USCSS Casimir: Outer Rim Territories

The Casimir had two bunk rooms with lockers, showers and storage closets. The one up on A-Deck, just outside the Hypersleep Compartment, and this one on B-Deck close to the forward airlock and docking tube. Madison knew that captain Yago, his brother Fausto, his wife/XO Seleste and their son Vicente all bunked here together because it was the largest. Bartimaeus and his daughter Sophelia shared the smaller bunk room up on A-Deck.

As the crew of this ship also lived onboard there was much about these bunk rooms that weren't neat and tidy. Posters, rugs, framed photos and decorative items were spread around on any suitably flat surface. Dirty clothes, discarded snack wrappers, magazines and other bits of personal property littered the bunks and corners of the floor.

There was one extra bunk available room for passengers like herself so this is where Madison stored all her belongings, other than the clothes she was wearing before she undressed to prepare herself for hypersleep. Those clothes were presently in another locker in the other bunk room, and at this moment she honestly could care less if she ever saw them again.

At the center of this bunk room was a table. It was rectangular, not round like the one in the center of the crew mess. It wasn't nearly as large as that one either, but it was large enough to lay out all her gear and that's all that mattered to Madison at this moment.

She removed a heavyweight canvas bag from her locker, carrying it over to the table and laying it down with a loud thunk. As there were two entrances to this bunk room, Madison was careful to stand facing the door she came in from, using her peripheral vision to keep tabs on the other one to her left. Frustratingly, Apollo did not grant passengers authority to lock doors on the ship without an access code.

Unzipping the bag revealed personalized body armor and a rigid, electronically-locked gun case. She hastily pulled that free, keying in the date she took delivery of Jex. A day she affectionately thought of as his birthday.

Are you ok Jex? I mean, besides the obvious. I know you're not exactly in one piece right now... She thought to herself, thinking of his dismembered body stacked into that cryo coffin. Even as much as her own heart was pounding with anticipation imagining the Alien bursting into the room at any second, she was also just as fearful for her dearest friend.

With the access code entered, Madison popped open the latches of the gun case with her thumbs, revealing her F90, fully automatic, bullpup assault rifle. A weapon she affectionately named 'Kitten'.

The well-used but immaculately maintained rifle was currently disassembled in order to fit itself into the case with a variety of attachments and ammo magazines to choose from. First she grabbed the black polymer stock personalized with pink tiger stripes, expertly fitting an externally fluted, chrome-lined, cold-hammer-forged barrel fourteen inches in length for close-quarters, a forward grip and an advanced thermal optical scope with a wide-angle lens.

'Kitten' wasn't a pulse rifle. It didn't fire explosive-tipped caseless ammunition electrically but it still had plenty of firepower. Most importantly, it was reliable, lightweight and easy to shoot with minimal recoil. Madison slapped a thirty round magazine of standard light-armor-piercing ammunition into the rear stock and engaged the cocking lever immediately chambering a round. The slick, near-silent, spring-loaded click of that mechanism did wonders to calm her nerves; though the rapid pounding of her heartbeat refused to slow down much at all.

Something about this Alien was different than the others she had encountered previously. Those were all birthed from the same eggs as the one she'd taken away with her, so why would this one be any different? Was it younger perhaps? Madison had no idea what their lifespan was or how long it took them to grow and mature. She only remembered the ones on the surface of Acheron were even larger and seemingly more developed.

Backing up quickly, holding the rifle one-handed, Madison grabbed another duffle from her locker that held more clothes and tossed that on the table also. Laying her rifle atop its case within arms reach, Madison went about getting dressed as quickly as possible selecting gray cargo pants, classic Reebok sneakers and a stretchy form-fitting top, over which she strapped on her ballistic armored vest, shin-and-forearm guards, a tactical belt loaded with additional ammunition, a pistol, a combat knife, low-yield anti-personnel grenades and flash-bangs.

Madison wasn't sure the grenades would have any effect on the Alien but it was worth a try. Regular fragmentation or incendiary grenades would be more lethal, but the risk of potential damage to the ship was too great. She didn't intend to space herself and any other survivors with needless collateral damage.

