UER Rickenbacker

Meanwhile, on the Bridge, a transmission from afar was being patched through. It seemed to be a reply to their SOS.
"This is the UER Von Braun widecasting on all frequencies to UER Rickenbacker, in response to your SOS. We received your transmission and are preparing ourselves for the jounrey. We will reach you in about four hours tops" said the marine on the monitor. The captain sighed again, and stared into the other monitor. The two assailants had sworn that if they weren't let in, they'd break in.
"Captain, even if they do go up that elevator, there's still the access door, then the tramway, then the red door, then the Bridge grav-lift. They're all locked down, and the tramway is almost impossible to get through without the tram" Diego explained slowly.

On Engineering, the men working on the radiation leak heard something in the distance.
"You hear that?" one asked his colleagues.
"Yeah...sounds like...trouble..." another said, staring in the direction it had come from.
"We should get outta here..." the man said again.
"But we still gotta fix this damn leak..." his partner replied again, before the source of the noise hit them. From above. Two ceiling panes collapsed above them, revealing two creatures, like the ones on Medical. Two of the men had already started running. The third was rooted to the spot. He stared at the creatures, full of fear. One of them walked towards him and literally tore his throat out with it's teeth. The other pursued the others, who were already ahead.

All over the ship, Xerxes' voice reported "This is Xerxes. The Engineering and Medical decks have been compromised. Repeat, Medical and Engineering have been compromised" Diego, the captain and the rest of the Bridge were surprised by this.

In Ops, Anders, her squad and the many people on the deck felt the same.
"We're doomed...aren't we?" one of Anders' men asked her.

Kirito snorted, glanced over at The Beast behind her and once again returned to the speaker.
"Right then..." She said and turned the speaker off, then blow the security camera to splinters. She then turned back to The Beast.
"No answer... We'll climb up there..." She backed away to give The Beast some space.
"Open it for me, would you?"

A warning signal suddenly began to blink in the corner of her vision, and she also felt how she got tired. She should've replaced the bottle already, since she had felt the signs a while after they boarded the ships. But she've hadn't got time for that until now.
So she touches one small sensor on her legs, which opened and revealed a hatch, filled with nourishment bottles on shelf. She grabbed one of them and then opened another hatch in her arm, this one containing an almost dried out bottle.
She breathed out as she temporary turned of all connections to the bottle, and a low click sounded as it was hooked off her body.
She then quickly grabbed the empty bottle and replaced it with the new, filled one, and sighed when she felt it getting re-attatched to her system.
She put the empty bottle in the opening on her leg, and then the both hatchets closed.

The Beast aimed one last slam against the elevator door, and it exploded into splinters, flying all over the place. But either him or Kirito was bothered by them, instead they leapt out in the emptiness that was the lift shaft. The Beast jumped out first, and his long, hard claws easily sunk into the armored wall across the shaft.
Kirito leapt after, and half-through the jump her claws shoot out and digged into the wall once she got in reach.
Kirito made a slightly irritated snort as she landed. She didn't like destroying her master's ship like this.
Then she looked over at The Beast.
"Well, come on then..."

He snorted back and began to climb, persistant, looking for the next door that would lead to the last deck. He heard the cyborg's claw stab into the wall as she was climbing right behind him.

Xerxes suddenly started speaking again. "Attention. This is Xerxes. Command Deck elevator compromised. Command Deck personnel respond" was what he said.
"Please tell me Xerxes was on something when he said that..." a Bridge officer said.
"He's an AI, he can't get high..." Diego replied cautiously.

On Recreational, several guards were in one of the crew quarters rooms, trying to hitch a plan. Only they were short of an idea.
"Okay, Anders tells us that those two bastards are on their way to Command. So we gotta do something about it. Only...what are we supposed to do?" one said. The others shrugged their shoulders and asked each other questions.
"How many people have we lost" a guard asked.
"About twenty to those two. And the situation on Medical is getting worse. They said Engineering has been breached too"
"By what?"
"Those...mutants...I dunno...it's complicated..."

On Engineering, many of the creatures had flooded into the deck and killed many of the Engineering personnel. The guards on the deck were doing their best to hold them back, and so far it seemed to be working. Only there were many creatures, on Medical and Engineering.
"How many of these bastards are there?!" a guard shouted to his friend.
"I don't know! Wanna ask 'em?" his friend replied, backing away while firing his weapon.

