Monster Chapter 2

The alarm was brief, only having enough juice to blare out two sharp blasts before cutting out, but it was enough. Jerry jumped to his feet and stopped himself as a feeling of dread hit him.

"What could have been in the hangar?" asked Loren, glancing around the table, and settling her gaze on him.

"I think the question isn't what was in the hangar," began Craig dryly, "but what did we bring into the hangar?"

"What were we hauling?" asked Erica.

She shouldn't have asked that question. It was in their contracts never to ask what they were hauling. Only the captain was allowed to know and even then, it was never known if he actually knew what they were hauling.

"We lost containment when the ship lost power," Craig spat. "What was in our cargo that is strong enough to breach our ship?"

"You know I can't tell you," said Jerry, turning away from them so they didn't see the panic that was trying to boil up inside him.

"Jerry, that barrier on the hangar was going to keep us safe from anything dangerous," growled Craig, jumping up from the table and coming to stand in front of him. "We need to know what is out there in that hangar."

"If it can break out of the ship, it can break back in," added Erica softly with a look of horror at the walls around them.

"Wait, would the barrier keep it from escaping the hangar? Maybe it'll run outside and get killed by the local wildlife?" Loren spoke up, her eyes wide as her gaze jumped between them.

"No," said Craig with a shake of his head. "The barrier prevents anything non-human from passing through it. Whatever that thing is, that we brought in here, is staying in here."

Jerry closed his eyes and took a breath. He needed to take control of this and worry about who the traitor possibly was later. There was no way they could have known about this planet… right? Besides, he was the only one with clearance to the cargo bay…

"We need to make a plan," he finally said, turning back to them and they shut up, focusing on him just like they always did in times of trouble. "What was supposed to be days is now not."

"Got that right," growled Craig.

"Craig, some space please?"

Craig stared at him for a few moments longer before backing off and moving to stand by his chair.

"You know I can't tell you what was in the cargo, but I can give you info about it. In times of emergency the captain can take drastic actions for the survival of the crew."

Loren and Erica both nodded, glancing at each other and reaching for their coffees at the same time.

"It's strong, as we all know, and it doesn't care for people in general. I think it was meant to be used in the gladiator run by the Proscovia."

Craig gave out a low whistle.

"Those guys are loaded, no wonder the pay for this run was so hi!" Erica muttered, setting down her coffee.

"I had level five containment on the cage holding it, and it shouldn't have been able to break free, but obviously it did."

"Was there any kind of tranquilizer used on it?" asked Loren.

"None known work on it," said Jerry with a shake of his head. "Its physiology burns through anything given to it within seconds and if it's been hit with something once, it doesn't affect it at all a second time."

"Does that include toxins and diseases too?" asked Erica scrunching her brow.

"I guess? I don't know a lot about the species. They come from some backwater planet and aren't interacted with much because of how dangerous they are."

"That doesn't bode well for us," groaned Craig. "Why did we take this route to deliver it?"

"I told the computer I wanted the fastest route and let it compute the coordinates. It should have avoided any areas that were blacked out like this one, but for some reason it didn't."

"That would take someone deliberately omitting that info from the database," said Loren. "When I searched for the planet info, it wasn't in our system. I had to force an update and that's when it reported the area off limits."

"Wait, you updated the system?" asked Erica.

"Yeah, I used the emergency override to force it."

"Then there is no way no one heard my emergency broadcast!"

"There was probably a scrambler that prevented broadcasts from leaving the solar system," sighed Craig.

"You don't understand, Craig. I sent out a broad message, like protocol, but I also sent out a system wide request for aid. If Loran could update the system, then my request should have also gone out. It uses the same system connections."

"So, there is a chance someone might have heard our cry for help?" asked Loren, looking around at them.

"Doesn't matter," said Jerry, shaking his head. "This planet is in a blacked-out zone declared too dangerous to enter. No one will come to help us, unless it's the government and we all know they don't care about the little people."

"Look, it doesn't matter who heard us," said Craig, hitting the table and glaring at Jerry. "The reality is that we've landed on a hostile planet with a damaged engine that needs to be repaired before we can leave and some monster is roaming outside our ship capable of killing us."

"And our ship has a hole in it somewhere near the cargo hold," added Erica.

"If this thing can't be contained by a level five system, then why would the hangar barrier keep it from escaping?" asked Loren.

"It might not," conceded Jerry, "But the power to the level five containment went away dropping it to maybe a level three. The barrier would be annoying to it, which might be enough to keep it in while it explores the area."

"And if there's a completed path to the colony city, it will probably not stay in the hangar," added Craig.

"Wait, I just thought of something," whispered Loren with wide eyes.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"If no chemical can affect that thing, then it wouldn't have been in cold sleep like the rest of us during the trip."

"That's true, I had to make arrangements to make sure it had plenty of food and water for the trip," said Jerry.

"Are you sure it had enough?" asked Erica with a frown.

"We could check the cargo hold and see if there's still stuff in the cage, but I fail to see what you're getting at here," Jerry sighed.

"The thought of being cooped up in a cage for months at a time is terrifying," Loren muttered, looking down at her empty coffee cup.

"You can feel sorry for it later, we need to figure out what we're going to do," grumbled Craig.

"Craig's right. The first thing we need to do is get the report of the damage from the computer database. There's a portable battery in the cold sleep room that we can hook up to the memory base and extract it. Once we have that report we can decide what needs to be done to make the repairs."

Everyone nodded at Jerry's words and the girls stood up.

"I'll grab the battery, I know where it's at," said Craig, leaving the room.

"Loren, would you mind helping me take the panels off the access port for the memory database? They can be a little tricky to do by yourself," asked Erika.

Jerry stood there alone for a moment wondering if he should have told them the rest of the information about the monster that was running loose and shook his head. They were scared enough as it was. Craig only got combative when he was scared out of his mind.

Heading towards the cargo hold, he kept reminding himself of his reasoning for taking the job. The payout was going to be enough for all of them to retire. Now all he cared about was getting his crew off the planet alive.

The tiny view port in the door didn't let him see much, but it was enough. The cage that had held the monster was decimated. The tiny robots that had made sure to keep it fed and watered were smashed beyond repair. Sparks still shot out from their crushed bodies as he craned his neck to see if the other containment cages were secure. Their destruction didn't surprise him, but why would the monster have cared about those other two creatures? They were nothing alike. Not even from the same planet!

As he turned to return to the others, Jerry only knew that those two aliens were how the monster was caught originally. The guy he accepted the contract from had been very specific in how important they were to keeping the thing contained. If he could catch them, there might be a chance to catch the thing again and still pull this off, but he wasn't sure how to explain it to his crew. Was the money worth it?