Of course, the potential for the Aliens acidic blood to do even greater damage to the Casimir was unavoidable. In that regard it was tempting to suit up in an vacuum suite instead of body armor, but the odds that she would regret that were just as high as they might be if she didn't.

After she was dressed Madison grabbed another weapon from the heavy canvas duffle. A heavy, automatic, over-under shotgun capable of unleashing two barrels worth of shot and shrapnel as fast as she could pull the trigger. This weapon was overkill in most circumstances, but damned if this situation didn't call for it! Briefly she considered adding at least one more firearm to her arsenal, but hesitated. I need to be as nimble and silent as a cat! She reminded herself draping a bandolier of portable remote cameras and motion sensors over one shoulder.

The last touches to her gear were a compact first aid kit, several doses of her personal drug cocktails and extra bandages that she stuffed into the large pockets of her cargo pants. Over her hair she buckled on a combat helmet fitted with a variety of sensors and a flip down ballistic face shield that doubled as an imaging display linked to her thermal combat scope and remote cameras. Madison took in a deep breath and steeled herself for the hunt to come. Ok fucker, time for hide and seek.

_ _ _

Ashkelon Station: In Orbit of GL382

07/23/2183

“The General is ready to see you now.” Maks stated to Keren and Sheren in English. The sisters were still seated inside the lounge beside the Red Triad club. Miss Chen nodded and stood up, gesturing for the girls to follow. Together, they exited through a large open door walking down a broad corridor where two more guards stood flanking another large open door.

Past that entrance was a bathhouse. Keren had never seen anything like it. Elaborate tile floors were underfoot with decorative false-stone columns wrapped in living vines lined up along the walls and down the center of the room. Several circular baths were spread out within, raised from floor level to a height of about four feet. Each could seat about eight people.

Lighting inside was moderate and tasteful, aiding to the ambiance of privacy and relaxation. An elderly man sat on a real wooden stool, plunking away on a classic acoustic guitar singing ancient Russian folk songs. Sad, melancholic words echoed across the room as he swayed in the motions of his oratory.

On the wild steppes beyond the Baikal,

Where people are searching for gold,

A poor man bearing a bag on his back.

Shorebirds call out, bemoaning his fate

Keren had only seen a bathhouse once before, down on Temple. She had no idea something like this existed on Ashkelon Station. Such extravagances were unusual and very costly on a space station. She only imagined a place like this belonging to the wealthiest corporate elite. However, most everyone here were heavily tattooed members of the Red Triad. Thugs and brutes. A community of villains dressed in robes or covering themselves with towels.

Half of the baths were reserved for men and the other half for women. Of each set, some were hot water and some were some cold. Through doors against either wall Keren also glimpsed sauna's, showers and spa rooms with massage tables.

For telling the truth, he found himself in prison.

One dark night he escaped.

He does not have enough strength to go any further.

In front of him there is the Lake “Baikal”.

Men and women seated within the bath's, or on benches, watched the strangers move through the room. Some were smoking. Some had drinks. Most were speaking to each other in low voices, calm and quiet. A few called out words of greeting to Maks, or Miss Chen. Keren spotted some who bore no tattoos at all. Were these other UPP agents like her father? That thought irritated her somewhat. How many of these people know him? she wondered. How many are part of his secret life with ties to his secret past? Perhaps Guo even has another family here? Wouldn't that be a wonderful surprise?! she imagined bitterly.

He Comes up to it

And climbs on to a fisherman's boat.

There he sings a song,

A sad song about his own country.

On the far side of the room was another bath, apart from and smaller than the rest. Overhead lighting above this one was non existent. Instead, curved fixtures of light surrounded the bath, both on the inside rim and the outside. Of these lights, the outside circle was brighter than the interior one. Thus at a distance of several paces Keren had to squint her eyes through the heavy steam roiling off the surface to make out a single person seated within the bath. He looked Chinese. Old. Very old. Old enough to be Miss Chen's grandfather perhaps? This must be The General!

He Crosses the lake,

His mother comes to meet him.

“O my dear mother let me embrace you,

Are my father and brother well?”