The ship's AI, Xerxes was surveying the cameras. All over Medical, the creatures had killed many people in their search for food. Humans. And the lab monkeys had escaped too, and were joining in. Engineering seemed to be holding out, but many workers had died there.

In Operations, Anders sat inside her room, trying to come up with something to save them all. One of her men stepped inside and asked "Anything?"
"Nothing so far. I'm having a hard time...focusing..." Anders replied, sitting on her bunk.
"Brennan says she had two people come into her officer tonight, asking her a million questions. She's finding it hard to concentrate under all the pressure" the guard said. "And Jankowski's acting real suspicious lately...bragging on about his work..."

The Beast suddenly stopped. Did he hear something?
He cocked his head and raised his ears. Waiting for the scraping sound of, for example, the hiss car to come closer.
"Move." He heard Kirito behind him say, and he once again gazed upwards. And he actually thought he saw something several meters up. A door.
It's here... He hissed to the cyborg. She then suddenly appeared next to him, looking at the same direction.
"Yes... It is... So don't take to much time on yourself." She then continued to climb up, swiftly. The Beast grunted irritated and followed.

They stopped again, but this time Kirito wanted to. Just a few feet above her was the door to the next deck. The most important deck. Bridge and Command. And she doubted it would be this easy to get in. But they would still try.

She dug in one of her clawed hands farther into the wall but let go with the other one, just to produce her gun into the palm of her hand. The lifted the hand and aimed. And fired.
One.
Two.
Three shots. Then the door yielded.
She drew back her claws on her second arm and then jumped up, and in. The Sixth deck.
The Beast followed after her, she heard his deep, rumbling breaths as he climbed in, but she ignored him. Kirito just stared in front of her. Studying.
A new door. An access door.
"Open it..." She said low to The Beast, who roared and charged.

But as it turned out, this door was much stronger, and it took forever for The Beast to make it through. Just to speed up the progress a little, Kirito succeeded to shoot the last parts away. And then they were in.
And there was a new hinder.
It seemed to be a new kind of terminal, but this one not for an elevator. But for a tram.

Kirito sighed irritated. Her master would never forgive her if she destroyed such an important part of the ship just to reach the Bridge.
She would have to wait for the reactions of the humans, and make something out of that. But it would just make them more and more prepared for their arrival.

"They are here...I forsaw this event..." Jankowski said in his quarters. A minute after that, Anders stapped into the room.
"Ah, Chief Anders. What brings you here?" Jankoswki asked in a wierd voice.
"Can it, Jan. I've been getting complaints from Ops crew that you've been stirring up a panic. Care to explain?" Anders asked him sternly. Jankoswki looked up at her and said "There is no need to worry. I am only doing what I must..."
"So you absolutely must stir up trouble with your fellow crewmates? That's hardly something you hear every day..." Anders replied.

In Cryo Recovery A, on Medical, Malick was trying to open up a frequency to the rest of the ship, so he could tell people he was alive, as he'd lost his comm when the creatures had chased him. So far, his attempt were futile, as the radio he was using was far from working properly. So far, nothing had attempted to attack him in Cryo, so he assumed he was safe there. He wondered how the Bridge was holding up.

All over the ship, Xerxes' voice carried the message "This is Xerxes. All personnel are ordered to evacuate the Medical and Engineering decks for your own safety. Please do not worry"

Kirito studied the closed and locked gate for a moment. Watching after signs of that it actually worked.
She didn't saw any.
It was locked down and dark as night outside. Although the terminal they were currently located were still a little lighted up from the bulbs, that was currently going on spare.
She frowned shortly and then took a step closer. It suddenly reacted by opening a hatched next to the gate and the Al bleeped: "Iris input."
Kirito looked down at it. It probably wanted someone's that usually was up there. Like... the captain.

She focused on her computer, which began to browse through the stolen data she had picked up while she had hacked into the ship's computer from the elevator sensor.
She quickly found a division named "Security". And yes, there it was. "Iris prints".
She swiftly browsed through it till she found something suitable. The captain's. Then she focused on her right eye, which suddenly began to form and shift colour.

