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Chapter 8

It had taken them at least two hours before they found a docking bay that would respond and allow them to land. Once they did, they were greeted by armed Security and two gunships that had originally docked for repairs, aiming at their ship. "Well," Said Jack, "Looks like they are wanting to say hello."

Kyle glared at him and shook his head, "Out of the jokes you've tried, this one was the worst."

They both got up out of the cockpit and made their way to the ramp where Terra and her friend were waiting. The ramp lowered with a hiss and they departed, raising their paws into the air. Two Security Officers moved forward to take a closer look at them, and, after about a few minutes of them looking the group over, allowed them to proceed forward to a rather pudgy Human with a cigar in his mouth who nodded to them. The guy's skin was pale, with a ragged looking brown hair and mustache to match, his green eyes looking between the four of them. He appeared to be a mechanic, his overalls messy and appeared to have been unwashed for days, the smell wasn't anything better for the four as Jack wrinkled his nose. "I am sorry." Said the man, his voice rough, but a hint of a soft tone to it. "We had two other ships attempt to land, only to find out that they had an infected on board. When we tried to eliminate the infected, they responded aggressively and attempted to kill us so, we had no other choice." He looked down and sighed deeply, actual sorrow in his tone. "Nice to see a group that has no infected onboard, at least I hope not. We lost communication with Security HQ as well as a number of docks but manage to keep in contact with Docking Bays ten and thirteen." He said.

Jack nodded, "We've noticed that a majority of the docks are silent now. Before all this they were alive and talking. Hell, had trouble getting to command for docking permission if I even used that channel for a few seconds." Jack said. "And thanks for the info." He meant it, they hadn't asked at all for that information but the guy just gave it to them. So that meant that this one, Docking Bay One, plus Ten and Thirteen, were safe havens for the time. "Any information from the fleet?" Jack asked.

The man chuckled and nodded, "Those assholes have talked to us alright, Quarantine, completely. Any ships, escape pods, or even people using space suits to leave this station will be shot immediately. Granted I don't blame the guys, but they are offering no aid what-so-ever. We are completely on our own here."

Jack nodded then looked up at the tower and pointed to it. "Is that Tower safe?" He asked.

The man nodded. "We saw a few of those bastards climb up the towers of other Docking Bays, saw them attack and destroy them, so we set up a field around it to keep them from getting in. Seems to work, just sucks that the bastards can live in Zero-G." He said to Jack.

Kyel stepped forward and asked, "Any word from the marketplace?"

The man squinted at him in amusement and confusion. "The marketplace?" He asked, then "That place was overrun with those things, reports are still coming into the tower that there are holdouts in the marketplace, but, from what it sounds like, they are quickly being overruned. As far as we can tell, the Docking Bays, Fighter Bays, and Engine Room are the only secure places now. Granted there are other holdouts throughout the entire station." The man sat down on a metal crate and crossed one of his legs, "The A.I. of the station is still operational as well, but recently all we've been getting from it is a request for help. However the last estimation of the death toll was, oh I'd say about, two thousand."

Kyle's mouth dropped and he took a few deep breaths. "So....Two thousand dead, the market place was overrun. Oh gods, my friends in the marketplace.....Gods chances are they are all dead." He seemed like he was about to break down again when Jack placed a paw on his shoulder and then hugged him tightly. Kyle allowed a few tears to come out but kept the rest of them at bay. Why was this happening?

Terra looked at the two and then at the man. "There was a man, Doctor Henry Levin, Human, Male, any word on him?" She asked.

"Yeah, we found him and two other Security Officers just a few feet away from our blast doors. Let them in, but then we had an issue." The man said.

"What Issue?" Asked Terra.

The man grunted as he stood back up and motioned her to follow. "Better I just show you." He said.

They made their way towards a small monitor that was against the wall next to the blast shields and the man flicked a switch then put in a few commands. "They were followed." He said as the screen showed the outside of the Docking Bay.

Terra gasped. "Oh gods." She said as she looked at the monitor. There were hundreds of bodies crammed into the hallway outside, the ones at the door clawing at it, streaks of blood smearing against the metal, all of them Pelzigan. Off in the distance she could see a few of them eating what appeared to be Human remains with maybe two Humans laid against the wall, their bodies massive and black blisters that seemed to move ever so slightly, still alive. She backed away and nodded to the man then made her way towards Jack and Kyle who were now sitting by the ramp to the Avius. "We need to talk." She said motioning them into the Avius.

Once onboard she closed the ramp and sat down in a chair taking a few breaths. "What do we know about these things?" She asked.

Jack and Kyle looked at her in confusion then Jack nodded. Now that they had time to breath, it was time to discuss what they knew so far. "These things tend to mutate to better adapt to their environment, also to hunt the living down." He said.