Maks and Miss Chen paused a short distance away from the bath, bowing deeply. From the shadows against the far wall four men appeared. All Chinese dressed in Gung Fu uniforms. Keren recognized two of them from the underground street fighting tournaments and felt her blood run cold. These were brutal fighters. Killers! Famous for crippling their foes so they might never fight again. Keren could hardly imagine more capable and fearsome warriors to be anyone's bodyguards. Perhaps that was the idea behind their participation? she reasoned. Let their reputation strike fear into everyone and no one will dare attack you.

Your father has been dead for a long time;

He is at rest in the damp earth.

And your brother is serving his prison sentence,

Wearing chains, somewhere in Siberia.

One of these four bodyguards stepped up to the bath and gently touched The General on the shoulder, leaning in to whisper in his ear. The old man stirred, startled, as if he had been sleeping with his eyes open. Keren saw him take in a breath and lean forward, focusing on them with unblinking eyes of pure black. The eyes of a spider watching from its web, Keren thought. She noted there were tubes stuck into his arms and up his nostrils. He's on oxygen, and some sort of intravenous medication drip?

“Come closer!” The General croaked in Chinese, his hoarse voice barely above a whisper.

Maks and Miss Chen stepped aside. Keren moved to step forward but Sheren squeezed her hand, holding her back, hesitating.

“It's going to be ok!” Keren whispered. “I won't let anyone hurt you.”

Together the sisters approached the edge of the bath, at about eye-level with the General. It was then that Keren noted the scent of strong aromatic oils, herbs and potent mineral salts rising up as vapors within the steam. That steam also concealed his chest and lower body, but not his arms, shoulders, neck and face.

Up close the General looked little more than wrinkled skin and bones. One hundred and twenty years old? Maybe more? Keren guessed. His pate was largely bald, spotted with liver spots and sparse tufts of thin white hair combed back into a braid that hung over the back rim of the bath. He kept a long Fu Manchu mustache as well, yet the must striking thing about his appearance was old scar tissue and burns covering large areas of his scalp, face, neck, arms and shoulders. Radiation burns! Keren realized.

The tissue damage was so bad that he seemed to be lacking for eyelids. That must explain the black eyes? she thought. Some form of protective contacts? That also explained why his bath had no overhead lighting. A man forced to dwell in shadows. Given his appearance, it would also make sense that he wouldn't want to spend much time in the light anyway.

“Thank you for coming,” The General said politely. “I am sorry for your hardships. I know you've come to see your father. Every one of his comrades considers him a hero! You did well to come here. Here we can keep you safe.”

“How is our father a hero?” Sheren asked in a disturbed and frightened tone. “Where is he?! What happened to him?”

The General smiled. It was not a pretty sight. It reminded Keren of a mummies smile. “You must be Sheren. Guo said you were pretty! He also said you had a tender heart. Are you sure you can handle the truth?”

“I'm not that fucking fragile!” Sheren cursed back at him rudely. “Tell me!”

“Do not speak to the General that way!” Miss Chen warned in outrage, stepping up to grasp her arm.

“Get your hands off her!” Keren growled.

Suddenly another one of the bodyguards moved up to whisper in The General's ear again. The old man sighed in surprise, both frustrated and unhappy with whatever he just heard. “Forgive me, there is something else I must attend to. Miss Chen will take you both somewhere to rest. We will speak again soon...”

“NO!” Keren shouted, surprising herself. “We aren't leaving until we get some answers!”

Silence filled the bathhouse. No one spoke. Everyone stared at the sisters, clearly mortified by their disrespect. The General only started to laugh. A dry sound, more like a cough. The cackle of a corpse.

“And you must be Keren!” the General said. “Guo told me you were stubborn. He also said you were a fighter! I see why he had such high hopes for you. So be it. Stay if you must.”

The General beckoned and two more enforcers entered the bathhouse roughly pushing a woman between them. She was tall with long blonde hair, black lipstick and a nose ring dressed in ripped and faded blue jeans, a gray polyester jacket and Converse sneakers. Though she didn't actively resist their shoving, even unhindered by restraints, she was clearly in distress. Her bearing and attitude seemed to be one of fear, mixed regret and denial; though she tried hard to maintain her pride and dignity walking with her head held high. It was as if she imagined this was all just some sort of misunderstanding.

