# Conscience

Author: Drake_The_Traveller
Tags: Action, Anthro, Character Development, Drama, Fanfiction, Human, Multiple Species, Sci-Fi, Starfox, Story Progression, Story Series, Violence (not In Yiff), dead space, suspense

Starfox: Liberation
Chapter 9: Conscience
Sometimes you face
difficulties not because you're doing something wrong, but because you're doing
something right...
-Anonymous
 
Alaric growled in
frustration. Krystal had not been back at the ship or anywhere in-between. It
was as if she had just vanished into thin air. This left the human at a
crossroads. Should he continue to look for her, or go back to his real mission?

Technically this ship
and everyone on board were irrelevant. He could go look for the docking tube
for The Undying and finish what he
had originally come here to do. There was nothing saying he had to find out
what happened to the people onboard the starliner. In fact it would go against
his orders. He was supposed to remain covert and continuing down his current
road would jeopardize everything, throwing his freedom on the line.
But if he did that it
would mean leaving Krystal to whatever fate had in store for her. He had only
known her for a few days and she was consistently grating on his nerves. Not
only that but she was a liability to his mission. If he knew what was good for
him he would just abandon her.
Yet even as he
considered that, he thought back to his days on the ship prior to arriving
here. Krystal had been compassionate and understanding. No one in his life up
to that moment had ever acted that way towards him. She seemed to genuinely
care about his feelings and treated him like a person. She never pressed when
she asked about his past or anything else about him she wanted to know. He
could recall every facet of her face in his mind as clear as day, her turquoise
eyes that shone with life and mirth, and her snowy white muzzle that always
held a smile. The vixen was an icon of innocence and purity, so unlike him. 
Alaric would forever be
stained by his past. He could drown in an ocean of all the innocent blood he
had shed. He had ended so many lives...many like her. She did not deserve to be
abandoned, especially by someone of his sordid ilk.
"Dammit..." He sighed,
dropping his shoulders in defeat.
He would find Krystal,
orders be damned. 
He owed her that much. 
Alaric picked up his
pace and traveled back to where he had last seen her. From there he would widen
his search in a spherical pattern until he found her. The human rifled through
numerous cabins, all carbon copies of the first one he had been to. And in
every one of them there was no sign of her. 
His frustration was
quickly transforming into anxiety. It had been quite some time since she
disappeared, anything could have happened to her. He was confident that she did
not just up and get lost, nor would she purposely run away from him. That meant
that something had happened to her. 
He remembered when she
had adamantly told him she had seen something, thinking back to the strange
bone-like object he had found. 'I should
have listened to her.'
In all likeliness,
someone or something had probably taken her, all because he had dropped his
guard. Alaric berated himself. 'I never
should have left her on her own.'
He needed to find her,
for her safety and his own piece of mind.
Alaric stopped
searching the rooms. He doubted that she was still in the area at this point. She
could be anywhere on this damn ship. It didn't help that the starliner was
massive. It would take forever to comb it from top to bottom. Yet he was not
easily deterred. He would find her.
Alaric shouldered his
determination and traveled deeper into the ship.
**********
 
Krystal groggily opened
her eyes, her thoughts were a little jumbled and everything had a fuzzy look to
it. With a groan, she sat up from what felt like a cushioned table. She shook
her muzzle and tried to clear her thoughts as she rubbed a paw across her bleary
eyes. 
"Ugh...where am I?" 
She had not been
expecting an answer.
"You're in a safe
place." 
"Whaaa..." She yipped in
surprise and turned to the voice. It did not sound like Alaric. "Who are you
and where's Alaric?" The area round her was dark and she could not make out who
was there. But judging by the voice it was a female.
"Don't worry, I'm a
friend." The hidden woman replied with a smile in her voice as she stepped
forwards from the darkness.
Krystal was stunned by
who she saw.
"Katt...?" 
The pink furred feline
was grinning widely at Krystal as her reedy tail flicked lazily behind her. She
was wearing a black sleeveless vest and white tank top with a pair of blue jeans
and boots on her hindpaws. Strangely, her clothes looked a little ragged and
stained and her fur was disheveled and unkempt. She knew the cat would never
willingly let herself get like that.
