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**Spoilers**

As Hedenstrom finished telling the story of how he came to work for Weyland Yutani, he turned to prepare the samples he had collected and mounted them onto slides for the powerful microscope in the lab. He looked into the monocular eyepiece of the microscope, noting movement in the sample that unnerved him in a way that even he didn't think was possible. Calming himself down, he studied the image again. After a brief inspection and turning to look at the terminal to his right he cursed under his breath.

"Analysis incomplete." He read from the screen. "Living tissue sample required." Looking at Lark he held his hand out. "I need the blood sample from earlier."

Lark was about to reply when the gravity shear hit, taking everyone by surprise. The whole station seemed to lurch 3 meters to the left, throwing the party violently about. Some kept their feet, those who were less used to the vagaries of interstellar travel hurt themselves as they bounced off of workbenches and lockers. Ejiri however took the latest in this series of horrific events the worst and ran to hide underneath the nearest AutoDoc muttering "Not again, it can't be happening again." Witnessing this, everyone's eyes widened as the stoic company agent seemed to unravel in front of their eyes.

As the stations thrusters kicked in to right the station and level it out, Lark, Navarre and Hedenstrom were locked in a heated debate on Hedenstrom's intentions to analyse the sample of blood in Lark's possession.

"We make the serum, and everyone of us lives." Hedenstrom shouted.
"But at what cost?" Replied Lark coolly. "And what guarantee do we have that you are not continuing to create some weapon for this shadow agency?"
"We all saw the same thing." Pressed Hedenstrom. "I'm trying to save us all."
"Drabikowski and I can do the work." Navarre interjected. "Report back to you all. At the first sign of something wrong, I'll let you know."

Grudgingly Lark handed over samples. Navarre and Hedenstrom started the analysis. Drabikowski moved to the terminal to catch the readout. "Analysis incomplete, living tissue sample required."

"We're going to need one of those 'squid-baby' things that Adrien had earlier." Muttered Lugar. "Typical."

"Oh my goodness." Came a synthetic voice from the doorway to the lab. "Is everyone OK?"

Everyone turned to see the owner of the voice. A synthetic, with flesh coloured skin was standing in the open portal. Not dressed as the Correctional Joes had been, but in a smart, dark overall.

"You must be the Weyland Yutani science team. My name is Correctional Office Davies. The crew and convicts onboard Erebos affectionately call me 'Crash'".

"How do you know who we are?" Demanded Lugar. "Why didn't you respond to our hail when we arrived?"

"Systems on the ship have been failing for some time." Replied Crash smoothly. "Since the meteor was brought aboard. Power and comms failures, some of which have resulted in convicts leaving their cells. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there hasn't been some sabotage also."

"Who is in charge here?" Demanded Ejiri.

"Warden Stykes." Said Crash. "I would be delighted to escort you to meet him."

"Stykes or 'Candlestick'?" Countered Lugar.

"Where on earth did you hear that name?" Crash asked.

"We ran into some of the saboteurs." Lugar said, her voice rich with sarcasm.

"Ms. Wickes was a member of the crew here on Erebos." Crash looked at Lugar directly. "But was convicted of arson, that resulted in many deaths on the station, she serves a life sentence here."

"Whatever." Said Lugar. "What we really need are parts for the ship. Batteries, coils and so on. Can you point me at them?"

"Spare compression coils are to be found on the deck below, in the parts locker," Crash turned his head out of the door, "the comms tower or the boiler room. Replacement energy cells can be found in Terminal 1 or the lower tower. I must return to Warden Stykes"

"We're going to get the stuff we need." Spat Lugar. "Then we'll come and find Stykes."

"Very well." Crash nodded his head. "I will wait for you on Deck F." He then walked toward the central chute, making a pspspsps noise with his lips. Adrien appeared from the darkness as Crash removed a small bag from one of his overall pockets. Adrien leapt up into the arms of the synthetic and purred as it nibbled on treats from the bag.

"Can I borrow your cat?" Hedenstrom asked. "He might help us find something we're looking for."

"He is likely to follow you." Crash said. "He likes strangers." And gave a small handful of cat treats to the bemused scientist.

"Nothing more strange than here." Hedenstrom muttered as the cat leapt into his arms.
Opening the chute hatch, Crash maneuvered himself onto the ladder and disappeared. Everyone followed suit and watched as the synthetic opened the hatch on the floor of Deck D and continued down. The lights in the chute flickered and failed sporadically, there was scorching along the hand rails where the earlier oxygen fire had licked the hard surfaces, but no sign of the cause of the fire itself.

"Well that's peculiar." Muttered Navarre to himself.