As she came closer, Keren noted tattoo's under her sleeves and across her bosom. Not Triad tattoos, but rather, cheap street tattoos by the look of them. Somehow she seemed familiar, though Keren couldn't place where she might have seen her before? Who is she?

Oddly everyone else in the bathhouse seemed to know exactly who she was. Some were immediately saddened or concerned by her predicament. So she is someone they know. Someone in trouble? Keren surmised.

Maks looked most concerned of all and walked right up to her, angry with the men who were pushing her. One fervent curse and heated look from him caused them both to step back quickly. The woman meanwhile appeared ashamed and embarrassed even as she was full of dread. When it was obvious she was about to cry, Maks grabbed her and hugged her tightly, whispering something in her ear.

“Enough!” spat The General.

Reluctantly, Maks released her from his embrace and stepped away. Keren could see the anguish in his eyes, an especially worrying emotion from a man who otherwise looked carved from stone.

Two of The Generals bodyguards stepped forward to take hold of the woman and brought her closer to the bath. The woman was reluctant to look at any of them in the eye. She was however, highly surprised to glimpse Keren and Sheren standing close by. For a second, Keren saw her face full of recognition and pity which took her off guard. Why are you pitying me? You're the one being dragged forward for punishment! Keren thought.

Meanwhile, the lights on the Generals bath blinked off. For a second, Keren didn't understand what was happening until she heard the sound of The General rising out of the water with assistance from his bodyguards. So, The General is too shy to show himself naked before his own people? Keren concluded. Not that I was interested to see that anyway.

Several moments passed until the lights of the bath brightened again revealing The General standing before it draped in a red silk robe and slippers. He supported himself with a cane hunched forward in a deeply pained posture. Close behind him an IV pole laden with intravenous medicine drips and oxygen tanks was pushed around by one of his bodyguards. Before him, The General regarded the blonde woman with the cold, lidless stare of a viper. “You disappoint me Dasha!” he hissed.

Dasha?! As in Dasha Zukhova, Ashkelon Stations' Chief Commerce Officer?! Keren gasped. She didn't recognize her at all in such a thorough disguise. Other than the blonde hair there was little to give her away. Yet now that she knew, it seemed painfully obvious at the same time.

Keren remembered Dasha as a good friend and role-model to Eva. Ater Eva's disappearance, Dasha remained close to the family. She was also very kind and supportive to her during the whole ordeal of Eva's disappearance. Keren recalled crying into her shoulder more than once in those days. The realization that Dasha was another UPP agent like her father made her feel sick to her stomach. Is everything I've ever known just a lie?!

“It's not too late!” Dasha blurted back at The General. “They didn't see my face!”

“They must have!” The General stated heatedly. “Ze'ev ordered the station Chief of Security to arrest you. You're blown! That makes you a liability, of no further use to me.”

“I... I overheard them talking!” Dasha stammered on the edge of panic.

“Yes I know that. I also know you made a recording. That, at least, is something salvageable from this debacle.”

Dasha seemed to realize that making a recording only served to give another reason not to keep her alive so she pressed on with other details. “Storen found a photograph hidden in one of Ze'ev's books! A picture taken by the crew of the CSCSS Ivan Petlin, after it was presumed lost with all hands!”

“...Do you have this picture?” the General asked after a pause.

“No... but I saw it!”

“Describe it to me?”

Dasha swallowed, giving herself a moment to wrack her brain for details. “I didn't get a great look, just a glance. It was an old-fashioned Polaroid, very grainy. The crew was on some sort of frozen planet, or moon. There were lights and equipment nearby, and in the background, something bizarre. A crashed Alien ship! I think they were studying it.”

The General seemed taken-aback by that, swaying on his feet unsteadily. Keren had the sense her words deeply disturbed him. Something in his expression was haunted, and she didn't understand why? What did a lost ship like the Ivan Petlin have to do with anything? And why was Dasha spying on Ze'ev?