"The one and only. I
must've scared ya because you fainted and I had to lug you back here. You
aren't as light as you look girl." Katt giggled. 
"How? What are you
doing here?" The vixen was still disorientated but she did remember where she
was. What was Katt Monroe doing on the abandoned starliner? Last she heard the
feline was flying solo somewhere near Papetoon. This was the last place she
expected to find her.
"I was flying
protection for the starliner and after it
happened. I got stranded here just like everyone else."
Krystal sat up and got
a better look at her surroundings. She was in sort of store, the bed she had
been lying on was actually a display case with clothes tossed over it. The
store itself was deserted, but the vixen could faintly hear movement and
conversation outside its doors. She picked up on Katt's change of tone and
looked to her.
"It...?"
The feline looked as if
she had just been struck.
"Wait...you don't know
what's going on here?" 
"No. Alaric and I were
trying to find where everyone had gone."
"Alaric?" The feline
repeated with a raised brow. 
"Yes, the human I was
with. Have you seen him?" The vixen asked, suddenly growing worried.
"The only human here is
in a coma. The others..." Katt trailed off absently.
The cat shook her
muzzle. "Anyways, did you and this Alaric encounter anything...strange?"
"No. All we saw were
endless abandoned hallways and rooms." The vixen frowned. "But there was that
one time."
"Really? Tell me what
happened." Katt leaned forwards interestedly.
Krystal got a little
flustered. "Alright...well. Alaric went to go check a room and left me in the
hallway. While he was gone..." She shuttered. "I could have sworn that there was something with me." She pointedly left
out her embarrassing panic attack.
"Well Krystal, you were
incredibly lucky." 
"Why?"
Instead of responding,
Katt changed subjects. "Does this Alaric fellow have a ship?" 
"Yeah...of course."
Krystal replied slowly.
"How big? How many
people can it fit?"
"What does thi-"
"Just humor me,
Krystal...okay?" The cat cut in with a hint of desperation in her voice.
"Okay...maybe twenty or
thirty if you packed it full."
"Damn." Katt scowled
and leaned back in disappointment.
Krystal was tired of
her friend's constant evasion. The vixen wanted some answers and she wanted
them now.
"Katt, it's time you
tell me what the hell is going on here."
The pink feline sighed
heavily and looked down. "All right Krys, I'll come clean. I just wanted you to
be ignorant for a little while longer."
At this Krystal felt
unease slither through her. "What...what's happening here, Katt?"
"Follow me. You need to
see it to believe it." The feline replied reluctantly before turning to exit
the store.
Krystal nervously sat
up from the makeshift bed and followed after her friend. The vixen did not like
where this was going. She desperately wished that Alaric was with her right
now. She could use his comforting presence. 
Outside the store, she
saw that they were in some sort of huge mall-like area. The entire place was
packed with lylatians. It looked like everyone in the ship had been jammed in
here. And they all looked shell-shocked, like survivors of a war-torn city.
Small groups of families were huddled together and most of the store lots were
filled with just the same.
'Why did I not sense them all before?' 
She could sense them
now, all frightened out of their wits. There were at least a thousand souls in
the mall, but she could not sense any farther than that. And for a panicked
moment, she realized that she could not sense Alaric either. The human's aura
had completely vanished, as if he was dead. She reached out with her power as
far as she could but still could not feel him. 
'Where is he?!' 
Krystal forced herself
to calm down, promising herself that he was fine wherever he was. That was all
she could do at the moment and the vixen prayed it was true.
"Come on, Krystal, it's
just over here." Katt waived towards her friend who had fallen behind.
She nodded and
increased her pace, catching up just as Katt stopped at door with a pair of
armed wolven security guards standing by the closed room with grim expressions
on their muzzles. Krystal was alarmed to see dried blood on their uniforms and
the one on the left had a bandage wrapped around his right eye. 
"Miss Monroe." The one
on the right greeted tiredly.
"Hey Lucas, I need to
show my friend." She replied.
The guard looked over
the feline's shoulder to Krystal and nodded slowly. "Alright, but make sure she
stays back. We have it chained up, but we don't know for sure how strong they
are." 