Terra nodded. "They can survive in Zero Gravity with no oxygen for a time, I think, the only real infected are Pelzigans while most Humans are devoured by them, but only a few of them are used to possibly incubate other infected. Question is, is this a virus, a parasite, a bacteria, or something new?" She looked up trying to think. "We know that a bite to a Pelzigan will kill them then bring them back to life, but that should be impossible, no virus in the known universe is capable of such a thing. Ontop of that, if it was a virus, the moment the blood comes into contact with our skin,"She motioned to a few blood smears along her jacket that had seeped through the jacket and had been touching her skin, "We would immediately be infected. So Virus ruled out."

She continued to think in regards to whether it was a form of bacteria or parasite. Then snapped her fingers. "The eggs! Those things that are attached to the Humans, that grow out of them when one of the infected grabs hold of them, they have to be eggs so an animal or parasite of some type!" She grinned, knowing that she had to be right about it. "So, if it's an animal or parasite of some type, that would make sense as to why the dead are rising after infection!" She stood up and walked around the cabin, the other two staring at her confused.

"Ok," She said as she looked at them. "Medical lesson. Parasites, or most of them, can be like a virus or bacteria, easily spreadable! However at their core they are different. They take time to multiply however it seems that these things seem to only need one per host! They hijack the body once it is dead, feasting on the living host. Once the job is done they set forth, puppeteering the body to allow them to implant eggs or embryos into other hosts so that they can multiply quickly." She finished sitting back down. Hoping that her theory was correct.

There was a slow clap down the corridor, and Jack quickly got up and drew his pistol aiming it down the dimly lit corridor leading to the crew quarters. "Very good." Said a male voice. "What took my team at least three days to fully uncover, you seemed to have theorised in a matter of a day." The man stepped into the better lit cabin, and Jack recognized him. Doctor Henry Levin.

Jack glared at the man. "What do you mean?" He demanded.

Doctor Levin put his hands up and grinned, "Exactly what I meant. She figured it out faster than my team and we had the things for the last few weeks." He said.

Jack growled and leapt at the man, pinning him down to the ground then pointing the pistol at his head. "You're team knew about these things?! Studied them, onboard this station?! Allowed them to get out and kill at least two thousand innocent people?!" He screamed into the mans face.

The grin was gone, now his entire face showed fear. "Yes, that is correct." He said.

Terra walked up to the two and put a paw on Jack's shoulder. "Jack, calm down." She said.

"Fuck no!" He shouted as he brought the pistol up then slammed it hard against the man's face leaving a massive welp on his right cheek. "Because of this fucker, people died!"

Doctor Levin began to cry, "No! No! You brought the cargo to us! We only did what we were told just like you!" He screamed out in pain.

Jack's eyes widened and he let the man go. "What?" He said, still ontop of the man. "You don't mean that..." He trailed off as he looked at Kyle who was sitting at the table, his ears down staring at Jack.

Doctor Levin nodded. "I mean it, the cargo you brought here that I signed for was in fact the parasites themselves. However me and my team did everything in our power to try and keep them contained." He said. "We never meant for any of this to happen."

Jack looked the man right into his eyes, rage burning in his. "You refused to tell me what was in them. If I had known that they contained something this horrific I would have jettisoned them into the damn sun." He said, in a low but infuriated voice.

Doctor Levin nodded. "But the point is you brought them to us, knowing full well they were a biohazard an-"

"Shut the hell up!" Kyle screamed, tears rolling down his cheeks, his ears down. "Jack isn't to blame for this! Yeah he's an idiot for not asking more questions, for choosing to trust you of all people. Yeah he's a bit of an asshole at times, is rough around the edges, but he would never intentionally do anything to kill people! You are the ones who decided to experiment on these things, you're the people who failed to contain them!" Kyle looked directly at Jack, hurt in his eyes. Kyle felt pain like nothing else because he was staring at the two men who caused this to happen, but at the same time understood that, too Jack, it was a job, and that he had no idea what he had brought and that he never intended for anything bad to happen. But he still felt anger swell up inside him over Jack's decision. He pushed it back down reminding himself, Jack didn't cause this, and glared at Doctor Levin. "Because you assholes decided to play with something you knew nothing about, it got loose. Instead of delivering it to a dead world you delivered here, so that tells me that there is more to it." Kyle said to Doctor Levin.

Doctor Levin shook his head. "Of course not! It would take far too long to build a facility on a dead world and this station, it's old, it was meant to be decommissioned in the next few months!" He screamed at Kyle.

"And yet with at least one hundred thousand onboard this station you decided to bring those monsters here!" He yelled at Doctor Levin. "What?! Were you planning on releasing it here to see what kind of damage it can do?! Did it outsmart you and break loose before you could get off the station?!" He screamed as loud as he could, his voice echoing throughout the ship. "My friends, all but Terra, are dead! And it's because of an asshole like you wanting to mess with things he just discovered, with his Human ego thinking that he was capable of playing his dear beloved God! Did you ever think of the people on this station?!"