The Al beeped again: "Iris input, please.".
Kirito crouched down in front of the sensor, so her eye got on the same level as it. She then put it close enough for the scanner to reach.
The scanner immediately started once she got close enough, scanning both horizontal and vertical. Then it stopped, letting out a short bleep as it transmitted the information to a computer up in the bridge. It automatically got an response from the main computer, and it once again bleeped.
" Iris mark recognized." It said, and Kirito heard how the tram farther out began to move against the terminal with a low buzz. "Welcome, capt-"
It suddenly aborted itself, and she even heard how the tram stopped. Kirito frowned and looked down at the eye sensor again, which suddenly began to speak again.
"Security lockdown precaution!" It said instead. A second hatch flew open, revealing a handprint sensor which shone in a red glow. "Handprint input, please."
Kirito snorted. She doubted that it would be just as easy as hack herself into this system as it was with the last elevator's one.

The two assailants were making short work of the deck's security systems. Xerxes however, had other plans. An alarm went off and Xerxes' voice blurted "Potential Threat detected! Potential Threat detected!"

On Engineering, the situation was getting worse. While the security teams on the deck were doing all they could to hold back the creatures, they just kept coming.
Bridge come in! We're under attack, repeat, the ship is under attack! Creatures of some kind! I don't know! Guns aren't doing jack, we can't hold them back for very long!" one guard shouted into his comm, before being taken down and slaughtered by the hybrids.
At Engineering Control, in the control room, two security guards and five workers were holed up to save themselves from the incoming creatures. Their barricade seemed to be holding for the moment. Down in the hall of Control, two security officers were fighting for their lives, while the people in the control room could only watch as they were brutally killed, their weapons the only things keeping them up.

On the Bridge, Diego had argued about going down to the lower decks to check on the situation, which the captain had disagreed with. Diego wanted to be sure that they were alright down there.
"Diego, I know you're desperate, but I cannot allow that kind of action. We're hardly much safer up here" the captain said. Diego suddenly rushed to the corridor leading to the bridge and climbed through an open ceiling panel, while the two guards that had followed him could do hardly more than stand there and watch.
"Goddamn it!" the captain muttered.

A warning lamp suddenly began to flash as the alarm went off, alerting both the two assailants and the rebels about their presence.
Kirito snapped up her head at the siren at the wall. It howled out loud, and the irritating flashing light from the light bar just made it more irritating.

The Beast grunted irritated and then bellowed at the siren, the sound it produced was insignificant in comparison to The Beast's mighty roar.

"Shut the **** up!" The siren and the light bar exploded into splinters. Kirito grunted and lowered her hand. She was getting irritated. So close...
And just because of that, the Al had to understand what was happening. ****...

The handprint sensor was about to back into the wall again, but Kirito managed to grasp it and hold it on place. Then she lifted her other hand and produced her microscopic sensors once again, which she put against the sensor.
The sensor didn't do anything at first, since it was ordered by the Ship's computer to turn itself off, but the cyborg managed to turn it on by several small shocks. First it beeped as it turned itself on, sending a small signal to the computer that it actually was still on. The Al tried to make the scanner turn itself off again, but now Kirito was controlling this one.

She focused on the sensor once again, and it began to reluctantly scan her hand, and giving her access to the system.
"Let me in..." She hissed frustrated as she tried to beat the ship's computer. Her mind browsed through the system, trying to find access to open this gate, and activate the tram.
At last she found something that could be the access to the last gates all the way to the Bridge. But as she could've expected, it was much more protected than the other access programs of the ship. At least triple fire-walls.
Kirito sighed irritated as she began to try to penetrate the fire-walls. Hopefully so was her brain more powerful than this computer.

"This is Xerxes. Why do you persist? What is there to gain from this?" Xerxes' voice said.

On Recreational, Diego popped out of a ceiling panel, using the vents to get from the Bridge to the Recreational elevator. He quickly stepped inside the elevator and pushed "Medical". The elevator closed and began it's descent down to the Medical Deck.