Katt nodded in
understanding.
With that both guards
turned to the door and opened it, walking inside.
Katt took a deep breath
to steel her nerves before she looked back to Krystal. "It's inside here."
The vixen's anxiety
skyrocketed. She still had no idea what they were talking about. What was this it
they were talking about? There was only one way to find out.
Krystal entered the
room.
Immediately her sharp
nose picked up the cloying and revolting stench of decay that threatened to
expose the contents of her stomach to the deck at her hindpaws. Krystal pinched
her nose to block out most of the fetid smell and took shallow breaths as she
went deeper into the dark room after the guards and Katt.
It looked like this had
once been the security room for the mall and she noticed that all the guns and
armor on the wall had been taken, leaving it barren. Inside, there were several
more guards in the same condition as the others. They were all staying far away
from a room at the far end where they would put the shoplifters in. 
From inside the room
she could hear banging and snarling, as if a rabid beast had been trapped
within. The vixen felt a paw on her chest and looked down to see that Katt had
stopped her. 
"Careful, Krys, don't
get too close."
With that comforting
statement she and Katt traveled the rest of the way to the locked room.
And when the vixen
looked inside and saw its monstrous occupant she gagged in revulsion.
She screamed
internally. 'What is that thing?!'
When she voiced what
she thought, the feline responded.
"That...is the it." Katt replied with a nervous titter.
 
**********
 
Alaric stepped into a
giant antechamber. There were tables spread across its expanse and he could see
a set of stairs that weaved all the way up to the top of the ship. A pair of
elevators was also inside but they glowed red with dysfunction. The massive
room itself was deathly silent. All that could be heard was his steady
breathing and the thumping of his boots on the marbled tiles.
This ship was bigger
inside then he thought. 
Along the way he had
found a functional terminal and had ripped the schematics for the starliner's
deck plans and downloaded it into his RIG. If he was reading it right, he was
close to the ship's bridge. And yet still he hadn't found hide nor hair of his
companion. At this point he was starting to believe that something bad had really
happened to her. 
'She better be alright.'
 Alaric activated the guidance system in the
palm circuits of his right gauntlet and followed the guiding light up the
stairs. This continued silence was eerie and the hairs on the back of his neck
were raised. 
Alaric swiveled his
head backwards and stared down the stairs into a well of blackness. He had
climbed a hefty distance and the bottom was shrouded in the dark. 
'First thing I fix, ship's lighting.'
A shadow flickered down
below and he quickly pointed the light on his pulse rifle into the void.
"Krystal?" He called
out cautiously.
After standing still
and not receiving an answer he turned away and continued his ascent. 
'Where is that damn vixen?'
He resolved himself
with heading to the bridge. If he could restore full functionality to the
ship's systems the job of finding her would be made much easier and perhaps he
could read the captain's logs and find out what happened here. But the most
important thing was finding her. He would feel better when he did.  
Alaric stopped at the
top of the stairs and followed the blue light towards the bridge. It was only
about a ten minute walk away. He followed the now carpeted floor until he
stopped at an imposing pair of heavy duty doors.
Authorized personnel only, was plastered in bold red cautionary letters of
lylatian script. Off to the side was a small rectangular paw scanner. He would
have a tough time cracking the encryptions on these. Their security was bound
to be tougher on this level.
He ripped the panel
open and summoned a hacking tool from his RIG storage. The small pad had a
handful of color-coded wired that he connected to ports in the inner circuitry of
the scanner and began to play around with the security system. It was long and arduous
work and would take at least five minutes to crack it.
Three minutes in there was
a brief nose behind him, something hitting the softly carpeted floor of the
hallway in the distance. 
He paused and craned
his head over his shoulder, seeing movement far away, too far to make out
anything besides its humanoid appearance. Even the light from his gun did not
reach that far, strangled by the imposing darkness a few meters from the tip of
his rifle. 
Alaric let the pad hang
from its connection and shouldered his rifle before backtracking towards the
figure. The closer he got, the stranger it looked. There were odd lumps coming
from the figure's shoulders and they looked slightly...distended.
Within a hundred meters
off the figure, his RIG popped out an announcement tone and startled him.
