Of Wolves and Weasels - Day 609 - Terror on Moonbase Alpha - Chapter 10 Part 1
Hey all, GoodShibe here!
So yesterday I completed Chapter 9 of Terror on Moonbase Alpha.
If you're just joining us now, please feel free to get caught up here -- however today's chapter also serves as a good jumping on point for people who are just coming to the story.
It seems that I may end up doing more of these very early morning posts for the forseeable future as I'm seeing a change in the hours in my shift at work. Not sure how long this will last, but, we'll see.
Without further ado, here's Part 1 of Chapter 10.
Terror on Moonbase Alpha - Chapter 10 Part 1
The cafeteria was quiet, the few people there were mostly eating alone in silence -- until Jacob burst into the room.
"Everyone, up! Get up, get out!" he'd yelled, holding the door open, motioning for people to leave. A few got to their feet but it was soon clear that whatever sense of urgency he had, it was not being shared by those sucking back lukewarm burritos and staring listlessly at their cell phones.
"This is not a drill, there has been a leak of an extremely hazardous material and you are all in danger! We need to get you out of here, now!"
"Why don't I hear an alarm?" One bespectacled young man asked, as his eyes flitted to his screen and back.
"I am the alarm!" Jacob said. And with that he rushed into the room, lifted the young man out of his seat and marched him forward. "Now, everyone, move!"
Out in the hall, word was spreading fast as Jacob's little half-truth took hold and, slowly, one-by-one, the area outside the cafeteria began to fill up.
As he took stock of the situation he found that there were, in total, 23 people - from cooks to cleaners to engineers - standing around, waiting to hear what the hell was going on and why they'd been pulled from their stations.
Jacob took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves.
"Hey. Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush here: We're in a crisis situation right now, I'm not sure how much you know, but a few days ago now Sector 4E was put under emergency quarantine due to the appearance of this... unknown entity."
"Unknown entity?"
"What you need to know is that this thing broke out of quarantine - it... can mess with your head, make you see things - or not see things. But the most important part is that if it touches you, even one tiny bit... you're dead. It just... consumes you. Sector 4E is a mess right now. I barely made it out of there. You all need to get to the escape pods and evacuate the base."
Silence.
Silence as the crowd looked to him, then to one another.
"I don't know how much time we have, even how safe we'll be but this thing is growing, fast, and if you don't get off the base now... there's a very good chance that you're going to die."
"Who the hell are you, again?" the voice was grumpy and belonged to a willowy old man. He was an engineer and he looked thoroughly displeased with all of this. "Why are you here telling us this? Where's the brass? Why aren't they activating the emergency evac protocols?"
"Who am I? My name is Jacob Palmer -- yes, of 'those' Palmers."
And more than a few eyebrows raised.
"I've been working here on the base for over a year now and what I've seen in the last couple of days... you know that we're in a communications blackout, right? They put that up because they discovered this entity, they discovered it and it hurt somebody, one of my co-workers. They tried to call in the DDF to deal with it, but it all went to hell. It got loose. It got loose and it started... killing people. If you don't want to be next, you all need to get off of this base. Right now."
"And what are you going to do?"
The question hung in the air and, for a moment, Jacob honestly wasn't sure.
"I'm going to double back, try and get as many people out of sector 2 and 3 as I can," he said, after a long pause. "Then, if I survive that, I'm going to try to get a warning to Earth. Let them know what's been going on here."
"We need to activate the emergency evac protocols!" demanded the old engineer.
"I'm not leaving, I'm gonna fight!" said a young man, he didn't look much older than eighteen.
"But... what if that thing gets into an escape pod?" asked another, his brow furrowed with worry.
And with that the room exploded into a cacophony of voices - some shouting defiance, some shouting ideas, some shouting concerns.
"We need to --", "We should--", "But what if--?"
"Quiet!" Jacob yelled, but he was barely heard above the din.
And it soon became clear that no one was listening to one another.
And that ends part 1 of Chapter 10, I hope you enjoyed it!
It's 7:13AM EST and I'm sending positive vibes your way. Have a great day, my friends! Our Global Hashrate is holding at ~1290 Gigahashes per Second and our Difficulty is up from ~18290 to ~20322.
As always, I appreciate your support!
GoodShibe
Posted Sep 9, 2015, 11:28 AM UTC