Malick meanwhile was now in the Research and Developement (R&D) sector, trying to locate a keycard which would get him into the Access Shaft, hopefully leading to Engineering. He froze. A hybrid was rushing up to him, groaning "Quick...run..." while it attempted to smack him with it's wrench. He retaliated by shooting the creature in the head, dropping it instantly. There was something about these creatures. They somehow managed to retain their humanity a bit, but could not control themselves. He then stepped inside the nearest office, hoping to locate a card. He checked every drawer, the computer, on the floor. No card to be found. He needed it so he could access the R&D sector and hopefully gain information on what was happening. The suddenly, a low sound echoed outside the room. The door opened. Behind it, there was a small lab monkey, a rather aggressive look on it's face. Another peculiar thing about it was that the top part of it's head was missing, revealing the brain. The monkey howled in anger and leapt, and Malick was thrown off his feet.

Diego meanwhile had just entered the Medical Deck. It was a mess, flashing lights, corpses, sound in the walls.
"What the hell happened here?" he asked himself, slowly walking down the corridor.

Kirito grined. A complicated movement by her mind, and the first fire-wall was broken.
The next one she attacked, quick and often, searching for weaknesses in the system.
She then heard Xerxes', the Al's, voice in the back of her head.
"Because I am ordered to..." She hissed low for herself, and tot he Al. Nothing but another computer would understand. A machine always completed their orders. This was their survival of the fittest.
And by the looks, Kirito was currently the strongest one.

She suddenly found a clear opening in the coding that she succeeded to break through.
Once again she grined.
"Why don't you join me... Master will be your own master soon enough." She hissed once again. "Give me an opportunity to fulfil my orders and get your own. This one you will fail in..."
She then attacked the last firewall, trying to break through it, poison the computer's own codes with her distorted, hacked codes, just so they would break apart and follow Kirito's own system.

"I am not authorized to answer that question" Xerxes answered.

On Medical, Malick was searching Edwards' office for an R&D card, but had had no luck so far. He looked on Edwards' computer, and noticed some strange lab records on the monkeys. According to the records, the monkeys had gained psionic powers, though the monkey that he'd just fought off had just leapt at him.
"Shit...psionic powers?" Malick asked lowly. A thought then came into his mind. Edwards' always carried a card with him. So it would still be on his corpse! Malick quickly exited the room and made his way back to the isolation room.

On the Bridge, they got another message from the Von Braun.
"This is the Von Braun calling the Rickenbacker. We are now en route to your position. We will be some time, but just sit tight" the marine on the comm said. The captain nodded and replied "We copy, Von Braun. Awaiting arrival"

Back down in Medical, Malick entered the isolation room. The corpses of the doctors were still there. He rushed to the surgical table where Edwards had died in in front of him. But when he got to the table, he was in for a shock. Edwards' body wasn't there.
"What the hell?!" Malick exclaimed, horrified.

Diego meanwhile was in the crew quarters of Medical, and was searching the rooms for anything important. A monkey and a hybrid suddenly rushed at him, but he rushed into the room and shot at them from behind a table. He then searched the room.

Well then...

She noticed in her mind how the ship's coding began to break up, as her own infected it more and more. It would soon be done.
But suddenly she found something interesting in another section of the computer. In the "Security" part, she succeeded to flip up a smaller section called "Video Surveillance".
She smirked.
Perhaps this could give her a hint how the ship was built and what was happening.

She opened it, and immediately discovered that some of the video cameras wasn't working. Those were the cameras that she had destroyed.
She took another look on the other videos, and found the camera that supervised the Bridge. And as she believed, most of the people was waiting in there. But also on the Command, which seemed to be another part of this deck.
But if she would be smart, she would take out the Bridge first and hence get the power of the ship.

Suddenly she noticed something interesting on another video, that was watching one of the paths in the Medical deck.
Was that... humans? Was that humans that killed and ate people? And was that... monkeys? Monkeys that scavenged on the bodies?
She hissed a cold chuckle. Such things would interest her master. It would be a perfect weapon for they to take down intruding humans. They could simply make them attack each other. She just HAD to pay that deck a visit after she had taken the Bridge.

Then she returned to the firewall, and noticed that it was trying to repair itself. That would not happen...
One last strike from her and the protecting collapsed, now giving her full control over this tram.