“I can remember more details, just give me more time to think!” Dasha pleaded.

“That won't be necessary,” The General stated hoarsely. “I remember it well because I was there. I was in that picture.”

_ _ _

USCSS Casimir: Outer Rim Territories

Madison moved to exit the B-Deck locker room from the left-side door holding 'Kitten' tightly against her shoulder, finger on the trigger. As the door whooshed upwards she froze, holding her breath. After a few moments she approached the open door cautiously, peeking down the corridor first to the left, where the forward docking tube and airlock were located.

She couldn't see all the way down in that direction to make sure it was clear. The idea of turning her back on it without checking that first didn't sit easily in the back of her mind, but she had to hurry. Lives were at stake other than her own.

Madison un-clipped one of her portable cameras with integrated motion sensors off her bandolier with her left hand and fitted it against the door frame. It held there with a solid magnetic snap. Immediately an orange camera icon appeared on her face shield heads-up display. She left it in 'passive mode' to conserve battery life. Its image feed would only transmit to her when it detected motion. Just so long as I know something is moving up behind me, that's all the warning I need, she reasoned.

Turning to the right Madison stepped lightly down the corridor, edging past the other entrance to the locker room she had entered through before. Only a few paces ahead was the companionway junction and the ladder she used to descend down from A-Deck. Her heartbeat started hammering again faster. The Alien might still be up there?!

There were five exits from this companionway junction on this level, yet for the life of her, Madison couldn't remember where they all went? She only knew there were two that headed deeper towards the back of the ship from here. Thankfully it was obvious which direction that was from her present position.

The Casimir should have two escape shuttles, she reasoned. A ship this size always would. Those shuttles would have just enough life support for every member of the crew. Normally passengers would be out of luck if they had to abandon ship, but Madison knew for a fact that at least one member of the crew was already dead.

Captain Yago's brother, Fausto, was missing when they woke up from hypersleep. That fucking thing in the egg had to impregnate someone to birth that Alien! Madison didn't feel sorry for him of course. Fausto was criminal scum. She had already recognized him for the price on his head when they first met. He got what was coming to him, even if it was a really shitty way to go.

Madison knew she might have prevented this by putting a bullet in him when she had the chance. However, ever since The Company erased her identity she wasn't a registered bounty hunter anymore. So far as anyone knew, any killings she did now were technically just murders.

Her eyes flicked back and forth from each corridor exit from the companionway junction, back up to the ladder she dropped down from. I have to check on the rest of the crew and look for survivors! she thought. However unlikely it was that there were any didn't change that basic human obligation. At least not yet.

Madison took in a deep breath and moved over to the ladder, aiming her rifle upwards as she did so. It was tempting to toss a flash-bang up first, yet she hesitated. There was now way to know if it would affect the Alien at all, if it was indeed up there waiting for her. It would, however, guarantee she attracted its attention if it wasn't and draw it towards her. That wasn't a risk she wanted to take just yet.

Do not fucking attack me from above while I am on this fucking ladder you evil Alien mother fucker! she half cursed/half prayed to herself as she started to climb. It would really be nice to avoid dousing herself in acid.

Several tense moments passed as she inched her way up the ladder, rung by rung, until at last she could peak over the edge of A-Deck. What she saw made her flinch and clench her jaw. Two bodies were laying at the entrance to the corridor for the Hypersleep Compartment drenched in blood.

Madison ignored them just as quickly as she saw them, focusing on panning her eyes around in a full circle to be sure this level of the Companionway Junction was clear before she snapped another motion sensor/camera under the rim and climbed up to take a better look at the bodies.

It was Captain Yago and his wife, one of whom was halfway ripped to pieces. Madison swallowed with discomfort as much as sorrow as she looked down on their remains. As a professional bounty hunter, corpses were a frequent sight in her line of work. She used to be intimidated by the harm people could do to each other. She wasn't anymore. Human beings were incapable of this degree of savagery.