Dropping to the floor of Deck D, and looking warily around, everyone found the hatch to the main visitors embarkation area. The vast room was intact, but the lights were off, seemingly across the whole deck. Beams of light from their torches crisscrossed the room, picking out the empty space. Some tell-tales were winking on and off on far walls, but the whole room was dark and deserted.

"Isn't this the deck where we saw that other blue bastard monster?" Drabikowski whispered.

"Yes." Replied Navarre, just at her shoulder.

"This gives me the creeps." Lugar's voice carried back from deeper into the hall. "Lark, can I have a gun yet?"

"No." Said Lark, smiling. "Weeks of rehabilitation wait for you back at a WeYu facility for attacking the Joe earlier."

"All right, KNOCK IT OFF!" Urged Ejiri. "I can see something on the floor ahead."

Lying on the floor about 10 meters into the room lay a single person EEV pod. Closed. No signs of activity on it's display. A low hum and clicking of machinery from all around made the relative silence more oppressing.

Fascinated Hedenstrom looked on at the pod.

"I wonder if whoever is in it has been 'affected'?" He mused.
"Never mind. We're not touching it." Ejiri snapped.

Hedenstrom turned back to the chute and started feeding tidbits to Adrien. The rest of the party moved on to where they suspected the parts lockers were located. Unnoticed Ejiri took a small piece of black tape, covered the locking mechanism and then hurried to join the others. Hedenstrom turned to see that he was the only one within touching distance of the pod, bent over to examine the tape and pulled it back. Drabikowski, deep in conversation with Navarre looked back to see Hedenstrom activating the opening sequence on the pod.

"Hedenstrom NO!" She cried out, but too late. She watched in horror as the lid to the pod slowly opened.

Hedenstrom bent over to examine the contents of the one-man lifeboat. The others stood frozen to the spot.

"It's empty!" Hedenstrom shouted and started to laugh.

Lark strode quickly to the laughing scientist and grabbed the collar of his flight suit. "That was idiotic!" The synthetic barked, trembling slightly. Her normally placid features a mask of frustration. "Stick with me from now on." And she frog marched Hedenstrom back to the main group.

Ejiri was furious, the others not far behind him, the noise of the shouting bounced from each of the walls in the dim, cavernous atrium. As the argument raged a single red light started flashing on the wall behind them. Underneath a small screen popped into life, words crawling across the screen. 'Message waiting in Engineer's office'

Momentarily distracted, Lugar pointed at it. "What's that?" Everyone stopped and looked. Sajaad, who was standing apart from the group called back, "the engineers office is here."

"Stay with me." Lark hissed, grabbing Hedenstrom again. And the party turned the corner into the office.

The dark room looked messy when they entered, but as the light from their torches splashed over the interior they could see that the room had been ransacked. Benches in the tall industrial room were littered with overturned toolkits, folders spewing their paper contents over work surfaces. The air had a diesel tang to it. There were two terminals at the far end of the room. One was smashed with a post it note attached the other was working with a curser blinking next to a message that read: 'Download message [Y/N]'

Drabikowski picked the post it note. "Overrides" it said at the top in marker pen. And underneath were 6 random jumbles of letters and numbers. She showed it Navarre, who shrugged. Ejiri went to the working terminal and typed [Y]

The message flashed across the screen, purporting to be from 'Weyland' Ejiri told the group that there was a rescue mission some 6 hours inbound, all they needed to do was transmit the encrypted IronFish data to verify their identity.

Ejiri, Drabikowski and Navarre stood at the terminal. "Try IronFish and one of the codes into MU/TH/UR" suggested Drabikowski. Ejiri called up the right terminal command and typed in 'Retrieve IronFish', followed by the first code on the post it note.

The terminal went blank for a second and then flashed with 'IronFish material classified, Access Denied' and then went blank. Seconds later, it repeated the post it note code and displayed the message 'Station Thrusters manual control.'

Ejiri whistled through his teeth and typed in 'Explain operation of…' followed by each of the remaining codes he had in his hand. 'Command unknown' MU/TH/UR responded immediately.

"If they are overrides, MU/TH/UR may not recognise them in a longer string." Said Drabikowski. "You may have to just enter them to see their effect."

"Here goes nothing." said Ejiri as he typed in the second. Three locations flashed on the screen. "Well that could be anything from jettison these modules, to dispense cat food."

He scrolled back and entered two further codes that resulted in being asked which airlocks were to be opened and what the power rating of the trawling arms should be set to in turn.

"What's that last one?" Asked Navarre
"Well, there's only one way to find out." Said Ejiri with a wry grin.

He entered the last code and watched in horror as the terminal cursor blinked once and faded to a black screen. The emergency lighting, the air processors in the room and the steady hum of machinery all stuttered to a halt. Erebos station was drifting dead in space within the accretion disk of the Ablassen black hole with no power, no life support and now, no MU/TH/UR to help them.

thanks.

keep it up buddy.