And yes... She heard it return to the buzzing as it moved on to them. The Beast looked eager from Kirito and to the gate, then back again.
He uttered a short bark before he transformed into Kronos, and the next second after the gate slid up and both he and Kirito entered.
The door then slammed shut behind them and locked to keep the vacuum out of the car. Then it un-hooked itself from the terminal and began to move forth with the rumbling noice.

On Medical, the situation seemed hopeless. Malick was struck with awe as to how Edwards body somehow disappeared in the forty minutes he'd been away. Suddenly, he heard a groan behind him, followed by footsteps. he turned around, and gasped. It was Edwards, transformed. The creature moaned "I'm...sorry..." while waving a wrench at him. Malick was reluctant to shoot at first, but just then, a bullet pierced the hybrid's head, killing it instantly. And the person who stepped out was Diego.
"Diego!" Malick could hardly contain his disbelief.
"Just checking on things" Diego replied. "What the hell is going on here?" he asked, surveying the messy room. Malick didn't know what to say, and instead reached into Edwards' pocket. He pulled out the R&D card.
"This baby..." Malick told Diego, "...is gonna get us some answers" Diego chuckled, but they had no time to pat themselves on the back, as a beam of cryokinesis smashed the window and missed them by an inch. The culprit, a monkey, then leapt into the room and snarled in fury.
"Monkeys too?!" Diego said, pointing his firearm at the animal, which was raring itself to leap again. But before it could, Diego's bullet put a hole in it's brain. The primate fell dead, and Malick recollected his thoughts before beckoning Diego to follow him.
"Shouldn't we get outta here?" Diego asked.
"I just wanna find out what happened" Malick replied, walking out of the room.

Xerxes meanwhile focused his attention on the two assailants. There wasn't much he could do to stop them, though earlier he had locked off all doors and elevators leading from the tram to the Bridge.
"Security Access Comprimised! Security Access Compromised!" said his voice after Kirito and the Beast got the tram functional.

The tram suddenly stopped as the Al Xerxes tried to regain power of the car, but it was to late. Kirito had, in an instant, re-coded the tram and re-built a couple of firewalls to protect it from any counterattacks. Now this one was following its new orders, made by Kirito.
The car once again re-started to take them farther.

After a while, the car once again flinched, but this time recovered faster. After just a short moment, the car once again continued the last stretch.

Both the cyborg and Kronos felt how the car re-hooked to this new end terminal.
They waited a second.
Then the gatedoor slid open. The hissing sound of the superfluous pressure as it escape out in the terminal announced their arrival. They both walked out of the car.
Where to go now?
The path split in three, each going to different sections. The Bridge one was probably the one right in front of them. But she noticed that not so far ahead, a new big, armored door was stopping them.

Kirito sighed irritated. Why couldn't they just let them in...?

"Warning. Intruders have reached the Bridge. Security personnel respond" Xerxes blurted as the two entered the Command Deck.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, a huge vessel went straight past the planet Aura. The Von Braun was on it's way.

On the Bridge, the capatin ordered "Activate Auto-Turret systems on Command Deck"
Xerxes obliged by doing just that. Then suddenly, Xerxes made a new announcement.
"Attention. This is Xerxes. As of now, the ship's main elevator will be put offline for security reasons", and with that, the main elevator that linked Recreational, Ops, Hydroponics, Medical and Engineering went offline. So did the one leading from Recreational to Command.

In Ops, Anders and her men heard this announcement.
"What the ****?! Is Xerxes mad?!" one man asked, surprised.
"I don't think this was Xerxes..." Anders replied.
In Jankowski's quarters, the man himself was reading a document posted to his room. A worm quickly slithered under the door and slowly made it's way to Jankowski.

Minutes later, Anders stepped inside Jankowski's room. The man turned around and asked "That's funny, Chief. I didn't remember authorizing you to barge into my room..." in a slurred voice.
"Shut the **** up and start talking. Why have you taken the elevators offline?!" Anders asked angrily. Jankowski chuckled and, with a smile on his face, said "We have every reason to be cautious...we don't want Them to strike yet..." Anders looked angrily at Jankowski and asked "What? What the hell are you talking about?! We have enough frightened people on this deck without you shutting off their only means of escape!"

