T-Plus 1

Amidst the sound of heavy breathing was the click of the door shutting. All the tension left Esther’s body, and her legs folded beneath her. She sank to the ground, her arms catching herself on the coffee table. On the other side, Hensley collapsed with a thud, his legs staining the floor with blood. Vaughn rushed past her with the penlight, searching the shelves and closets in the room.

Esther slapped some feeling into herself. They weren’t in the clear just yet. She crawled over to Hensley, forcing his boots off and rolling what remained of his pants up past his knees, and gave his legs a preliminary inspection. Both legs had patches of their skin ripped off, and some small chunks of flesh were missing. She checked further and let out a sigh of relief; although bleeding profusely, she couldn’t see any signs of bone showing.

Vaughn returned, a first-aid kit in his hands. He left the penlight on the table behind her so she could see the operation site. She accepted the kit with a nod, rummaging for the saline water bottle. The doctor applied a generous amount on Hensley’s legs, making sure they were completely clean before she motioned for Vaughn to find the gauzes for her.

He tossed her the few in the kit, and she wrapped Hensley’s legs. There, done. She sat back, leaning on the coffee table with a sigh. He’d probably wake up and feel his legs burning, but he wasn’t bleeding out anymore. Speaking of which, Esther glanced around the room to find the mess they left.

“Is he okay?” Vaughn asked, leaning over her shoulder.

“For now,” she replied, carefully standing. “Let’s move him to the bed.”

With a nod, Vaughn looped an arm under Hensley’s shoulder and hefted him up. Esther lifted the other side, and the two of them somehow dumped Hensley on his bed in the far corner away from the door. She tucked him in, pulling the blanket over him and quietly shuffled back toward the light.

Vaughn was already there using a towel he found to wipe up the blood. He offered another towel to her, and the two of them cleaned up the mess. The engineer took the dirty towels into the back where the bathroom was.

She sat on the ground, going through her stretching exercises. They were “safe” for now, if being trapped was safe. Vaughn returned, plopping himself nearby with a huff. He leaned against the shelf, stretching

“That was a rush,” he laughed. “Now what?”

He was still covered in slime goop. It stained his Hawaiian... shirt. She paused, taking note of his attire now. A bright ocean blue Hawaiian shirt with pink flamingos, splotched with slime goo, was tucked into brown slacks that was held up with a matching belt. Around his neck was a plain silver tie. Who let him come to work like that?

“You- Nevermind,” she sighed. “You should clean up.”

“Is the water still running?”

“You tell me.”

Vaughn nodded, heading back into the bathroom. She could hear him patting the walls and furniture, finding his way around in the dark. A few moments later, the sound of the faucet running broke the quiet.

“The water works!” he called. “Nice!”

The sound of splashing followed. Moments later, Vaughn returned in high spirits. The edges of his face and his wrists were damp, while his blonde hair was wet and grouped in clumps. The top of his collar was dark, and some water was still dripping down his neck. The goop from his slime destruction was gone.

“I’m hungry,” he complained now that he was clean.

“You, how can you be so carefree?” Esther asked in disbelief.

“Am I?”

“Are you really asking that?”

He scratched his nose.

“I mean, it’s bad outside, but there’s nothing we can do about it, right? So what’s the point in worrying?”

She glared at him. He matched her gaze. Esther sighed, admitting her defeat after several long minutes. She relaxed her shoulders, only realizing after doing so that they had remained tense, even tenser than her legs had been. She massaged them with a hand, rolling them forward and back to ease the soreness.

Vaughn had gone to rummage through Hensley’s drawers and closets again, this time returning with an armful of snacks. An assortment of chips and other non-perishables tumbled onto the coffee table. She picked one up.

“Spicy... seaweed?” she muttered, putting it back.

Esther picked up another one: spicy cheddar cheese, salt and pepper, spicy cheese puffs, chicken and sriracha, etc. She glanced at the noodle cups that Vaughn was perusing: spicy chicken, spicy cheddar cheese, spicy lime shrimp, spicy beef, etc. Did Hensley enjoy spicy food? Where did he get all of these out here?

She chose the most mundane of the chips: salt and pepper. Vaughn was weighing the packets of lime shrimp versus chicken in his hands. He looked over at her.

