The Armory

JP with Omni and redsword_7

~On the Cronus~

"I sure could use that drink right about now.", Roku whispered.

"Ugh, don't mention alcohol.", Dr Flynn groaned. "We're all starving."

"How's Mimi?" Roku stroked the cat who seemed to be taking deep breaths and then shaking its head every now and again.

"We both know he won't last much longer like this.", Dr Flynn replied. "But at least he won't birth one of those... things. And WE won't last at this rate either without some food and recuperation."

Roberts tried to make as little noise as possible. He started to look around "OK, all armories are armored, so we are safe. That way most have their own air recyclers so humidity does not get in. So the air... if there is any should be good here. Now, any rations stored here or does anyone have rations on them?", he asked in a whisper.
As he spoke, he saw some of the fungus growing on the floor.

"Here are some of the eggs by the door and near the Android lubricant splatters. We need to flame these. Just a quick burst. The heat should clear the air in the room I would hope. Maybe we can rest here safely." He turned to Hikari. "What do you think, Doc?" he asked.

"Rest? For how long? I thought we were trying to get off of this thing?", Roku questioned.

The crew took a step back as Vera ignited the flamer and made a few quick bursts, incinerating the fungus.

"OK the air will stink some, but it should be safe for a bit. We have to stay very quiet and check for rations here.," said Roberts gently unclasping his helmet and doing airchecks.

Asahi shook his head. “I don’t fully trust that this air is clear enough, Marshal. I’ll keep my helmet on.”

Roku spoke up, “Sorry, Glenn. I’m with Asahi on this. I would rather space walk or face those things again than chance growing one inside of me. Maybe we should just try killing them.”

“We have the numbers.” Vera shrugged. “Unless we run into more of those spider things.” She looked to the Cronus crew, “Were you able to kill any of those things?”
Johns and Reyes looked at each other and nodded.

“Yeah, but they weren’t a push over, that’s for damn sure. And they're fast,” Reyes said.

Clayton unclasped her helmet and took a breath. Then she wiggled her nose at the smell as she exhaled.

“I think the Marshal is right, smells a bit stale in here... and a bit like spent fuel, but it isn’t hard to breathe like it was in Cryo 3.”

Albert Johns removed his helmet too.

“There are bound to be some rations behind one of these doors.”

He opened one of the doors leading to a walk-through storage closet and grabbed a box of dehydrated rations and airtight, silicone-like, water pouches that were still frozen from being in deep freeze with no life support. The silicone pouches were now sweating with condensation.

Dr Flynn says, “I don’t know if it’s any good but what choice do we have?”
The Cronus crew started to nibble at dehydrated fruits, grains, and other 'space rations'.

“Yo, Vera right? Can I see that flamethrower?”Johns held one of the frozen ice packs over the pilot flame for a minute to melt the frozen contents, then started drinking it. Though the water was old, it was very refreshing.

As Roberts was adjusting his comm channel, he picked up the following message.
"We lost coms. Parasites on Montero. There is a ship docked under the Cronos. Repeat..."

"Eat, drink what you can. We have 10 mikes, then we make a run for the lower airlocks. The Montero could be just below us. We have to get to the ship if we want to survive. The question is... if there was a docked ship below us where would we get access to that ship?"

Johns chewed some dehydrated food and it got stuck in his teeth like cotton-candy. He tried to pick at it with a gloved finger, failing miserably.

“C Deck, Ventral Elevator Airlock for personnel to ground, just down one level and around the corner. Or... D Deck... Vehicle Bay Airlock, opens a ramp on the aft, plus 4 Airlocks, two on each side of the vehicle bay. Take your pick.”, he said.

"I keep getting this message. 'We lost coms. Parasites on Montero. There is a ship docked under the Cronos. Repeat...' on this channel don't know if it is real or not… Not a comms guy.", said Roberts.

Asahi adjusted the frequency to hear the message. “That’s the captain alright, he must’ve lost comms on our channel. I mean, voices can be faked but someone would need to do a synthetic analysis and reconstruction of several hundred lines of dialogue to replicate it perfectly. He must have caught one of those creatures on the outside.”
Reyes butts in, “Maybe Horton turned into one of those mutant things and attacked your ship. He was one of our technicians… During the chaos, he had to go out to do some EV repairs. Clearly he didn’t make it back into Cryo with us.”

“That would explain the person I saw walking on the hull. He must’ve climbed into the Montero, making them back off from the airlock. Maybe to shake it off.”, said Vera.
“I don’t know..." Roku said, doubtfully. "The Motion Tracker was still picking up something outside the Airlock even after the Montero undocked. Unless there are more on the outside.”, Roku pondered.

Johns frowned, thinking. “We ejected two in pods but they were definitely dead and wouldn’t be anywhere close at this point.”

"This is how it goes down. We open this door when the detector says they are furthest away. Myself and Kirby will hold off anything that comes our way. You go straight across to the B-1 junction and go down the ladder. We will be right behind you. You go and do not stop, the two shotguns should lead. Any questions?", asked Roberts.

“I’ll follow your lead. The sooner we get to safety and are able to recuperate, the better. Then maybe we will have the strength we need to be able to take our ship back.”, said Reyes.

"Sure," said Roberts, not sounding confident.

Roku and Asahi helped each other replace their air supply canisters as they were nearing full depletion. Then Roku checked the Motion Tracker. The thing that was lurking outside the armory was back where they heard it break down the door, moving slowly outside the Mess corridor. There was faint movement on both A and C Decks aft of the crew's position.