Creator1

Tracy was shocked. She knew these things existed, and felt that the intelligence community also knew they existed, but to actually hear it confirmed shocked her. She was seemingly relieved and concerned by his answer.

‘Honestly, I thought you were going to try to pin this on us.’ Tracy said sternly.

‘I mean, didja kill your entire crew? Now that I think about it only men died.’ Jay chuckled, Maddie stammered.

‘kidding.’

‘Listen I’m going to ask you some questions and I need you to do your best to answer them, both of you.’

‘Why are we going to answer any of your questions?’ Tracy demanded.

‘Because, otherwise, I’m going to report that you two killed your colleagues out there. I’m not kidding this time.’

Jay reached into his coat pocket and revealed a small bag of nuts and plopped it on the table.

‘Cashew?’ he offered, the both shook their heads, to which Jay shrugged.

Jay proceeded to ask them about the encounter, the creature’s size, speed, appearance.

‘Do you know if it targeted the men?’ he asked.

‘It just seemed convenient, I guess.’ Maddie answered

‘Did you see miner Soren die?’ Jay asked both, ‘You did.’ he almost smiled, staring at Tracy.

‘Tell me, do you think those things just rip their victims apart?’ tears began to stream down Tracy’s face.

‘I’ll tell you what happened to miner Soren. These creatures made their way up his suit, they move quickly and are pushed by those behind them. It creates an avalanche-like effect.’

Maddie began audibly sobbing, Jay continued,

‘It usually starts with one or two, they begin crawling up the victim and ripping into the spacesuit. Almost every time the victim focuses their attention to the first few crabs, fighting them off, but losing speed. This allows more to pile on, it’s that avalanche thing.’

Jay, was leaning forward close to his folded hands, he leaned back to his upright position, grabbing some cashews, shelling them and crunching them in his mouth as he went on.

‘Soren tumbled to the ground, and was instantly covered by hundreds of these things, all of which began ripping at his spacesuit. These things work so fast, you know?’ He threw another cashew in his mouth. They ripped open his suit and entered, several crawling up and down his leg. Then they ate him, piece by piece.’

More nuts.

‘If you think it gets better it doesn’t.’

‘Stop.’ Tracy said shakily. Maddie had her hands in her palms, Jay squinted, eating another cashew.

‘The suit is compartmentalized so that a leak only affects a portion of the body. According to medical and biological scans from his suit, Soren was alive and conscious for a large majority of his demise, as was George. Each section of the suit being devoured was felt until they died. They would have also experienced crushing pressure from the mountain of bugs that piled on. The only solace is that they were only alive for eight seconds after the suit was breached.’

Wilma entered with the guard, they had four meals. They set them on the table a tray each in front of the three seated. The guard sat next to Tracy and began eating.

‘I ate while they prepared your food.’ Wilma said.

‘You can go now, Wilma.’

‘I’ve never seen someone that high ranking deliver food.’ Tracy commented. Wilma gave a sharp glance as she left.

The two men scarfed down their food rabidly. Maddie had barely touched her food.

‘You need to eat. You’ll be thankful you did,’ The guard told Maddie.

Just then, the guard turned away, his spoon clattering as he dropped it. He was intently listening to the device in his ear.

‘I have to go, it’s about Mining group three.’ He got up and left quickly, grabbing his weapon and darting out of the room.

‘Eat.’ Jay reiterated to both of them.

After several minutes of silence Jay spoke. ‘It’s time to move. Get up.’ He stood up and began walking briskly to the door. The two miners followed. They began walking down the same way they had come from. The three humans’ footsteps clicked and clacked as they headed down the halls. The sounds of their steps were quickly overcome by heavier, more cadenced thuds coming from the android spotted at the end of the hall.

‘You there. Where are you headed?’ Jay asked.

‘To provide reinforcements to mining crew two, Colonel’ The droid responded, stopping in its path.

‘Crew three. Not two, you mean.’ Jay corrected.

‘Negative. Mining crew two distress called for additional assistance for a mining casualty. Playing distress call.’

An audio clip began with heavy panting and shouting, but Jay interrupted, he pulled out some form on identification and showed it to the much larger droid, who leaned in to observe the credentials.

‘No more. You’re not supporting reinforcements, you are on executive protection detail for me and these two VIPs, do you understand?’ Jay commanded, removing his credentials.

‘Affirmative, Colonel.’ The droid said, reaffirming its grip on the weapon it was carrying.

The group began to return back to the large garage area where they had returned back to base camp, where Maddie and Tracy had first met Jay.

When they arrived in the bay, the guard’s focus immediately met us, he rushed over to Jay and began whispering something to him. Jay nodded.

‘We will need to continue our line of questioning when we get to a safer location.’ Jay mentioned.

‘CREW TWO! ARRIVING!’ Wilma shouted, many people began to spring into action, gathering tool boxes, and scurrying to find their appropriate spots. Jay, Tracy, and Maddie stood by the door to the hallway watching. The two women had never seen the commotion that happens prior to their arrival.

They watched out the large translucent wall that the rovers would drive through. They could see the rover cresting the hill, but instead of gently lifting itself over the hill and coming down, it launched off the top of the hill and began crashing down in slow motion. The rover was loosing pieces as it drifted through the sky back to the ground. As it bounced more pieces fell off. As the rover approached, we could see it was covered in those baby crab-like creatures, who were ripping the rover piece by piece.

‘Crew Lead, slow down the rover!’ Wilma commanded. The rover continued hurdling towards the entrance of the bay.

‘Engage your breaks immediately crew two!’ Wilma repeated. The team members within the bay began to disperse, seeing that the rover was not slowing down. The rover flew through the force field, tipping slightly forward on its front part of it’s tread. The front end of the vehicle smashed into the wall as it finally came to a stop. The crash was deafening, screams were heard. Immediately, the guard sprinted behind the crashed rover and over to the other three. The Android squatted its stance and raised a weapon, the guard followed suit.

The crabs began to spread from the crashed vehicle, like spilled liquid, uncontainable, rapidly spreading. The rover had caught fire at this point, and one of the crew members was inside, burning alive. He screamed and thrashed. The droid and the security system began opening fire on the crabs. The loud rush of noise overwhelmed, then dissipated. Tracy could only hear high pitched ringing and dull thuds of weaponry.

The fire was beginning to spread from the rover to the rest of the bay, the crabs were too many. Tracy could still hear the miner screaming in agony. The guard fired multiple shots into the miner who stopped thrashing and laid still, now a seated pile of flames.

‘The door won’t open!’ Jay screamed, swiping his credentials on the door.

‘LOCKDOWN PROCEDURES INITIATED. FIRE DETECTED IN MAINTENANCE BAY ONE.’ The intercom system blared.

The droid thrusted its weapon into Jay’s hands. It’s huge body made the metal door seem like a mere inconvenience. Jay continued with the guard to shoot at the mountain of crabs still coming from the rover. The door was pried open, followed by urgent commands to squeeze through. The droid slipped out of the garage and into the hall, several crabs also made their way into the hall.

One crawled on Tracy’s leg and began ripping into he skin, she screamed and through it to the wall, the droid stomped on it, squishing it all over.

‘Did Wilma make it?’ Maddie asked.

‘She’s gone. I saw those creatures pile up on her. She’s gone.’ The guard said.

The group finished off the remaining crabs in the hallway and looked at the chaos in the bay. the fire was continuing to spread, the sprinkler system was not working. The small crabs had spread from their giant piles and were sprawling themselves throughout their new space.

‘They are making their way to the ventilation system. We need to move, they will be on us shortly.’ Jay said.