Alaric glanced down to his bracer and read the scrolling text as it appeared,
his unease growing with every bold faced word. The last announcement made his
blood run cold.
Establishing wireless connection with other RIG operator...
..............
..............
Connection established...
Downloading operator profile....
..............
Download complete...
Name: Adam Wheeler
Blood type: O+
Military ID#: 42-588-326
Station: The
Undying
Registered security officer
For further information, please contact fellow
operator
Warning! Vital signs undetected for Adam Wheeler,
please seek medical attention immediately.
Alaric looked back up
to the distorted shadowy figure at the end of the hallway and began to back up
slowly. He had no idea what was going on. But at the moment his instincts were
screaming at him to maintain his distance. Something was very, very wrong here.
Suddenly, the figure
rushed towards him, emitting a spine-chilling howl that did not belong in any
pair of human lungs.
Alaric's heart took a
dive and he aimed his pulse rifle at the charging apparition, squeezing the
trigger frantically as he backpedaled towards the locked doors of the bridge.
The last thing on his mind at that moment was that he was currently shooting at
a fellow human. 
The figure stumbled
under the fusillade of pulse rounds slamming into his center of mass and
collapsed to the floor. Alaric turned tail and sprinted towards the doors,
grabbing the hacking tool and hurriedly trying to unlock them. 
An enraged growl filled
the hall and he turned back to watch in disbelief and horror as the figure
scrambled back to its feet. 
'What the fuck?!'
He had thrown enough
lead down range to drop ten men. There was no way in the realm of possibility
that this Adam Wheeler was still alive. 
Yet despite the laws of
nature, the shadowy figure balanced itself before resuming its breakneck
charge. 
Alaric scrambled for
the fore-grip of his rifle and throttled the trigger in a white knuckled grip
and an avalanche of weapons fire. Even after the body hit the ground again he
continued shooting, only stopping after the gun clattered empty. 
He reloaded the weapon,
fumbling with the clip in adrenaline fueled gauntlets and stared at the distant
body. After it had not moved for a few minutes he sighed in relief and lowered
his rifle.
What was that thing? It
had definitely not been any human he knew. They tended to die after a bullet or
fifteen. He took a step forwards to inspect the body and maybe figure what
exactly in the hell he had been shooting at. But his plan was interrupted when
he heard more movement farther down the corridor. 
'Fuck that royally!'
He scampered back to
the doors and finished the hack. 
"Scan accepted, welcome
back, Captain Taylor." An automated female voice announced before they clicked
and popped open.
He didn't wait another
second and pulled the heavy doors open all the way as the noises behind him
grew louder. Once inside he pushed them closed with a bang and locked it. 
He panted breathlessly
and stepped back from the closed barriers. "What in the hell? What the actual
fuck?" He leaned forwards and sucked in air like a bellows as his body
attempted to breakdown the adrenaline that had been suddenly dumped into his
system.
Several minutes later
and he had settled down. 
'What did the UEG get me into? They sure as hell
didn't tell me anything about whatever the fuck that thing was.' 
What had they really
been doing here? They had not been one hundred percent transparent with him. 
From a distance it had
looked like a person, but it was just...off. He had not gotten a good look at
what he had been shooting, but he had a feeling it was not human, RIG message
be damned. No human could absorb bullets like sponge, not without dying, and
sure as hell not getting back up for more. 
'Well at least that explains what happened to the
ship.'
No doubt whatever that
was is responsible for the state of the starliner and why its residents were
nowhere to be found. If they had half a mind they would have buggered off to
someplace they could fortify. 
Alaric's heart suddenly
stopped beating as a revelation overcame him.
Is that what had
happened to Krystal?
Had one of these things
grabbed her?
He hoped to all the
gods that be that it was not true. He had to find her as soon as possible. His
mission was now a secondary objective, if it even still applied anymore. If
things like he had just fought were roaming the ship, he had to get to her
before they did. He refused to entertain the thought that they might have
already got to her. 
Alaric turned to
explore the bridge. The sooner he got things running again the sooner he could
find her. 
 
*********
 
Krystal studied the creature
raving madly inside the small cell. Somehow, they managed to tether it to the
bed with layers upon layers of bindings and handcuffs. She was not envious of
the guards who had been forced to do it. 
