INFESTED

This is a fanfic I wrote a few years ago. I only reached the end of Chapter One, which took me four posts. I might continue it at some point if you like it.


PROLOGUE

The crew member entered the room. Laser cages lined the walls to the left and right, each was filled with strange parasitic organisms. A single desk was backed up against the far wall.
The crew member went to the desk and sat down. He quickly scanned through the papers in the 'In' pile, and immediately saw what he was looking for. It was a list marked; Odesa, Cyo and Sigma parasite biogenetic codes. The crew member needed to Sigma codes for his newest project.
Before he left, he looked across the room at a special cage in the corner. The lasers were twice as thick and the alloy twice as strong.
Inside the cage lied a single parasite form. It was the latest discovery from Cyo research. It appeared to have incredible properties once it found a host, and was even apparently able to control all the other Cyo parasites. Testing was scheduled to begin tomorrow.
The crew member went up to the cage, and leaned toward the parasite. It seemed completely oblivious to him. He wondered why the cage was so strong, why the lasers so thick. The creature could not have escaped from a normal cage, let alone this huge thing.
The crew member shook his head, and started towards the door. However, a small yellow post-it note that had slipped unnoticed off the desk got under his foot, sliding on the slippery steel floor. The crew member fell backwards, into the thick cage's control panel.
There was a smash.
There was a scream.
There was silence.


Chapter 1: DARKNESS DESCENDS

Captain Pierre was having a bad day. The solar storm had knocked out the power module, and everything on the ship was impossibly dark. Not that it mattered to him, the security cameras were offline, so he couldn't see the rest of the ship anyway. But now most of the emergency lighting was starting to go out. The previous emergency lighting checkups that the crew had abandoned to visit the bar were coming back to haunt them now. Only the Bridge, Biological Labs and Cargo Hold were still partially lit. It was lucky the Biolab's backup generator was still online and powering the laser cages, or everyone would be up to their waists in potentially dangerous parasites.
The Captain decided to contact Giles. Giles was the best mechanic on board, and he was down in the Power Core trying to get the ship lit up again. But when the Captain contacted him, Giles reported that there was still no progress.
"If you want my opinion." Giles' voice came over the crew radio, "we can't do anything until this solar storm ends. The core isn't up to it."
"I guess you're going to have to get used to the darkness then, this storm is set to last the rest of the week," replied the Captain.
Giles didn't respond.

In the weapon labs, Robert Talley, better known as 'Boomstick', was blindly trying to make his way down the corridor back to his room. The dark blue illumination of the Emergency Lighting had just gone out, and Boomstick was completely disorientated.
He had been in the testing area, where he was trying out the new plasma suit upgrade, and was on his way back to his quarters when the darkness had descended on the weapons lab. Now, he was having trouble finding the elevator. What had been a straight corridor with no side exits before had become a blind maze.
However, struggling on, Boomstick came to a door. He knew there were no doors between him and the elevator, but he went in anyway.
Just inside the door he found an equipment vendor. He fumbled through the racks of tracking beacons and absorbers until he found a flashlight. Switching it on, he looked around. The narrow LED beam illuminated a nuclear warning sign. Surprised, Boomstick dropped the flashlight, and it rolled away. Stumbling after it, Boomstick tripped on some pipe that was lying across the floor, and fell headfirst onto the hard metal grate that made up the floor.
As the thin torch rolled around to illuminate his face, Boomstick lost consciousness.

Within her room in the Crew's Quarters, Nicole Mayer was just sitting on her bed. With the complete and utter darkness surrounding her, she decided now was not a good time to go looking around the ship. The hum of the electronics was almost completely silent now, but the windy noises made by life support was still as loud and annoying as ever.
The noises where complimented by the groaning of the station's superstructure as the solar storm rushed by just outside. The solar storm! That damned thing had been blasting away at the station for the past 3 days, and if what the Captain said was true, it was set to last another 4.
Well, nothing was happening, nothing had happened, and nothing was going to happen, that was for sure. Nicole continued to sit, hoping that something would happen.

"What the...Rob? Is that you?"
Boomstick groaned. His head hurt like hell, and he was cold and numb all over.
"Rob! Rob! Thank god you're awake!"
Boomstick forced his eye open a crack. There was immediately a blinding light, which subdued into a flashlight beam.
"Rob! Get up, you fool! What are you doing down there?"
Boomstick tried to get up. However, his limbs felt like jelly, and whenever he put any weight on them, he grimaced in pain. But, eventually, he managed to work his way upright.
"Rob! Are you okay? What are you doing in the nuclear arms lab?"
Although he couldn't see his face, Boomstick was sure that the person addressing him was Andy. Andy worked on the medical deck, and he was the only person on the station who called him by his first name. Boomstick tried to speak, but all he could manage was a groan.
"Ugh, you must be hurt badly! Come, I will take you to the medical deck and you can visit the autodoc..."
Boomstick was vaguely aware of an arm round him, and he was lifted up. With Andy supporting him with one hand and holding the flashlight in the other, he began the long and painful journey to the autodoc.