“Which one do you think tastes better?”

“Does it matter? The power’s not working, so it’s not like you can heat up the water.”

“Shit, you’re right. Well, guess we’ll have to eat it the other way.”

Esther watched in disgust as Vaughn ripped open the package and bit into the dry noodles raw. The sound of crunching was particularly awful to her ears. She promptly picked up her packet of chips and moved over to where Hensley was, giving the excuse that she was checking up on him.

There was a chair, barely visible in the penlight’s range, which she pulled over to the bed. With chips in hand, she munched on them, giving a cursory glance at the bandages. Once she finished eating, she would need to change them.

The room fell into silence again, the only sounds being the crunching of Vaughn’s teeth into noodle squares and her snacking on chips. The crumbs dropped on Hensley’s bed, arm, and parts of his chest, but that wasn’t anything new. She finished half the bag before rolling it up and returning it to the table where Vaughn was starting on another packet of noodles.

“What’re you doing?” he asked as she opened the first-aid kit again.

She pulled out the gauze, returning to Hensley’s side.

“Changing bandages,” she replied.

Using the old bandages as a layer between his still bleeding legs and his sheets, she wrapped his legs with clean ones.

“I want to take a nap,” Vaughn sighed, leaning back on his arms.

“After we sort things out first,” Esther retorted.

She turned, sitting sideways in the chair to look at the scientist lounging on the floor.

“Why are you by yourself? Kuznetsov is usually with you, isn’t he?”

“I mean, yeah,” Vaughn said with a nod. “Before the Evac call, Bacon and I were in the lab with Jiang and some new tech kid. They wanted me to put up the special equipment, so we got held up. Soup came in after the mess and told us we had to leave, then we heard gunshots and shouting, and then a horde of those things showed up, so we ran.”

“And where are they now? We saw blood on the stairs.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?” Esther accused.

Vaughn pouted at her.

“I don’t know what I don’t know. Jiang was the one that got injured. He got nailed in the leg when the power went out. The rest of us led them away as Soup got Jiang out. They headed towards the Elevator. I lost everyone else in the mix up.”

“Shot?” Emerson asked. “There’s a different variation?”

“It had terrible aim, shots were slow, and it wasn’t even anything lethal. Just spat globs of itself. Although nabbing Jiang’s leg in the dark was pretty effective.”

“Just our luck,” Emerson sighed.

“That one went towards the Elevator, since I didn’t see it in the ones chasing you guys,” Vaughn added.

“I’m supposed to feel better about that?”

The scientist shrugged.

“You asked first.”

He cleared the area around him of crumbs, tossing them into the nearby trash bin. Vaughn lay down in the spot, curling up with his own arm as a pillow.

“I’m going to take a nap. You should get some rest too, Doc. We can worry later when Hensley’s awake.”

Esther could only sigh as she watched him close his eyes and turn his back to her. Should she consider the man as an enigma or just as eccentric as some of the other scientists and engineers in the station? She decided to follow his example and clear her own spot on the floor beside Hensley’s bed. After some searching through some of the other closets, she grabbed the extra bedding in one of them. With her bed made, she followed the men’s example and closed her eyes.

***

Oliver blinked, his eyelids heavy from slumber. The burning pain stemming from beneath his knees sobered him up quick, and the memories of the previous hours came pouring back. He propped himself on his elbows, wincing as someone’s fingers gently prodded his wounds.

“You’re awake. How’s it feel?” Emerson’s voice asked through the darkness.

A flash of light flicked towards his chest. It illuminated his corner of the room just enough for him to make out that he was on his bed. Crumbs fell into his lap as he sat up, and he immediately knew where they came from. He threw an exasperated look at the culprit before taking in everything else. Emerson was sitting in a chair beside him, the penlight in her hand. A first-aid kit was splayed out in her lap and part of the bed beside his legs. A glance at his legs showed they were bandaged, although they still burned from the pain.

“Honestly, not the worst feeling I’ve woken up to before,” he replied, sitting up completely.

“Pain is a good thing,” the doctor said, cleaning up. “It means your legs are still working.”

“Hensley! You’re up!” Toast’s voice cried from the other side of the room.

