It wasn't much further until they reached the hangars interior and left the access tunnels. Selene blanched.
...Blood was everywhere. Enforcers laid disemboweled. Bullet holes, burn marks. What looked like acid was attempting to dissolve steel. And there was some strange clicking sounds coming from deep in the hangar. And the vibes were bad. Real bad.
Selene fumbled with the release on her helmet. It clicked and depressurized as she hurled it across the hall. Then she threw up. Hostility was in the air. Mixed with desperation. She had no idea how she could tell. That's just what she felt.
"Now you've seen it..." Dr. Bryant was whispering. "Let's go. Before the specimen show themselves."
Selene wiped her mouth. Then entered the facility proper, shoving the doctor in. The narrow steel door to the access tunnels closed behind them with a quiet hissing sound.
The inside of hangar 2-F was a maze of cargo-containers. Arranged like walls. With glass windows built into the sides. Within there was some brown fleshy material similar to the picture her dad had shown her.
With what looked like cracked eggs inside. Made of a pearlescent purple carapace. Vines of brown clutching them.
"One second. I need pictures of this." She dropped her rifle and let it hang from her shoulders and unholstered her tablet.
Just then Bryant shoved her as hard as he could. She slipped on the blood and fell into it causing a splash. "Mother-fuck!"
"Sorry, but my research is far too important to die with me here..." he rushed to the keypad and turned so that his tied hands were facing it and punched in the code quickly. "Stop, I'll shoot!" Selene slipped a bit as she got to her knees and pointed the rifle.
He glanced back complacently; "Then shoot, child. You'd only draw the beasts here. If you have the steel. But I'm guessing you don't. Besides, you don't need me here." the door made a hissing sound as it opened. "Wait! I don't—" the door hissed closed behind him as he fled the hangar.
"...Know the passcode.."
Selene pushed her up from the puddle and took up her tablet.
Hopefully whatever it was in here with her didn't hear her slip...
She had to wipe some of the blood off the camera lens. She took a picture. Then another. This probably wouldn't be enough to get the colony to turn on puck. She needed to see a specimen. A dead one would be enough.
Something tapped on her shoulder. She spun around and her rifle whirred as the safety went off—nothing. Another drip fell in front of her then. And she sighed.
Great. Something was dripping from the ceiling. It was too dark to see exactly what. But it smelled. It paired well with the spooky alien vibes all around her.
She went towards the skittering and clicking sounds deep in the hangar. Slowly. Making an effort not to splash or click her heels on the linoleum. Many of the windows on the containers were shattered.
And whatever lights there were had been busted out. Did these things hate the light? Or were they smart enough to know that it was working against them?
She turned off her rifles flashlight and took up her tablet with her free hand. Making sure she could still shoot if she had to. She only wanted to record while using the night vision mode on the camera.
An enforcer had died trying to hold his entails in ahead of her at the edge of a specimen container. It was the most intact body she's seen yet.
Ahead was an intersection. And there were a series of stacked crates. They would made a good staircase to see over the maze of containers.
And so Selene clambered on top and peaked over with her tablet. Without actually looking over herself.
Her eyes widened in horror. The hangar was properly sealed off. Doors sealed with the lockdown doors on top of them. The shutters on the ceiling were clamped shut.
Shapes were moving all around. Nothing like the earwig thing they saw the other day.
These things were dog sized. And not just any dog. Tywin sized. They hoped about like fleas. making short jumps everywhere they went. Short segmented tails with pinchers flapping about as they did.
They had two sets of bigger back legs with claws, a smaller middle set curled up and held close to the body, and a longer set near their heads that they used to stabilize themselves and grab on. Their four eyes were reflective in the nightvisions green tint.
This. This was proof enough. Were they breeding these monsters?
And what was worse they seemed to be... Building something. They were dragging bodies to the center of the hangar. Piling them up. Others were chewing on them before spitting them back out.
The camera recording was clearly shaking, but who could blame her? She was heroic for having come so far. This was enough. She had to get the hell out of here.
She back away.
Then her bloody boot slipped on the edge of the crate and she tumbled down one crate after another.
'Bang, bang, splash'
Her armor hitting the metallic crates sounded like a ballpeen hammer being thrown down a ventilation shaft. It echoed in the hangar.
She splashed down on the linoleum in some clear fluid. Probably piss judging by the smell.
'Crap! Did they hear me?'
She stopped to listen. Silence.
The chittering white noise from before had stopped—yep, they heard her.
She almost slipped against as she kicked off from the ground and ran for the door. The heavy metal steps of her enforcer armor were loud. She took out her tablet and held it to the keypad. Would it work without a connection?
It made a bleep noise and the loading bar appeared. "Fuck yes..." she whispered. But it was way slower this time.
She heard the noise of skittering and splashing feet heading towards her now. They were getting close fast. And so was their bad vibes. It felt different than how people felt. She thought that was body language, but she didn't even have to see these things to feel it.
This was something else. It was in the air.
The loading bar was halfway when she heard one of the hopping bugs start running at her with a guttural growl. Between the row of containers behind her.
She hoped the tablet could work from the holster on her belt. She spun around and and pointed her rifle- activating the flashlight again. "Back off!" she shouted.
The thing stopped on it's next hope which caused it to roll on it's side. It righted it self and glared at her through the flashlight as if it wasn't being shone into it's eyes.
If she fired... It would jump. No question. Any hostility from her end would trigger theirs. She could feel it.
It's face... God, it was like a grasshoppers scaled up. If a creature ever looked inherently evil, it would look like this. It's mandibles vibrated. Clicking resumed.
The vibes got worse. It started to take slow steps forward. Like a cat on the hunt.
"Stop!" it flinched and leaned back for a second.
A short moment passed before it resumed it's predatory posture.
The clanking of metal sounded as more of them arrived of varying sizes. They bounced off the containers and landed in front of her. Forming a neat line of grasshoppers. Many silhouettes of them were above on the containers still. Their red eyes reflected her flashlight like christmas lights.
"I SAID GET BACK!" she screamed out with all her might. It looked like a wave passed over them as they all leaned back one by one, then it was the inverse of that as they began to move forward again one by one.
"G-get back..." she said more weakly.
That time they hardly flinched. They slowly advanced. Weary of her, or curious. Or both. Whatever she was doing to their vibes, it was getting harder. Her head felt fuzzy. She needed to sleep.
'Ping!'
The tablet made a noise and the door opened.
"BACK!" she shouted one more time and ran through. She hit the keypad on the other side with the butt of her rifle and it sparked—the door slammed closed.
The monsters pelted it one after the other and there were furious growls muffled through the door.
She collapsed against the wall on the opposite side of the tunnel. Her vision pulsed with a vignette of red and she was out of breath.
"Don't go to sleep!" she told herself. She stopped herself from hitting the ground by leaning on her rifle like a crutch.
But her body was going to regardless. The next barrage of headbutts on the door left a dent.
She pulled the knife from the enforcers toolbelt and jabbed it into her left bicep. "AAahh!" she cried out.
Her mind cleared. And her weird connection with those things abated. The surge of adrenaline pushed her to her feet and she clutched onto the railing of the stairs. She headed back down with shaky steps and retraced her path until she saw the yellow lights above the access tunnels stairs out.