Giles hammered the power core's main console with his fist. The backlight of the console's screen flickered. "Damn it! something has to work!" he shouted.
"Have you tried redirecting the plasma flow from the additional coupling?" asked Mike. Mike was a researcher from the biolabs who had taken a recent interest in the runnings of the ship. He was currently standing behind Giles with the core's manual in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
"No, Mike! Where would I redirect it to?" said Giles. He was not in a good mood after the Captain's announcement of four more days of blackness.
Mike thought for a second. "I guess you can't, then," he commented finally.
Giles turned back to the console muttering. After another failure, he slammed the console again, and the screen went out.
The following shouts were heard by pretty much everyone on the station.

Richard was having just as much a bad time as Giles. He was trying to get a medical vendor to give him an advanced medical kit, but it was steadfastly refusing. He had tried everything, the machine just wouldn't let go of the item. Richard was on the verge of tearing it apart with his bare hands.
Finally, he game up, and went off to look for a bandage. He was checking up on the cargo hold, and since the emergency lighting was still working there, it didn't take long to locate a barrel marked 'medical supplies'. Opening it up, he took out a bandage and wrapped it around the large cut down his arm, silently noting the sharp shard of metal extruding from the containment blockade for future reference. When he got the chance. he was going to pull it off and use it to spike the medical vendor.
After he had firmly tied the bandage round his arm, he went off to count the weapon suits, hoping that Boomstick hadn't taken one to experiment with again.

The Captain had just about given up hope for restoring power when he suddenly received a radio call. Answering it, he found Giles ready to speak.
"Umm, Captain? We have a slight problem down here..."
The Captain started, and asked, "What kind of problem?"
"Well, Mike here broke the light in the power core's console, so we can't use it unless the lights go on..." said Giles quietly.
"Well, I hope you can fix it, Giles. I want you to get that power core running again if it takes you the rest of this solar storm to do it!"
Giles sounded slightly taken aback. "Sir, it will restart itself when the solar storm ends. Can't I have some time off now? I will fix the screen later, I promise..."
The Captain thought for a second, then said, "I guess so. You've been working on that core for three days now. I guess you deserve a break."
Giles immediately dropped his repair kit next to the power core's console and almost ran out of the power room.

As the station rolled through space, the artificial night came and went, although there was no difference in the pitch black. However, upon waking early, Captain Pierre came to the bridge to find the Emergency lighting lights all on. His relief as short lived, as he immediately wondered who had fixed the lights up to work again. He dismissed it as Giles repaying him for his time off yesterday, and quite happily activated the lights. Blue glow filled every room in the ship, giving a rude awakening to some of the crew.

Nicole awoke to the luminescence of the emergency lighting beating down on her. Her irritation quickly gave way to relief, as she would not have to spend another day in her quarters. She quickly left the room, in search of breakfast.

Boomstick came to on a medical bench. A burning feeling inside himself indicated the slightly slipshod work of the autodoc. Forcing himself upright, he was thankful that it had been successful. He quickly got off the bench and went over to seating against the opposite wall, where Andy was sitting slumped and snoring. He decided not to wake him, indeed he was surprised that he had not awoken when the lights came on as Boomstick had. Suddenly realizing his hunger, Boomstick set off to the canteen.

Giles woke up tired. The emergency lighting had awoken him half an hour before his alarm clock was scheduled to go off, so he was still tired when he dragged himself down to the canteen. Upon arrival, he found Nicole seated at one of the tables eating some of the stations dull processed food. He wandered over to the counter and picked up some of the same. He hoped that at some point, they would be allowed to go down to the nearby planet XGRM and borrow some proper food from the colony crew. However, the processed foodstuffs were all that were available, so even Boomstick, who arrived shortly after Giles was seated, had to grab some, even though his hatred of it was common talk among the rest of the crew.

Mike wandered through the biolabs. He hadn't had much sleep last night, as fixing up the emergency lighting was his idea, and it had taken him all night to revive the failing blue lighting strips. Mike liked to walk through the biolabs, as he had done since arrival. It was the part of the ship he worked on, after all. He decided to visit the Cyo containment room to see if anyone had sorted the papers in there yet. But on arrival, a shocking sight met his eyes...

The Captain was reclining in his big chair when he picked up Mike's radio call. "What is it?" he asked, irritably.
"Cyo...Broken...Body!...Biolabs...parasites..." panted Mike.
"Cyo broken body biolabs parasites?" repeated the Captain, thoroughly confused.
There were a few measured breaths from Mike's end as he tried to compose himself, then he said quietly, "The Cyo cerebral parasite has escaped!"