The scientist rushed over, kneeling by his bedside. He plopped down on the floor, crossing his legs. Emerson set the penlight between them, lighting up the room a little more.

“How long have I been out?” Oliver asked.

“We’ve completed half a revolution, so a few hours at least,” Emerson replied.

“We need to get to the Space Elevator,” he muttered.

“Our alien friends are still in the way,” Toast reminded.

“Those slimes are not aliens,” Emerson scoffed.

“What else are we supposed to call an invading species?” Toast retorted.

“Aliens are those creatures in children’s fantasy stories,” Emerson continued.

“Woman, can’t you understand a man’s romance?” Toast protested. “It’s been decades since we’ve expanded outside our solar system, and this is the first time we’ve encountered an alien species! The honor! The glory!”

“All we’re going to get is an incident report.”

“Gah, Hensley! You tell her! They’re aliens!”

“They’re not aliens!”

“Guys,” Oliver said in a stern tone. “It doesn’t matter if they’re aliens or not. They’re here, and they’re in the way.”

Emerson turned her head and crossed her arms, refusing to look at Toast. The scientist held his head high, a triumphant smile on his face. Oliver sighed with a shake of his head.

“Why are you here anyways, Toast?” Oliver asked.

Toast’s smile morphed into disbelief.

“I saved you, and that’s the first thing you ask me?”

“Soup was supposed to be with you.”

Toast rubbed the back of his head. Between Emerson and Toast, the two of them summarized what had occurred up until that point. Oliver nodded, taking in the information.

“If Daniel and Soup are together, they’ll be fine,” Oliver said. “I’m worried about the others, but we need to get Emerson and you out of here.”

“How are we supposed to get to the Elevator?” Emerson asked. “Those slimes we met are slow, but once we get within their range, they’re hard to escape from.”

She pointed at his legs to prove her point.

“They’re really squishy, though,” Toast said.

“So we know that they’re easy to kill and outrun, but hard to avoid,” Oliver said, listing their facts.

“Ah, there’s one other thing,” Emerson said.

“What?”

“Remember when Vaughn killed the one slime?”

The two men nodded. It was hard to forget.

“The other slimes split to eat it even when Hensley was already in their grasp.”

“So we're dealing with a cannibalistic species, great,” Oliver muttered.

“You want to use that to our advantage?” Toast asked. “I don’t mind hopping on another one.”

“If it comes down to it,” she said.

“Great,” Toast said with a clap and face-splitting smile. “I get to squash another alien.”

“We’ll leave it to you to create a distraction then,” Oliver affirmed. “You squish one of them, and Emerson and I will head toward the Elevator.”

“Good deal. If I may borrow your coat, Doc,” Toast said, holding his hand out.

“What, you got yours eaten, so you want mine now?”

She still shrugged off her lab coat and handed it to him. The scientist rested it on his shoulders, standing.

“Just for insurance,” he explained.

He turned to Oliver, his hands on his hips.

“Ready to go?”

“Wait,” Emerson said, also standing. “Do we have a Plan B?”

“What for?”

The doctor rolled her arms, crossing her arms at her fellow lab coat wearer.

“In case you don’t catch up to us, or there are more slimes than the five we saw.”

“We squish them and run,” Toast said.

She sighed, massaging the bridge of er nose with her fingers. Emerson turned to Oliver.

“Do you have anything better?"

He could only shake his head. Emerson gave him a disappointed shake of her head, and set the first-aid kit back on his shelf. Toast moved the chair back into its original corner as the two prepared to break out of his room. Oliver scooted to the side of his bed, carefully swinging his legs over the edge. He winced as the pain shot up past his knees, setting both legs on fire with the sensation as he stood.

“You should take it easy while we can,” Emerson advised, coming by.

Emerson held a hand up, gently forcing him to remain sitting. She picked up the penlight that was still by him.

“Do you keep another flashlight in your room?” she asked.

“There should be one in the closet,” he replied, pointing in the direction of where his shelf of models stood.

She nodded, taking the penlight with her. Toast replaced her in monitoring him.

“Maybe you should sit this one out,” he said.