On Medical, Diego rushed to the elevator, but found it offline. Malick just watched.
"Dammit! Xerxes! What's going on?!" Diego shouted to a nearby camera.
"I'm off to R&D now, if you wanna join me, go ahead. I'll be there" Malick said, before slowly walking off.

Kirito stared at the Red Door. They had already broken through hundreds of doors, but something told her that this one would be stronger.

She heard The Beast grunt behind her.
I could always crush the floor. He said, but Kirito just dismissed it.
"Are you mad? Even if we did get through, Master would punish us for harming the ship more than necessary." Sometimes it would just be easier for them if Master didn't want the ship.

She took one step closer, waiting for a hatch to fly open and reveal a sensor. Nothing, not even a movement. On the contrary, Xerxes just sent of another alarm.
"Warning! Warning! Intruders! Step back or you'll be forced to." It warned them. Kirito didn't move.
And just after a second, an un-seen hatch flew open and a gun were unfolded. It scanned its surroundings for a moment, before it noticed Kirito and took aim at her. Then it fired several shots.
But just as the rebel's guns, the bullets didn't do any harm at her. Only a metallic clatter was sound as they hit her and then flew of. Kirito breathed irritated and flicked out her claws, jumped forth and sliced the gun of from its hold.
The Al once again let out a loud larm.

The Beast roared irritated and slammed head-first into the door, trying to force it open. But this one didn't seem to yield.

On Ops, Chief Anders was getting very stressed.
"you're saying the security feed in Ops Security is offline...and the SIM Units?" she asked her men.
"Yeah. it's wierd...Xerxes can't be doing that...and we found two women near SIM Unit #3, brutally slaughtered...this place is going crazy..." one man replied, anxious to get something done about all this.
"But the creatures aren't on this deck.." Anders reminded him.
"The elevators are offline...SIM Units missing their batteries...Ops Feed offline...and a lot of stressing reports being sent to miss Brennan..." the man said again. Anders had had enough of this...she knew who was doing this. She stormed out of the room.
In Jankowski's room, he was recording a message on a log. "I am at their full command..." he said in a strangely slurred voice, "I will be their savior...I will lead them on...Anders is coming...I will show her..." he turned around as Anders stormed into his room. "Good evening Chief Anders, have you come to..." Jankowski never finished. Anders shot him several times, dropping him to the floor. Blood seeped out of the wounds. As her men entered the room, she noticed Jankowski's log was still on.
"Turn that damn thing off..." Anders said, before leaving the room.

On Medical, Malick was filing through the reports he'd found in a lab in R&D. Diego stepped into the room.
"Thought you'd come. Here, look at this..." Malick said.

The gun once again unfolded itself in Kirito's palm of the hand, and she began to load the power.

The Beast clapped with his jaws as he tried to generate more power against the door. It let out a slight scraping sound as it slowly began to bend, but didn't give them access.
Open... He growled to himself, and to the door. It didn't reply. He slammed one of his front paws in the ground in front of him and pressed harder and harder against the door.
It suddenly flinched as one of the hinges cracked. He growled loud and kept pressing.

"Move..." He suddenly heard behind him, and once he looked back he saw Kirito with her armed arm aimed at the door. She could hardly hold back the shivers of the arm, it vibrated by the power she had loaded.
The Beast slipped out of the way and instead stood behind the cyborg.

Kirito unleashed the power, a huge, dazzling shoot out from her hand and straight through the door. Cutting through as easy as butter.
A second went, and the bolt disappeared. Leaving a large, glowing hole in the door, easily big enough for her and Kronos to go through.
But Kirito didn't move forward, instead she almost sunk down on her knees, but managed to stay up by resting her body at her legs. She took a pair of strained breaths. She could've never guessed that it would take that much of her power. Then she stood up again, looked over at The Beast who now had transformed to Kronos, and then climbed through the hole. Kronos followed her through.

On the Bridge, the Von Braun called again. "Von Braun here, we are en route to your position. ETA, Two hours" the marine said again on the monitor. The crew of the Rickenbacker wished the Von Braun would get there faster.