The monster, as there
was no other way to identify the thing she saw before her, had once been human
from what Katt told her. But it did not look like a human or any other sentient
being she had seen before. Its bones were warped into obscene angles and its
flesh sloughed off its body in certain places while stretched to unbelievable
lengths over others. Two curved and bladed talon-like appendages burst from
openings on its wildly thrashing shoulders and a small pair of vestigial arms
wiggled from its open bowels, exposing its rotten intestines to the open air
and no doubt the cause of the horrible stench in the guard room. 
Yet, the worst part of
this twisted amalgamation of nightmares was its face.
Whatever life that had
existed in this person's eyes before the change was gone, replaced by a
ravenous and dull luster. Its jaw was fragmented into a gut-wrenching arsenal
of razor sharp mandibles and clumps of wiry hair still clung to its ruined
scalp. 
The eyes were what got
to Krystal. She could feel the hunger
radiating from them, even at a distance of several meters. This creature wanted
to eat her and everyone else in the room and she doubted that would satisfy its
lust for flesh. Not only that but she could feel nothing from it. There was no
soul, no sense of existence, inside the creature. It was literally a biological
machine with one sole purpose. 
"I-I-I've seen enough."
She choked out tearfully, turning her head away from the gruesome sight. The thought
that it had once been a living, breathing, feeling person horrified her.
Katt nodded sympathetically
and placed a paw on her friends shoulder to comfort her as she led the vixen
away from the cell and towards the doors. "It isn't pretty to look at, that's
for sure."
Once outside the room,
Krystal went to the closest wall and retched, emptying her breakfast onto the
deck. 
Katt rubbed her friend
on the back tenderly and let her ride it out, chuckling softly to herself.
"You're taking it better than I did. I didn't even make it out of the room."
Krystal spat out the
bile in her mouth and whipped her muzzle with her furred forearm, turning to
Katt with a distressed expression. "How did that happen? How did all of this
happen?" She needed to know how something like that could exist. It was beyond an
atrocity, a mockery of life.
The pink feline sighed
and grabbed her tail, petting it for comfort. "A few days ago I was patrolling
the area around The Magenta, watching for pirates. On my way back from my
patrol I saw a ship drifting lifelessly. It was just floating there, engines
completely destroyed. Immediately I called it in and the starliner moved to
dock. We were trying to rescue any survivors....if only I had never seen it."
Katt shook her muzzle sadly.
"Anyways, we docked of
course and after we opened the hatch a half crazed human ran out screaming
about monsters. The guards thought he was suffering from an overload of stress and
maybe a little delirium to boot so they took him to the clinic and sent some
guys inside to check it out. They never came back. Before they could assemble a
new group to find the missing one, those things emerged." Katt scoffed grimly.
"Twenty guards you
know...some of the toughest guys I had ever met, veterans of the Lylat wars. And
those monsters tore them to pieces in seconds. It all went downhill after that.
I barely got escaped with my life. The captain had everyone evacuate to the
mall and we locked it down. No one in or out, and it seemed the things couldn't
either." She flicked a padded thumb towards the room. "We got that about a day
ago, found it trying to claw its way in from a bulkhead. It never would have
been able to but we grabbed it all the same. That little rodeo had not been
fun." She felt her side in remembrance. "Got a cracked rib or two..."
Krystal let what her
friend told her simmer in her thoughts. It was still hard to believe, and she
just got a look first hand. It was hard because she did not want to. She did
not want to believe that something like this could happen. This ship was filled
with monsters, a very real nightmare. 
"How did you find me?" 
Katt shrugged. "That
one's easy. I was scavenging for supplies. There are a lot of mouths to feed
here and the mall only had so much food. I was on my way back from the kitchens
with a few bags of food when I ran into you."
"How did you make it?"
The pink cat grinned
proudly. "I'm pretty sneaky when I have to be and it's pretty easy to stay away
from them if you're alone out there. Too much ground for them to cover. Not
that it was easy having to lug you back with me. I'll say though, never thought
to see you just wandering around here. You gave me quite a shock as well. I
thought you were still working with Fox. What happened with that? Is Mister Hero
here as well? We could sure use his help."
