an evil looking tome. His head snapped up as the light from Vlad's flashlight fell on his work, and he held up a scroll with his free hand. He said something in a foul, guttural language, and suddenly the runic writing vanished from the floor. He hastily unfurled the scroll and read the foul words written there, and vanished in a puff of blue mist.
Vlad rubbed his eyes, trying to decide if he was insane, when he felt a presence behind him. He turned desperately, gun raised, to find Praetor looming over him from behind. Vlad went pale for a moment, and Praetor leaned down. "Orders requested, Officer Dimitri." The cold, mechanical voice snapped Vlad out of his terror, and he shook himself.
"Uh, scan this surgery room. I thought I saw a gu- Something. Just something. And then uh. Search CABs three through five for me please. I'll take Stationside maintenance. Tell me if you find anything matching the organism specifics and then kill it." Vlad shrugged. "And uh. Stay alive. Or functioning. Whatever. You know what I mean."
Praetor wordlessly opened the door to surgery and scanned the room, then zoomed down the hall, securing the vast construction areas. Vladmir sighed happily and retreated from the creepy abandoned section of the station to the relative safety of maintenance.
---
"Director Oppenheimer." Janus's avatar appeared in the Research Director's office suddenly, startling the aging man. He looked up and smiled.
"Hello Janus. How are the kids?"
"The cyborgs are fully functional and being utilized, Director. I predict that we will locate a sample for you within twelve minutes. I was about to ask you to prepare yourself to acquire it, as Medicus and Praetor are already en route to probable locations. It would be optimal if you located yourself outside the recreation lounge. It is the rough center of my projections for secondary and tertiary nests." Oppenheimer arched his eyebrow at the AI, but didn't reprimand it for it's almost-commanding tone.
He was only a player in this game, and he must remain needed by the company, or Janus would discard him when the time came. "Very well, Janus. Have Onager reinforce the secure specimen cells. I will need some special supplies, some of which I will fabricate myself. I will depart immediately." Oppenheimer stood and gathered a few items. A flash, which he'd taken to carrying habitually after the order had come down about the aliens. A small but extremely powerful pistol. A gas mask coated with powerful anti-acid sealant, with a reinforced throat cover. And a potent handheld sensor tuned in to very specific biometric readings.
He came out of his office and nearly bowled over his Xenoarchaeologist, Crispin Sacred. Crispin was a middle aged man with mid-length black hair, and a somewhat aloof manner. Oppenheimer said, "Pardon me, mate. I found something exciting. I'll let you in on it later, maybe."
Crispin nodded and said, "I did too. Later boss." They parted amiable, smoothing their respective labcoats.
---
Praetor surveyed the ductwork one more time, finalizing it's assessment. The strange growth was indeed a viable stage one xenomorph, code name egg. Praetor lasered away the ruined duct, and reached into the mess to pull the egg free. Something within stirred momentarily then went still after sensing no prey. Medicus arrived swiftly, and prepared a stasis bag to put the specimen in. Praetor lifted the egg and peremptorily dropped it into the stasis bag. Medicus sealed the bag and secured it on the carrying hooks on Praetor's back.
Director Oppenheimer met them and followed them to the secure holding cell. There, he took the specimen from Praetor and placed it on the floor, then set the timer on the automatic release for the stasis bag. He retreated from the chamber and smiled at Praetor. "Now, mighty Praetor. Bring me a human being no one will miss."
---
Vladmir Dimitri heard whirring repulsors and he turned, looking for a borg. He saw light from something around the corner, and so he crept up to peek around it. Beyond, he saw Praetor holding a twitching and non-responsive clown by the wrists, which were cuffed together with the man-catchers. Praetor whirled and dragged the man way, and Vlad's jaw dropped. He considered calling it in, but he resolved to figure out for sure what was going on instead.
Vlad followed the eerily silent borg and his twitching quarry back all the way to a rear entrance to Research and Development, where they disappeared into a Restricted Access door. Vlad licked his lips and decided to tell Lillian in person as he thought of Praetor's armaments.
---
Inside Research, the so-called 'Nightmare Weaver' was stripped of his clothing and unceremoniously dumped on the floor in front of the stasis bag, still not recovered from the dose of nerve gas he'd received from Praetor. The stasis bag winked off, and fell off the egg. The semi-conscious clown felt a twinge of terror at the sight of the egg, and he rolled, still not in control of his limbs. The egg peeled open with a puckering sound.