Captain Yago had died first defending his wife. Great gashes were torn out of his chest, arms and shoulders. Shattered bone-white ribs, a humerus and a clavicle were visible where they shouldn't be. Madison also guessed his corpse was the source of a huge bloody stain along the padded white corridor wall where the Alien threw him as easily as a rag doll. From the look of the angle of his head, his neck was broken from the impact.

By then he was probably dead on his feet already, or perhaps not? Madison noted a bloody smear of fingers on the deck plating indicating he was still moving after he had collapsed. Likely he hadn't lived long like that, broken and bleeding out, unable to move his own head as he listened to the pleading screams of his family.

Most telling of all were his eyes, fixed open in a stare of pure terror, shock and disbelief. I wonder if he remembered that I warned them to stay put and stay quiet after it was already too late?

Seleste's death was swifter. She had fallen off her feet and cowered with her back against a bulkhead, knees drawn up in front of her, arms crossed over her face. A bloody gaping hole was visible through the top of her skull as if something the size of a fist punched through the bone. She knew what part of the Aliens anatomy was capable of that. Madison hoped she had the willpower to shut her eyes while her husband was violently mauled, but she doubted it. What a horrible thing to see preceding your own demise.

Madison reminded herself to stay alert, glancing again to the ladder which the Alien had used to descend upon the crew and wreak carnage. Carefully she stepped around the bodies, taking care not to slip in blood and brain spatter, checking that the entrance to the Hypersleep Chamber was still open. There were no signs of other bodies inside.

She also noted the door to the A-Deck locker room was shut fast, it's panel controls glowed red indicating it was locked from within. Madison moved up to the view port in the door and peeked inside. She couldn't see much of anything. Interior lights within were off. She tapped her knuckles against the glass. When there was no immediate response she tapped again.

Suddenly the door whooshed open to the side just as the barrel of a large caliber revolver aimed directly against her face shield. Madison's rifle aimed likewise towards the face of Bartimaeus the Greek, now visible with corridor lights spilling through the open door between them.

From Bartimaeus' perspective Madison's face shield was a smooth, black, featureless surface. Totally opaque. It was designed that way on purpose. It was supposed to be intimidating. Of course, in this particular situation Madison realized it probably looked a lot like the curving skull of an Alien. For that reason alone she anticipated Bartimaeus might pull the trigger purely by reflex. Thus, her own instinct to put him down first was hard to resist. Only the whimpering voice of Sophelia behind him kept her in check.

“Help us!”

A tense moment hung between them as their fingers flinched against the triggers. She could feel his urge to shoot her in the face just as clearly as she saw the fearful panic in his wild eyes. Madison wasn't sure that her ballistic-grade polycarbonate face shield would absorb the impact. At such close range there were no guarantees. Even if it did, it would still hurt like hell.

“You have my word that I will help you!” Madison agreed, hesitating to lower her weapon. “Tell your dad to lower his gun!”

“Fuck you!” Bartimaeus cursed. “This is YOUR fault!”

Madison avoided the urge to argue the point. She brought the egg on board yes... but Fausto let the monster loose and this dumb son-of-a-bitch ignored her warnings and drew its attention with his reckless shouting. There was plenty of blame to go around.

“Ok, sure,” she agreed. “I'm still the best chance you've got.”

Bartimaeus glared at her hatefully. “Bitch you've got some fucking nerve! Fausto was right when he said you were up to no good. You aren't fucking welcome here, understand?! Kindly let yourself out the nearest airlock!”

“I've killed these things before,” Madison stated matter-of-factly. “Have you?”

That shut him up.

“How do we kill it?” Sophelia asked, moving up to stand close behind her father. Her face was pale, the skin of her cheeks and her reddened eyes wet with tears.

“Maybe we do, maybe we don't,” Madison answered honestly. “It's got acid for blood. Shooting it full of holes is a bad idea. It'll bleed right through the hull!”

“That's horseshit!” Bartimaeus groaned, eyes widening further in angry disbelief. “I see those track marks on your arms. Your high!”

“I wish!” she scoffed back at him. “This ain't no fucking bad trip man. This is more real than your worst fucking nightmare so lower your fucking gun!” Madison insisted, getting nervous. This idiot won't keep his voice down! So long as I am pointing my rifle at him I'm not aiming it against the real threat.