Doctor Levin just stared at Kyle, a bit of anger showing on his face for being called out. "Fine." He said, "Yes, we were planning on releasing it onboard the station once a vast majority of the population had left it. Yes, I believe that I, me, has a right to play God with these things because that is what I am best at." He finished.

Kyle shook his head, disgust on his face. "You are like those things out there. A disgusting, vile, monster! Perhaps we should tell everyone outside what you did, maybe they'd be willing to toss you into space, or hell, maybe out with those things." Kyle said.

Doctor Levin's face turned from anger, to horror at that. "Please....don't....I admit it, mistakes were made, but this parasite, it could be useful!"

Terra finally had enough of this, and shouted, "Ok!" She looked between the three men and sighed, "Levin, how could this parasite be useful?"

Kyle looked at her in disgust, "Does it matter?! It's the reason all of our friends are dead!" He said.

"Kyle!" Terra shouted at him. "Yes, it does, because then it will either validate why he brought it here, or not. Then give us a good enough reason to not kill him. Besides, he knows a lot about these things, he could be of use to try and avoid them and possibly even escape." She said, shifting from an angry shout to a calm inside voice. "Levin, what was the purpose?" She asked.

Doctor Levin sighed and looked up at Jack who continued to glare at him. "UGSM forces discovered them onboard a Lothian vessel that had drifted just past the Epsilon Delta System Border. It was running on reserve power. When they boarded they found a majority of the crew dead with shots to the heads. They came across possibly a few infected individuals but when they bit the members of the team, there showed no signs of infection, no signs that a parasite had gotten inside of them. We figured that, if we learned more about them, that we could possibly use them as a viable bio-weapon against the Lothians to quickly end this war that has been going on for nineteen years." He said, partially lying about the fact that the Pelzigan members died and became the puppets of the parasites. "However we shortly discovered, after Jack delivered the specimens that were recovered from egg samples, that they had found a way to infect Pelzigans and apparently use Humans as hosts to lay eggs in. Doctor Liddy was a scientist who had become infected, according to the last recorded data I got, she seems to be having some kind of mental link with the others. Capable of maneuvering them around, like pawns. I believe that she is like a queen of the hive." He looked over at Terra. "The infected, there is no real way to hide from them short of keeping out of site completely and masking your scent. They are drawn to sound, bright lights, and the smell of uninfected. They smell like rotten flesh, we don't, easy distinction between us."

Terra nodded. "Ok then, so, do you know a way to escape here?" She asked.

Doctor Levin nodded. "One of the ships out there is waiting for my signal. Once I give it, they'll dispatch a small pod towards the signal to pick me up. However, they will shoot any survivors that are with me."

Jack let out a loud sigh and got off him. "Ok." He said. "So, maybe we can take the crew of the pod out and get out of here."

Terra shook her head at him. "No, we still have a lot of people onboard that need to escape." Terra said.

Jack nodded in response. "Understandable." He said. "But the moment any ships attempt to leave this station, that fleet will open fire and destroy us."

"Not exactly." Said Doctor Levin. "I have an idea on that one. We can't allow the parasite to escape this station so, we set the reactor off. In the middle of all that radiation leaking out plus the explosions and debris from the station, your ship could possibly make it through the defenses and out towards freedom."

Kyle glared at the man, "And why should we believe you?" He asked.

Jack chuckled. "He has a point." Jack said. "Those vessels out there, majority of them are Human, and old. Multiple radiation flares on their sensors may overload them, the amount of debris would make it hard to pinpoint the Avius, let alone any other ship that is lucky to escape the blast. The explosions would make it harder for someone to look out a window or a viewport and spot us." He finished nodding. "I think Doctor Levin may have just earned an extended stay on my ship as well."

Doctor Levin froze, midway between sitting and standing up, "Excuse me?" He asked.

"You heard what I said Human, you've earned an extended stay onboard the Avius, feel honored." Jack responded, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "We keep him onboard when we leave, and when the fleet starts to chase us, we threaten to throw him out the airlock. If they listen, and want him alive, they'll back off and let us go." Jack finished.

Kyle looked at him with surprise. "I like that." He said to Jack.

Terra shook her head, "Great, a hostage." She said, making a 'whatever' gesture. "That'll make us famous with the guys outside."

Jack grinned at her, then, suddenly the ship shook violently. "What the hell?" He asked, then heard a distant roar. He remembered the creature it belonged to. "Oh gods no." He said as he bolted to the ramp and opened it. "Keep Doctor Jackass in the Avius!" He ordered as he ran out onto the Docking Pad. Outside, it was a living hell.