Oliver stared at the man. Toast constantly surprised him with his antics, but this one was a first. The mad scientist was concerned about his well-being? The technician still shook his head despite the rare advice from the scientist.

“No, you’ll need help with the slugs, because Emerson won’t be able to.”

“Slugs? Well, at least that’s better than calling them slimes.”

The technician sighed as he rolled his eyes. There was the Toast he knew. Emerson rejoined them, Oliver’s extra heavy duty flashlight in hand. She flicked it on, pointing it towards the ceiling and lighting the room.

“Are we ready?”

“I’m ready to squish an alien when you tell me to!” Toast said, rushing to the door.

He shouldered the lab coat on properly as Emerson helped Oliver toward the door. The sleeves were short of his wrist by several inches, and the tail end just reached past his knees. Emerson handed Toast the penlight, keeping the flashlight with her and Oliver.

“We open the door, you squish the nearest slime, Hensley and I will run towards the Elevator, you try to catch up to us as soon as possible, got it?” Emerson said.

“In the case we run into another set of slugs before Toast rejoins us,” Oliver added, “I’ll take care of it, and you keep going.”

Emerson and Toast nodded. Oliver took the flashlight from Emerson, nodding towards her to open the door.

“Uhh, what happens if there's an alien on the door?” Toast asked, hesitating in his charge.

“Proceed as planned,” Emerson retorted, her hand hovering over the button. “Ready?”

The men nodded. Emerson smacked the button, and the door slid open. Toast charged out, his penlight revealing the pack of sluggish aliens. All five of them were milling about outside. Toast slammed down on the nearest one as Oliver and Emerson snuck around him, closing the door behind them.

The slug scattered in an explosion of goop much like the first time. As expected, the others converged on the remnants. Oliver kept Emerson ahead of him, corralling her away from the slugs as they rushed toward Toast's murder scene.

They pulled away from the aliens, rounding the bend out of their sight. Emerson slowed to a jog, extending her hand to touch the wall as she went. Oliver kept beside her, ready to steady her if she fell. Pain crept up his legs, a constant reminder of why they had to continue moving. He used the flashlight to survey their path forward, swinging it in multiple directions to make sure there weren’t more of those slimy aliens. So far, there was nothing.

As they passed by the entrance to the stairwell, Toast caught up with them. He was running at a full sprint, the penlight waving everywhere as he slid into their pace. Emerson’s lab coat was covered in flesh colored goop, and the scientist’s recently cleaned self was drenched in alien guts, if slime, slug creatures had those.

“They’re having a feast back there,” Toast proclaimed. “They won’t be chasing us for a while.”

“They don’t seem to have very good senses, since we lost them so easily,” Emerson speculated. “We should be fine, unless there are more between us and the Elevator.”

Despite Emerson’s worries, the rest of the way remained clear. It was a bit odd, since according to Toast there should’ve been several more slug creatures, but he wasn’t going to complain. They reached Nereid Station’s Space Elevator, a sight for sore eyes.

The space elevator ran on its own power source, so the lights around here still worked and was bright compared to the rest of the station. Oliver opened up the security room by slamming his shoulder into it with Toast’s help, rushing toward the control panel. Using his memory from having to repair this several times before, he booted up the system.

Emerson and Toast peered over his shoulder, watching him work from a safe distance. One more screen of security, and he’d be able to summon the elevator to take them down to Triton. One more password and they’d finally be out of here. He blanched at the thought of having to go through interviews and reporting on what the hell happened up here, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about anything else once they were down there.

He glanced over at the doctor, saddened that he couldn’t give her her going-away gift he had prepared. Last he remembered, it was still sitting in his locker up in the Engineering Bay, and would probably remain there until after this incident was settled. By then though, it’d already be too late. He had no doubt she’d want to leave the moment she was able, especially after this mess regardless of how short it’d been.

The screen before him flashed red. He blinked, freezing in spot. No. Fucking. Way.

Access Denied.

He tried entering the key again. The same message popped up.

Access Denied.

Oliver attempted a third time.

Access Denied.

All around them, in both the security room and down in the loading area for the Elevator, the lights blared an emergency red. Anne’s nostalgically familiar voice announced their sentence for evacuating so late.

“Nereid Station has been quarantined. Please remain where you are until further notice.”