Chapter 5: A Visitor

Sando approached the shuttle.

"What is going on?" he asked.

"I thought I instructed everyone to leave the area, get out of here!" said a very angry emergency team member. His nametag read "Rolco."

Sando responded with an equally angry response. "I have right to be here! That explorer in there happens to be my friend!"

One of the other team members whispered something to Rolco.

"Alright, you can stay as long as no one else shows up, we’ve got more important things to worry about" Rolco told him.

"What the hell happened to him? How did he die?" Sando persisted.

"See for yourself" replied Rolco.

Almost as quickly Sando looked he turned away. His friend, the explorer, did not sit at the chair in front of the ship’s controls, nor did he lie on the floor as Sando was expecting. He was impaled. A long jagged metal object had been driven through his left thigh, exited his right shoulder, and held the rotting corpse to the ceiling. The object was apparently torn from a wall of the ship's super structure.

Sando then said "He didn't deserve to go like this, he was on a mission of peace. I will see to it that whatever caused this to happen will be punished with a sentence of death!"

"He’s been dead for about a month," Rolco said in a very relaxed manor. "We may never find out who or what did this."

A voice from another room of the small ship asked, "Dead for a month? How is that possible? We were receiving transmissions from the ship up until two weeks ago."

The voice then revealed itself to be Maygier, the assistant to the head scientist of the "Exploration and Etra-Planetary Development" committee.

"Ah, you’re from the E.E.P.D. committee. Well apparently there is something wrong with your equipment. There is no possible way that this guy sent you anything within the past month." Rolco said.

"Well, something has been sending us messages, and no emergency systems were engaged" replied Maygier. "What ever did this was still on the ship less than a week ago, and chances are it still is."

Rolco then spoke into his communicator. "Let’s get an investigative team and the military down here, we’ve got a body and a possible intruder." Rolco then turned to the others on the ship. "Okay, every body out. We don’t have the means to take care of this ourselves."

As the emergency team was leaving the ship, one of them had to help guide Sando out still stunned by the experience.

A voice called from another section of the ship saying "just a minute." The doors closed behind Rolco, the last one out, and then he said, "No, you’ll get out there now." Rolco then turned to see the doors closed again.

"Now just how the heck did that happen?" said a perplexed Rolco, who then tried to open the door.

When the other team members and Sando saw what was happening, they rushed up the ladders to the emergency doors and tried opening them again. A yell was heard from the inside of the ship. Finally, one of the doors was opened again. It didn't take long for the team to find their trapped member inside the small ship. They found him dead with a another jagged metal object thrust through his chest.

"That’s it! Seal off the ship and get the military, we’ve got a serious situation here!" Rolco ordered once again.

But no sooner after he called for help a creature appeared from the engine room. It had been curled up to make it self look like part of the engine systems.

It seemed to be made entirely of silver metal. The creature had four legs, which were spread out in four directions, both arms had four sharp metal claws instead of fingers, its head was long, and its face had sharp teeth and eyes of pure evil.

Rolco’s crew escaped while he distracted the creature. The crew never even saw the monster he was fighting, the only caught glimpses of it as the sealed of all the doors except a hatch above Rolco and the creature.

The creature then shot what appeared to be a ball of electricity at Rolco's chest. He was able to dodge the first shot, but the second fired at him hit his left bicep. Rolco was stunned momentarily, but managed to jump up to a door directly above him. He was fast and agile, but the creature was more so, and caught Rolco's leg, which it used to pull Rolco back into the ship. As he was pulled, Rolco was able to toggle the switch to close the door. His yells were heard as the door shut.