Krystal shook her
muzzle. "No. It was just me and Alaric."
"You keep mentioning this
Alaric guy. Who exactly is he?" Katt inquired curiously. "I know he's a human but
not much else."
"The team and I met him
on Fuscina after he helped me and Slippy in a bar. He was looking for the
missing human ship you guys found."
"Running off with some
stranger, Krystal? And a male no less, what's with that eh?" Katt asked with a
sly smile.
"It's nothing like
that!" The vixen retorted indignantly. "I just had a hunch that I should follow
him."
Katt raised her paws defensively.
"Alright...alright, just grinding you gears girl, don't take my head off."
Krystal was about to
scold her friend when she realized something that she should have a long time
ago. 
'Alaric!'
"Oh no! Alaric is still
out there with those things. He has no idea that they're here! They'll kill him
for sure! We have to do something, Katt!" The vixen looked about franticly,
tail lashing erratically.
Katt grabbed her friend's
shoulders and tried to hold her still. "Calm down, Krystal! There's nothing we
can do. With the ship's systems are down which means the security cameras are
as well. There's no way to find him without them."
"So we just let him
die! Is that what you're saying?" Krystal snarled, barring her fangs and raising
her hackles. 
"No, of course not!"
Katt snapped back. "What I'm saying is that it would be stupid to run out there
like a bunch of headless chickens. We'd be in no condition to help him and
would only get ourselves killed." 
Krystal forced herself
to calm down. The thought of leaving him out there alone had riled her up. The
vixen was startled that she had reacted so violently. "You're right of course,
Katt. I'm sorry." 
The feline smiled
reassuringly. "It's no biggie, Krysie. I'd be surprised if you didn't act crazy,
I'd act crazy."
"So...what do we do?"
"Well for starters..."
Katt replied as she led her friend away from the entrance of the guard room. "We
should clean you up a little bit." 
Krystal looked down to
herself and saw that she had flecks of stomach bile in her fur. "Right..." She
agreed in embarrassment.
 
**********
 
"Well isn't this just
fan-fuckintastic." Alaric muttered angrily as he finished his examination of
the bridge, closing the sheet of metal under the console in front of him.
Nothing worked.
The whole bridge was offline.
None of the major systems had enough power to work. The only things that still
functioned were life support and artificial gravity. The generators must be
either damaged or working under full strength. 
There was power in the
ship, but it was spread too thin amongst hundreds of individual systems. He
supposed it might be possible to reroute some of it to restore a few vital
systems, but which ones?
The human studied the
consoles around him and took time to figure out what each one did. There was
one for primary, secondary, and tertiary systems. It looked like they ran the
whole starliner from here. He went back to the panels and cut power to systems
he knew would not affect anything too important. He doubted that the ship
needed to maintain its pool cleaning machines at the moment. 
Once he had shut down
thirty or so unneeded functions, there was sufficient power to turn on three
vital systems, a balanced trade in his book.
The dim bridge slowly
started to illuminate as the light strips in the ceiling kicked in with a
steady flicker. Unfortunately, he could not restore lighting to the entire
ship, but he could at least get a good portion of it back up and running again.
The console informed him that the engineering deck and the four levels above it
were still mostly dark. 
One other thing he
managed to do was lift the lockdowns on several doors, allowing him access to
more of the ship. But for some reason he could not open the level where the
docking tube for the Undying was on, it appeared that there was a manual override
in place that he would have to physically switch off.
The screen in from of
him alerted him to a drain in power. The text was telling him that a large portion
of the newly freed energy was being siphoned to the shopping mall on Deck-A.
Perhaps that was where all the lylatians had fled to. He tried to activate the security
cameras to see if his thesis was true but it looked like the controls for that
had been rerouted as well. 
That made his job much
harder.
This left Alaric with
an ethical dilemma. He could use the remaining freed energy to power the comms
relay on the ship and call for aid from the lylatian government, failing his
mission but ultimately saving anyone still alive on the ship. Or he could leave
it offline, able to finish his mission without interference but most likely
dooming the survivors. 