Anders meanwhile was more stressed out than ever. She'd killed Jankowski. The bastard had been helping the creatures all along, and he'd turned off many systems, as well as killing two women to get to a SIM Unit. The fact that she'd had to kill him had messed with her mind.
In her office, Dr. Brennan was steadily looking at reports brought up from Medical and Engineering. From what she could see, there weren't many survivors on either deck, with a few sparsed out security units and workers. Then one of Anders' men stepped into her office and said "The creatures...they've overrun Hydroponics aswell" Brennan sighed worridly and answered "Alright...just gimme a minute...to think here...people have been asking me stuff all day..."
"I know it's been hard for you Steph, but you gotta keep it up...it's at least doing us all good" the man replied.
"Thanks Jake..." Brennan replied, before the man stepped out of her office.

On Medical, Malick and Deigo had split up to cover each section of the Medical Deck - Science, Medical, Crew Quarters, R&D and Cryogenics.
"Found anything? Any creatures, any damsels, anything?" Malick asked Diego on comm.
"I found us some ammo and a couple of power cells. They're dead, but there should be a recharging station in Cryo Recovery B. I'm headed there now" Diego replied.

Kirito stopped and listened. She then took a new breath. She hadn't fully recovered with power after she'd blew the door. But yet it didn't seem like the humans did anything against them. Perhaps they didn't dare to send down any more humans to them, to sacrifice any more of the rebels. But she needed to kill anyone, she felt the frustration in her fingers. There were so many humans here, but she couldn't reach anyone of them - yet. She flicked out her claws and then drew them in, just to stretch her limbs a little.

They walked farther on.

After a while, a new hinder was blocking their way. Yet another door.
But this one gave Kirito her twisted grin on her face. So close.
It said: "Gravity lift; Bridge" on a note above the lift. If she was right, this would be the last hinder until she would reach her target.
But how to get up there?

On Hydroponics, the survivors Ramirez had saved popped out of a vent and emerged into a computer station. Hopefully there they could tell the Bridge that Hydroponics wasn't totally overrun. Strange breathing sounds and footsteps came from outside the door, though the door was damaged and wouldn't open. The lead man of this group hurried to the large console and activated the terminal. There he would try to log into the system.

On the other side of Hydroponics, the hybrids were emerging from ceiling panes and vents, entering Hydroponics. Their low growls and moans could be heard from a long way away.

Down in Medical, Diego reached Cryo Recovery B and recharged the power cells with the recharger. He then decided to search Cryo A, and headed there through the vent.
Malick meanwhile was at a desk in R&D, surfing through Edwards' files on the computer. He hoped to find some answers there that he didn't know before. Suddenly, a hybrid banged against the window behind him, trying to get in. Soon, it gave up and moved on. Malick sighed in relief, and got back to the computer.

Security hadn't bothered to remove Jankowski's corpse from his room, and so the worm that had hid there entered his body through a bullet hole in his side. There, it began to change him.

At the Bridge, security on the monitors saw that the two assailants had reached the Grav-Lift Entrance, though the lift was offline.
"Shit..." one security officer said.
"Relax. Without that lift, they can't get up here" the one next to him said reassuringly.

Kirito looked around. She didn't saw any sensors that she could make access to the computer.
She snorted disappointed, irritated. She wondered if they could climb up the shaft. Probably... But the door to the Bridge would be locked, and possibly blocked by the lift. She could not afford to destroy just this lift.

But on the other side, what would they win by not trying?

The first to do was to shoot the camera that supervised her, which she did. The splinters rained down.
Then she walked up to the gate. She got a firm gate of the end of the door, and succeeded to force it open. The door coughed disapproving as it had to give after for her power, and instead pulled back into the wall.
"Come on Kronos..." Kirito hissed frustrated while she tried to keep the door open. Kronos nodded back to the cyborg and leapt out in the emptiness that was the lift shaft. Half-way in the air he transformed, and landed on the other wall as The Beast. His claws dug into the steel.
Kirito tipped out her claws and left after The Beast. She heard how the door slammed shut behind her, and in the next second her claws stabbed into the wall.

