The Hangar Chapter 3

"Here's the list," proclaimed Erica proudly, handing Jerry a slip of paper.

He looked over the damages and sighed. These were pretty extensive and would take a lot of work.

"Next thing we need to do is determine if there's anything usable in the hangar," said Craig, wrapping the cables from the portable battery up.

"That means we would need to go out there, where that monster is…" said Lauren with a frown.

"Yep," bit Craig.

"Look, I'm the commander, so I will go out and see what's available in the hangar," sighed Jerry, handing the list back to Erica. He didn't need to see what was wrong to know if there were tools or not. Besides, if he died to that monster, they would still need the list. "If there's no tools, I might be able to connect to the computers and see why the colony stopped construction."

No one made eye contact with him or tried to talk him out of it as he made his way to the outside door. They all knew someone needed to go out there to assess the situation and they were all glad he didn't order one of them to do it. When the inner airlock sealed, he made sure his rebreather was positioned correctly before opening the outer airlock.

There was no movement as he scanned the hangar within his field of view. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, and knowing that the others were watching him from the inner airlock, Jerry slowly peeked around the edge of the airlock door to see if the monster was anywhere in sight. It was not.

The gaping hole in the side of the ship had a few large feathers scattered around, but otherwise there was no sign of the aliens. He headed towards it because the damages list hadn't included this and it would need to be patched up before they could leave. The metal skin of the ship had been peeled back to allow their escape. Jerry could see a tiny tuft of fur from another of the aliens, and he made a mental note to gather it up with the feathers before they left. He was already in enough trouble even being there, but adding contamination of the area with alien genetic material probably didn't need to be added to the list. No reason to bother with it right now since he didn't even know where the three aliens were.

Glancing around the hangar, wondering where the three could have gone, he finally noticed a doorway leading deeper into the incomplete colony. It had obviously been forced open and he breathed easier. It wasn't good that they had escaped into the colony, but it meant he didn't have to worry about them attacking him.

The hangar was bare of anything usable, so he headed for the computer console next to the ship cradle. It had a small smear of blood on one corner and he knew before he had even tried anything that it wouldn't respond to him. Those aliens weren't mere brutes, like the guy he had talked to said. At least one of them was intelligent, and with dread, Jerry had a feeling he knew which one it was.

The computer booted up, but refused to leave the loading screen. Probably because the colony hadn't been finished. The mainframe wasn't connected to it yet. He glanced back at the door leading to the main section of the colony and knew he would have to follow them. Shaking his head at his bad luck, Jerry headed back to the airlock to fill the others in on what he had found.

"So, one has feathers and another fur?" Lauren said, wringing her hands. "Anything else you can tell us?"

"We are not to hurt any of them under any circumstances," said Jerry, running a hand through his hair. "If we so much as harm a hair or feather on either of the two, the main guy will slaughter us."

"But how can a monster form that kind of bond?" asked Craig.

"I'm not sure."

"But we definitely have to leave the hangar?" asked Erica glancing towards the airlock.

"There's no connection between the computer here and the mainframe. I can't access any of the machines to initiate repairs. We have to head to the mainframe and see why the colony construction was halted."

"Should someone stay here to watch over the ship?" asked Lauren, chewing her lip.

"I don't think that's necessary. The colony hasn't woken any of the people up yet so there's no one to mess with the ship while we're gone. Besides, we can get this done faster if we're all together."

"Do we have any weapons to protect us from those aliens?" asked Craig, motioning towards the hall leading to the cargo door.

"Do you really think having a weapon is going to help? The monster one is basically invincible, and if we harm either of the other two, we're basically signing a death warrant," said Erica, shaking her head.

"Lauren, grab some food for everyone to put in their packs. Craig, grab some of the water pouches. Erica, you're in charge of keeping the list of needed repairs in case we can get the computers up and running. Best case scenario is we find an escape pod and just get off this planet, but I would rather not leave the ship behind, if at all possible," said Jerry, watching as they jumped into action.

Craig asked, "Do you think we're going to have to wake the people on the ship?"

"Hopefully not. If we can get the colony to continue with its construction, I would like the ship repaired and to be out of here before the colony ship gets far enough to start waking the people up. Especially since we don't know why this planet doesn't technically exist," said Jerry, moving over to stand by the airlock door.

"There's not anything else we need to know about these aliens, is there?" asked Erica moving to stand behind him and fidgeting with her rebreather.

"They're smart," he said, taking the food packets from Lauren and shoving them into his bag.

"How smart?" asked Craig handing him some water packets.

"Let's just say they figured out that the computer wasn't working and headed into the colony already," Jerry said, adding the water with the food.

"You think they're really that smart? That they're sentient?" asked Erica in shock.

"That would mean we were transporting…" began Lauren but Jerry interrupted her.

"I know and I'm not too happy about it."

"Are we ready to do this?" asked Craig, tightening the straps on his bag. "Maybe we can get in and out before these things even know we've left the ship."

Jerry opened the inner airlock and waited for everyone get in the airlock and had their rebreathers in place before he cycled the doors and opened the outer airlock. Leading the others out into the hangar, he made a point of scanning it to make sure nothing had changed since he was there last, then waved the others to follow him as he headed for the destroyed doors.

The hall leading into the colony city was complete, but it was obvious the construction hadn't completed it as it was void of any type of decoration. Jerry didn't know how the details were decided. Maybe once the bare necessities were completed, the computer started waking up people to help decide those details?

"The mainframe computer is in the center of the colony ship," said Lauren with a frown. "We're going to have to go through a lot of incomplete city to reach it."

"Which means there's more opportunities for this monster to attack us," growled Craig in frustration.

"Um, no, that's not what I meant," Lauren said with a frown of her own. "I was more trying to get to the fact that with the city incomplete, won't there be holes and gaps that the local wildlife can enter through?"

"Initially there should have been an immense field over the whole city to prevent that during the construction, but since it was interrupted, that field seems to have gone down," said Erica, craning her neck to look through a window high up on the wall.

Branches and various plant life could be seen, with the occasional glimpse of a passing creature. Jerry wondered if the three aliens would just leave the city and disappear into the surrounding jungle. Worry and relief warred inside of him. None of the others were interested in trying to recapture the three aliens and would be just fine abandoning the assignment. He could easily return the deposit per their contract and be done with it once they escaped this planet. The amount of money they would have made, however…

Shaking the greed from his mind, he focused on keeping an eye out for anything that might be dangerous as they made their way down the hall to the beginnings of the city.

It was going to be a fantastical city, with arches and terraces everywhere, but because construction had halted in the middle, things had collapsed where they weren't supported yet, and support structures that would have come down later blocked most of their path. The distant cry of some strange creature rang out over the city.

"Guess we should have brought those weapons after all," said Craig dryly.