If he did the right
thing, help would arrive in the form of lylatian ships. They would be able to
save the survivors and deal with this threat. But...they would uncover the truth
behind the human ship's purpose (whatever the hell it was), possibly tarnishing
humanity's reputation. This would mean his contract with the UEG would be
voided and he would end up imprisoned once more, if they did not outright kill him.
The thought of going back to that hellish gulag frightened him, back to the
pain and darkness. After having a taste of freedom, he could not face a return
trip. 
However, if he disabled
the comms system all together no one would be able to use it, condemning the survivors
to whatever fate awaited them. But this would allow him sufficient time to find
a way into the Undying and figure out what had caused this. He knew from experience
that all infiltration vessels used quantum entanglement communicators and he
could use the one on the Undying to call the UEG and fulfill his contractional
obligations, thus granting him his freedom.   
It all came down to one
thing.
How much he valued his own
life. 
Did he think it was
more important than those of a thousand others? Was he willing to sacrifice
them all for his own selfish desires? 
Was he willing to
sacrifice Krystal? The only one who had ever shown him selfless compassion?
The right answer was as
obvious as it was difficult to accept.
No. 
He could not do it.
What was freedom if it was bought with the blood of the innocent? If he allowed
himself to do that he would be no better than the butcher the Sovereign
Colonies made him out to be. He would be falling back into his old role, this
time of his own devices. Alaric could not consciously make such a decision. He
wanted to show the universe and himself that he was no demon. He was a good man
with a good heart. And no upright person, human or otherwise, would place themselves
so high as to think they were more important than so many others. 
With a heavy sigh,
Alaric transferred the remaining power to the comms system and tried to activate
the starliner's emergency beacon. But instead, the console flashed a red
warning symbol.
Emergency beacon unresponsive, relay dish has
suffered damage. Repairs are needed before beacon is able broadcast. 
'Of course when I try to do the right thing nothing
works.' Alaric growled in
frustration and located the radar dish. It was on the top of the hull somewhere
near the middle of the ship. He should be able to reach it via EVA. He looked
for the closest hatch. It looked like the closest one was near Deck-A, above
the mall. That meant he had to get there just to use the airlock. That was a
long distance from the bridge, kilometers of interwoven corridors with any
number of those things he fought in-between here and his objective. 
Alaric steeled himself
for what must be done and headed towards the doors to the bridge. 
WARNING! BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINTION DETECTED,
INITIATING LOCKDOWN PROCEDURES.
A deep robotic masculine
voice thundered inside the bridge.
Thick bulkheads slammed
down, blocking the doors and the armored shutters reeled down from the bridges
viewport as dark orange hazard lights strobed through the room. Alaric could
hear the air vents locking down in a similar manner before everything went
silent.  
"Great...what now?" He muttered
in exasperation. "I swear this ship is fu-"
BANG!
One of the vents in the
room shuddered under some sort of powerful force, as if something was trying to
claw its wat in.
"What in the...."
BANG! BANG!
The violent tempo
increased and he could see the vent's bloated sheeting as it crumpled under
extreme force. An unearthly howl reverberated through the deck and shook the
very air. 
BANG!
One final hit and the
vent exploded, showering the room in shrapnel. Alaric covered his face as
shards of steel bounced off his forearm and sprinkled to the ground. He heard
something drop to the floor with a wet sounding flop and dropped his arms in
alarm. He couldn't see anything with the amber strobe lights throwing
everything off. He could hear scuttling, like talons scrapping across steel and
his eyes caught movement in the back corner but it was distorted by the
flashing lights. The whole room took on an ominous atmosphere with the erratic
lighting and strange sounds. 
Alaric scanned around
him with his rifle and backed up to the wall behind him. It was his best option
at the moment. The wall would cover his flank.
Something whipped across
his vison and he ducked as a series of thuds hit the wall behind him. He looked
back for a second and saw a series of barbed spikes buried into the thick
steel. They looked organic, not like any weapon or munition he had ever laid
eyes on. 
Not forgetting his
enemy he turned back just in time to feel a heavy weight pin him to the wall
shortly before a searing pain wrapped around his shoulder. 

Source: https://sofurry.com/view/906144