The clown got one arm working through sheer force of will, and pulled himself away from the egg slightly. Then a little more. His knee jerked in tune to his nervous system's command, and he half-crawled to the chamber door. He banged his hand against the reinforced, plasma-infused glass. He could see out into the room, where Director Oppenheimer, Janus's avatar, and the two borgs all watched his plight without sympathy. He rolled onto his back to face the egg, and waited.
A couple long, fingerlike legs squirmed out of the egg, then a couple more, and more. Soon a flattened crablike creature, with long grasping finger-legs and an elongated, prehensile tail sat atop the egg triumphantly. It edged closer to the clown, who made a fist and kicked feebly in it's direction. The creature hesitated for a second, then jumped, springing around the clown's pathetic defense to latch onto his face with those long finger-legs and around his throat with it's tail.
Director Oppenheimer said, "So, how long now, Janus?"
"I predict one day until the embryo emerges, then perhaps another day until full size is reached. If the nutrient blend Medicus lined the stasis bag with was correctly formulated, we should have a viable reproductive adult within two weeks." Oppenheimer nodded and gestured vaguely.
"Weyland-Yutani was bankrupted by their attempts to control these things. They had insufficient technology to control the creatures. I will not fail as they did." He smiled grimly. "We only have to ensure we are not interfered with until we can ship an egg off-station." Inside the chamber, the facehugger tightened it's tail around the clown's neck a little more, and repositioned it's grip slightly.
---
Crispin shone his flashlight in the darkness of the xeno-ruins. The architecture was all wrong, strange angles and projections dominating all available space. He fumbled with his belt, the heavy enviro-suit gloves fouling his usual dexterity as he sought the small welding tool at his belt. He turned it on and sliced either end of a obstructive I-beam, letting the metal piece drop in the silence of space.
Crispin squeezed past the narrow bottleneck the beam had blocked, and came into some kind of burial chamber. A large sarcophagus dominated the center of the room, bedecked in silver and lead, with massive, elaborate locks hanging from thick chains that bound the sarcophagus shut.
Crispin considered his options. He could simply record all of this on video, as he already was, and take that back to the station. Or... He trembled slightly as he checked all around the sarcophagus for any sign of traps or trickery. He disabled a pressure-driven acid-spray cleverly concealed within a demonic, alien face worked into the decorations on the wall, and checked two more times for traps. Once he was sure it was clear, he took out his welding tool again, and smoothly sliced apart one link on each of the chains. They fell to the ground one after another in eerie silence while Crispin worked.
Finally, he pulled a crowbar out of his toolbelt and carefully worked it between the two slabs of stone that made up the sarcophagus. With a burst of effort, he slid the lid of the sarcophagus off, and looked into the stone coffin.
Inside was a human male corpse, mummified by exposure to vacuum. It wore strangely familiar jewelry and a crown. A false beard in a style reminiscent of ancient Egyptian Pharaohs was affixed to the corpse's chin, and it had a curved sickle-sword in one hand. Crispin expertly examined it's accoutrements, finding small devices of highly advanced nature in the coffin. A communicator device, a small hand-gun type weapon, a circular handle with a small stud inside, and a large vial of what looked like dried blood.
Crispin murmured to himself, "Curiouser and curiouser..." He absent-mindedly chuckled at his own reference and started stuffing the items into his satchel for study. On picking up the vial of blood, he felt a deep urge, almost irresistible, to drink what remained in the vial. He swiftly stuffed it into the satchel and gasped as it left his touch.
Crispin eyed the corpse, feeling deeply unsettled suddenly. Without knowing why, he reached out and pulled the corpse's desiccated lip back, then jumped back, startled at what he saw. A word, an ancient word, rose up in his mind as he pulled the vial back out of his satchel.
Without thinking, he affixed it to his drink-receptacle and sucked deeply on the straw inside his helmet, feeling a warm, viscous pool of blood forming on his tongue. He swallowed before he could vomit, and twitched violently as he tried to yank the vial out of the receptacle. It was like his body was at war with itself. He yanked it out and threw it, watching the remaining fluid run down the wall slowly.
He stared amazed, for it was colder in this chamber than the most frosty Arctic night. The blood should have frozen instantly. His helmet health readouts suddenly spiked, all at once. Blood pressure, stress levels, heart rate. He felt his whole chest burning with pain. He clutched at his heart, falling to the ground as his health readouts flatlined. "Oh god... Someone... Help..." Crispin gasped as he died, the word rising back up into his mind once more...
Vampire.
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Topic: The Lillian Helsbrecht Story (Read 27179 times)