But when she tried to breath, she realised that she couldn't. There were not even the slightest sign of oxygen in the void. It was just blank - a vacuum. Or it wasn't entirely a vacuum, there were still pressure to keep them alive, but no air though.
She heard The Beast cough irritated as he tried to breath.
"Keep your breath..." She hissed frustrated and stopped breathing she too. The Beast immediately swallowed his breath, and then fell silent. She knew that the chimaere would be able to keep his breath long enough for this climb, he could keep it to up to two hours if he wanted to.
For herself... Well, hopefully would her internal oxygen-tanks keep her supplied with enough oxygen for at least a day.
"Start climbing instead." And so they both did.

"Oh ****, they're coming..." a guard said. Dozens of guards with EMP Rifles hid just around the corner to the Grav-Lift.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit!" one said.

Meanwhile, Anders and her men were heading to the Shuttle Bay to try the shuttles, and see how many they could get off the ship. Only, when they got there, a sore sight met their eyes.
"Oh my god..." Anders muttered. The shuttles had all been destroyed. Not one remained. Anders' men just stood there, worried more than ever.
"What the hell...how could...it can't..." Jake mumbled uncontrollably.
"They're all gone..." Anders said quietly.

In Medical, Diego and Malick were working to try and fix the elevator.
"Why can't we just take the vents back?" Malick asked Diego.
"Can't. I took a few jumps down a few ledges beyond climbing height" Diego replied.
"And that's the only way vent-wise we can get outta here?" Malick asked.
"No, but we don't have time to try all the others Malick. So carry on" Diego replied.

Engineering, on the other hand, seemed completely deserted. Bodies littered the corridors, the radiation leak had begun flooding the maintenance tunnels, and hybrids were everywhere. The survivors in the Control Room were still alive, and their barricade was still holding.
"Are we gonna get outta here anytime soon?" one of them asked.
"Not with all them things around we're not..." another said.

Around the ship, some of the maintenance droids were malfunctioning and turning on each other, and even Xerxes found this strange.
"Warning. This is Xerxes. Unknown life-forms flooding Medical, Engineering and Hydroponics. Evacuate immediately" he said.

Kirito hissed. Through her heatvision, she could see dozens of heatprints waiting just some ten meters above. Ambush... Of course... They were waiting for the two assailants, and they would be armed to take out the cyborg first.
"You'll take these ones first..." She said and leered back at The Beast, who replied with a loud, excited bellow, but then quickly fell silent as he tried to avoid to let out too much oxygen.

They continued to climb up, as fast as possible so they wouldn't strangle before they would come up. And then, just after a few minutes, they reached the closed gate.
"I'll open it for you..." Kirito said and placed herself on a small projection in front of the door, perfectly balanced.
She inspected the door for a moment, stroking it lightly across, before she got a hold in a small cavity between the wall and the door.
She got ready.
Then she pulled. Her metallic muscles tensed as she began to drag it open. The door uttered a loud, shrieking, scraping sound as it tried to hold against the power. No use. Just like the door before, it had to give after and slowly pull itself back into the wall.
"After you." She said, and The Beast swiftly slipped out of the lift shaft and onto the Bridge, she heard a loud roar in there as she did. Then gun shots. But their EMP:s couldn't harm anything that wasn't robotic.
She grined as she heard the screams, and the crunches of The Beast's enormous jaws, and then slipped in to the new deck too.
The door slammed close after her as she did.
Her claws shot out with a loud, metallic ring.
Finally here.

Anders and her team rushed to the escape pods, only to find they had all been jettisonned.
"What the hell's going on here?!" Jake asked the others in a very concerned voice.
"I...I dunno..." the guy next to him said.

Meanwhile, back on Operations, things were taking a turn for the worse. Some people had gone crazy and were trying to kill others, while security held them back easily.
"What the hell's gotten into them?!" a man shouted as he ran past a guard.
"Just keep running!" the guard shouted back.

On the Bridge, the people in the Atrium all turned around, some with weapons in their hands. Had the two intruders gotten there at last?

In Medical, Malick was searching the doctor's rooms for anything important on what had happened there. Diego was at the elevator trying to get it working, but it seemed that it had been offlined completely. And they couldn't get off the deck til' he fixed it. Then he remembered. The hatch! There was a hatch in one of the storage areas on Medical. But then he remembered. Engineering was infested too. But it had to be better than up here. Diego rushed to tell Malick.

Meanwhile, the Von Braun passed the Ice Planet, getting ever closer to the Rickenbacker. Were they too late?