“You first!” He spat back.

“Dad!” Sophelia pleaded, grabbing his arm. He shook her off angrily.

We don't have time for this! Madison groaned inwardly, feeling the hackles of fear creeping up the back of her neck and churning within her guts. That all-too-familiar dread made her angry and anxious to find a safe place to shoot up and escape it. Even for a minute. She fought back against that urge with every fiber of willpower she had.

“Listen asshole! Take a good look at your friend Captain Yago and his wife behind me. That's gonna be you and your daughter very soon unless you start doing what I say.” she growled.

Sophelia shrunk back and started sobbing again.

“How about you drop that extra shotgun you're carrying, step back and get lost before I blow your head off? That's the only cooperation you're gonna get from me cunt!”

“Oh I get it. Big man! Brave man! You ran in here and locked the door to hide didn't you? You let the others die so you might live, you fucking coward!” Madison retorted venomously before she thought to control her tongue.

The flash of the revolver blinded her as her head snapped back. Then everything went black.

_ _ _

Ashkelon Station: In Orbit of GL382

07/23/2183

“On your knees!” the General commanded.

“No! Not that! I serve the Union!” Dasha shouted with panic, struggling to stay on her feet while the two enforcers grabbed her by the elbows and shoulders.

Sheren grabbed Keren's arm and moved close to her.

The general handed his cane off to one of his bodyguards and stood up straighter. His expression was vile, hateful and cruel. Something approximating the size of a small arm started to move under his robe just below his rib cage.

What the fuck is that?! Keren thought as the general reached up to tug apart the folds of silk concealing the strange, bulging, wriggling extra limb that was not a limb. It was a horror! A hissing, thrashing, phallic creature with no eyes, stubby lumps for arms like a featherless-chicken and jaws of needle-like metallic fangs.

It wasn't so much part of him as something that was fighting to be free of him. An awakened symbiont ready to be rid of its host. The General, by contrast, seemed to revel in its stirring. Lifting his arms to the heavens as his body was wracked by spasms and twitches. Whatever the little monster was, it seemed to have almost as much control over him as he had over it. They were joined, one mind as much as one body.

The Enforcers forced Dasha to her knees as she began to scream. Sheren gasped and buried her face in Keren's shoulder, clutching at her with desperate terror. Keren felt all the blood flow from her face even as her mind struggled to comprehend the waking nightmare taking place before her eyes. Yet much as she wanted too, she could not turn away.

The General stepped forward and grabbed a handful of Dasha's hair with one bony hand. He was strong. Stronger than any decrepit old man had any right to be as he wrenched her head towards him enabling the Alien birthling to strike at her face with the rapid ferocity of a hungry, eyeless piranha. Grisly bits of skin and cheek went missing first, followed by deeper chunks of muscle, flesh, cartilage and sinew. Chunky portions of her lips, nose, eyelids and eyebrows were all ravaged by scalpel-sharp fangs in a bloody, frenzied feast.

Dasha's hideous, bloodcurdling screams grew ever higher and more fervent, echoing through the bathhouse as Enforcers and UPP agents watched in sober, detached stillness. All that is, save for Maks. The big Russian was crying, hands clenched so tightly they trembled. She's his daughter! Keren realized, truly understanding at last why her own father never spoke to her about the Union or The General. He wanted to keep us away and apart from this!

Keren imagined her own father forced to watch her own death at this monsters hands. Would he just stand there like that?! The thought chilled her to the core.

Suddenly, sirens and red-flashing strobes of a hull-breach alarm broke out in the adjoining corridors and lounge outside the bathhouse. One of the bodyguards moved forward to grab The Generals shoulder and shouted into his ear. “Jǐngbào!”

The General gasped, seeming to break free of his reverie, allowing Dasha the chance for respite from certain death as he staggered back. Her face was a ruin; half-a-skull now in truth. So much blood flowed freely from the deep, ghastly, wounds it formed a spreading red puddle around her knees.

“Take her away!” The General grunted coldly. “No one is going to recognize her now.”

_ _ _